84 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW 



of Finance and practically at the head of the empire, 

 the Czar, Alexander III., being critically ill in Crimea, 

 where he shortly after died. 



But of all the men I met none made the impression 

 that was left on me by my visit to Count Leo Tolstoy. 

 It was made possible by Mr. Andrew D. White, the 

 distinguished scholar and statesman, who at that time 

 represented our country at St. Petersburg. He had 

 written and asked the Count to meet me and to learn of 

 the mission that brought me to Russia. The Count's 

 daughter, Tatiana, replied that her father would be 

 pleased to have me visit him, adding that he was just 

 then engaged in hay-making, and, therefore, had not 

 much leisure. To take as little of his time as possible 

 I arranged to arrive in the courtyard of his manor- 

 house at Yasnaya Polyana, late in the afternoon. 

 Approaching a group of peasants that stood at a well 

 drinking water and mopping their brows, my travelling 

 companion, a young Russian lawyer, asked them 

 where we might find the Count. One of them stepped 

 out of the group, and, lifting his cap, said most court- 

 eously that he was Tolstoy: learning my name, he 

 bade me a hearty welcome. 



From the moment I first gazed upon him he held me 

 captive, and, by a strange psychic power, he has held 

 me enthralled ever since. No wish of mine has been 

 more fondly cherished in the years that have since 

 passed by than that of some day visiting Russia again, 

 and only for the purpose of seeing once more that 

 strangely facinating personality, of listening again to 

 his marvellous flow of wisdom. 



