1910] Tolstoy's Death 331 



tives of the brewing interest offering him £25,000 for the Irish Parlia- 

 mentary party fund if they would vote against the Budget. He de- 

 clined to have anything to do with it, and had told only Redmond and 

 two or three of the party about it. The Irish party had always refused 

 contributions coupled with secret conditions. The only instance to the 

 contrary was Cecil Rhodes' gift of £10,000, but that was publicly ac- 

 knowledged, and the letters that passed between Rhodes and Parnell 

 were published. The party accepted contributions from anybody, but 

 not on conditions. I asked him about Redmond's sale under the Land 

 Act, and this is what he says : Redmond inherited the family estate 

 from his uncle, so burdened with incumbrances as to be, in Redmond's 

 own words, a damnosa hereditas. When the Land Act was passed his 

 tenants had come forward spontaneously offering to buy at terms of 

 from eighteen to twenty-four years' purchase. Redmond never got a 

 penny out of the property, as the charges on it covered the whole of 

 the income. Speaking of the Catholic priesthood's attitude towards 

 Home Rule, he said they never had the hierarchy more solidly with 

 them. All the bishops supported them now, except Archbishop Walsh, 

 Cardinal Logue, and the Bishop of Limerick and one other. He also 

 says that the national University has turned out a complete success. 



' lyth Nov. — Tolstoy is dead. A few days ago he ran away from 

 home, tired to death of his wife and children, and announcing his 

 intention of ending his days in a monastery or as a hermit, or anywhere 

 out of reach of them. They had made his life a misery to him by their 

 stupidities, and at the age of eighty-two he at last broke loose. In 

 Russia, however, it is impossible for anyone to conceal himself, least 

 of all an old bearded patriarch like Tolstoy, whose photograph was in 

 every shop window, and his family tracked him down. First a daugh- 

 ter caught him and then the rest. He took to his bed to shut them 

 out, and as a last resource died at a railway hotel, refusing admittance 

 to his wife to the end. For Tolstoy as a writer I have the most pro- 

 found admiration. His two great novels, ' Anna Karenina ' and ' Peace 

 and War,' are probably the greatest ever written. As a philosopher I 

 admire him less ; as a prophet I do not believe in him at all. Neverthe- 

 less he was distinctly the most interesting personality of our genera- 

 tion, the man who commanded the widest following, the man of the 

 most indisputable genius. Some of his political manifestos are splen- 

 did. He had courage to a supreme degree. As a moral teacher his 

 ideas were sublime, but quite unsound ; his religion was absurd. Such 

 is my brief estimate of him. The world is poorer for his death. 



" I have a letter from Miss Petre asking what my religious position 

 now is. Her own position, Meynell tells me, is considered to be logical 

 and correct by all the English bishops, except Amigo, her own diocesan. 

 The Pope's encyclical letters are not binding de fide, and they all say it 



