84 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-XII 



sia. &quot;But,&quot; I added, &quot;it is not our custom to give to beg 

 gars save in special emergencies.&quot; I then gave him an 

 account of certain American church organizations which 

 had established piles of fire-wood and therefore enabled 

 any able-bodied tramp, by sawing or cutting some of it, 

 to earn a good breakfast, a good dinner, and, if needed, a 

 good bed, and showed him that Americans considered 

 beggary not only a great source of pauperism, but as ab 

 solutely debasing to the beggar himself, in that it puts him 

 in the attitude of a suppliant for that which, if he works 

 as he ought, he can claim as his right ; that to me the spec 

 tacle of Count Tolstoi virtually posing as a superior 

 being, while his fellow-Russians came crouching and 

 whining to him, was not at all edifying. To this view of 

 the case he listened very civilly. 



Incidentally I expressed wonder that he had not trav 

 eled more. He then spoke with some disapprobation of 

 travel. He had lived abroad for a time, he said, and in 

 St. Petersburg a few years, but the rest of his life had 

 been spent mainly in Moscow and the interior of Russia. 

 The more we talked together, the more it became clear that 

 this last statement explained some of his main defects. Of 

 all distinguished men that I have ever met, Tolstoi seems 

 to me most in need of that enlargement of view and health 

 ful modification of opinion which come from meeting 

 men and comparing views with them in different lands 

 and under different conditions. This need is all the 

 greater because in Russia there is no opportunity to dis 

 cuss really important questions. Among the whole one 

 hundred and twenty millions of people there is no public 

 body in which the discussion of large public questions is 

 allowed; the press affords no real opportunity for dis 

 cussion; indeed, it is more than doubtful whether such 

 discussion would be allowed to any effective extent even 

 in private correspondence or at one s own fireside. 



I remember well that during my former stay in St. 

 Petersburg, people who could talk English at their tables 

 generally did so in order that they might not betray them- 



