It is, perhaps, only a fair example of the bountiful hospitality we received all through Poland and Russia to chronicle here that Count Tolstoy invited us to his house in the country, whither they expected to go shortly, to remain several months, and, as he afterward explained it, “for as long as you can be happy with us.”

His book on “What is Art?” was then attracting a great deal of attention, but he was deeply engaged in the one which has since appeared, first under the title of “The Awakening,” and afterward called “Resurrection.”  It is said that he wrote this book twelve years ago, and only rewrote it at the instance of the publishers, but no one who has met Tolstoy and become acquainted with him can doubt that he has been collecting material, thinking, planning, and writing on that book for a lifetime.

Many consider Tolstoy a poseur, but he sincerely believes in himself.  He had only the day before worked all day in the shop of a peasant, making shoes for which he had been paid fifty copecks, and we were told that not infrequently he might be seen working in the forest or field, bending his back to the same burdens as his peasants, sharing their hardships, and receiving no more pay than they.

It was a wonderful experience to sit opposite him, to look into his eyes, and to hear him talk.

“It is a great country, yours,” he said.  “To me the most interesting in the world just at present.  What are you going to do with your problems?  How are you going to deal with anarchy and the Indian and negro questions?  You have a blessed liberty in your country.”

“If you will excuse me for saying so, I think we have a very unblessed liberty in our country!  Too much liberty is what has brought about the very conditions of anarchy and the race problem which now threaten us.”

“Do you think the negroes ought not to have been given the franchise?”

“That is a difficult question,” I said.  “Let me answer it by giving you another.  Is it a good thing to turn loose on a young republic a mass of consolidated ignorance, such as the average negro represented at the close of the war, and put votes into their hands with not one restraining influence to counteract it?  You continentals can form no idea of the Southern negro.  The case of your serfs is by no means a parallel.  But it is too late now.  You cannot take the franchise away from them.  They must work out their own salvation.”

“Would you take it away from them, if you could?” asked Tolstoy.

“Most certainly I would,” I answered, “although my opinion is of no value, and I am only wasting your time by expressing it.  I would take away the franchise from the negroes and from all foreigners until they had lived in our country twenty-one years, as our American men must do, and I would establish a property and educational qualification for every voter.  I would not permit a man to vote upon property issues unless he were a property owner.”