Among the innumerable things which he read were Mormon publications, sent him regularly from headquarters.  I cannot explain the object of the Mormons in making him the point of attack.  He thought very highly of the doctrines of the Mormons as set forth by themselves, and could not understand why they were “persecuted” in America.  No one had ever sent him documents on the other side of the question, and he seemed as ignorant of it as I was of the Mormon arguments.  In answer to his queries, I told him that the problems involved were too numerous, serious, and complicated for me to enter upon; that the best way, under such circumstances, was for him to read statements set down in black and white by recognized authorities on the subject; and that I would cause books on the matter to be forwarded to him, which I did.  But he persisted that our government is in the wrong.

“It is a shame,” said he, “that in a great and free country like America a community of people should be so oppressed, and not allowed that liberty of which you boast.”

“You know your Dickens well,” I answered.  “Have you any recollection of Martin Chuzzlewit?  You will remember that when Martin was in America with Mark Tapley he saw a slave being sold.  Mark Tapley observed that ’the Americans were so fond of Liberty that they took liberties with her.’  That is, in brief, what ails the Mormons.  The only argument in favor of them which can possibly be made is that their practice, not their preaching, offers the only solution of your own theory that all women should be married.  But that theory has never been advanced in extenuation of their behavior.  I offer it to you brand new, as a slight illustration of a very unpleasant subject.”

One day, during a chat in his study, he had praised Dickens.

“There are three requisites which go to make a perfect writer,” he remarked.  “First, he must have something worth saying.  Second, he must have a proper way of saying it.  Third, he must have sincerity.  Dickens had all three of these qualities.  Thackeray had not much to say; he had a great deal of art in saying it; but he had not enough sincerity.  Dostoevsky possessed all three requisites.  Nekrasoff knew well how to express himself, but he did not possess the first quality; he forced himself to say something, whatever would catch the public at the moment, of which he was a very keen judge.  As he wrote to suit the popular taste, believing not at all in what he said, he had none of the third requisite.”  He declared that America had not as yet produced any first-class woman writer, like George Eliot and George Sand.

Count Tolstoy’s latest book at that time was “What to Do?” It was much discussed, though not very new.  It will be remembered that in the final chapter of that work he argues that woman’s whole duty consists in marrying and having as large a family as possible.  But, in speaking of Mr. Howells’s “The Undiscovered Country,” which he had just discovered, —­it was odd to think he had never heard of Mr. Howells before,—­he remarked, in connection with the Shakers, that “it was a good thing that they did not marry.”