, 1890-09-25
GEMS FROM INGERsOLL,

Extracts from criticism of Count Toll
stoi's "Kreutzer Sonata by Colonel X.
| q. Ingersoll in North American Re-
view Tor September.
Tolstoi seems to be q stranger to the
heart of woman.
He would change the entire order Of
human development.
The perpetual fear of death gives love
intensity and sacredness.
According to his idea the world ought
to be filled with peasants.
To him life Is but breathing spell be-.
tween the verdict and the execution.
Following parts of the New Testament
he regards love as essentially impure.
He advocates doctrine that would
leave the basest OF mankind the rulers of
the world.
Love is the perfume of the heart; IL Is
not subject to the will of husbands, or
kings or God.
| Love is not the child Of fear; it Is not
the result of force. No one can love on
| force.
lilo regards flower with suspicion,
believing that beneath every blossom
lies coiled serpent.
Count Tolstoi would establish slavery
n every house; he would make every
husband tyrant and every wife o
| trembling serf.
Those who are truly married are
neither masters nor servants. The idea
OF obedience is lost in the desire for the
happiness of each.
Love is not a convict, to be detained
with bolts and chains. Love is the high
est expression of liberty. Love neither
ommands nor obeys.
| He forgets that the best and purest of
human things are controlled, for the
most part unconsciously, by the hidden,
| subtle tendencies of nature
10 him that which is called progress
| Is, IN TACT profanation, and property Is
something that the organized few have
stolen from the unorganized many.
or all passions that can take possess
sion OF the heart or brain jealousy is the
worst. 1t endeavors to transmute the
very gold of love into the dross of shame
| and crime.
The one thing constant the one peak
that rises above all clouds, tho one
window in which the light forever burns,
the one star that darkness can not
quench, is woman's love.
He is not only Christian, but has
the courage OF his convictions and goes
without hesitation TO the logical conclu-
sion. He has another exceedingly rare
quality; he acts in accordance with his
belief.
To Tolstoi there seems to be no purity
In love, because men are influenced by
forms, by the beauty of women; and
women, knowing this fact, according to
him, act, and consequently btoh arc
equally guilty.
He has, in "The Kreutzer Sonat, a"
drawn with free hand, one of the viii
est and basest of men for his hero. He
Is suspicious, jealous, cruel, infamous.
The wife is infinitely too good for such
q wild, uDreasoning beast.
He is filed with what might be called
merciiess pity, u sympathy almost
malicious. Had he lived a few centuries
ago he might have founded u religion;
but the most he can now do Is, perhaps
to create the necessity for another
asylum.
He endeavors to show that love Is q
delusion; that at best 1t can last but a
few days; that il must of necessity be
succeeded by indif ference, then by dis
gust. lastly by hatred; that in every
Garden OF Eden is serpent OF jealousy,
and that the brightest days end with
the yawn of ennui.
say that women are better than men;
their hearts are more unreservedly
given in the web of their lives sorrow Is
| incxtricably woven with tie greatest
joys; self-sacritice Is part of their nature,
and at the behest OF love and maternity
| they walk willingly and joyously down
| TO the very gates of death.
The story of "The Kreutzer Sonata
| seems to have been written for the pur-
pose of showing that woman Is at fault:
that she has no right to be attractive, no
| right to DO beautiful; and that she 10
morally responsible for the contour Of
her throat, for the pose of her body, for
the symmetry OF her limbs, for the red
Of her lips and for the dimples in her