The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-08-12
TOLSTOI At HOME.
Thomas Stevens Interviews the
Great Novelist.
ALL FORMS OF GOVERNMENT
Are Humbugs According to the COunt-His
Views on Temperance Relations
of the Sexes.
Especial to THE HERALD-Examiner pfspatchI


Especial to THE HERALD-Examiner Dispatch.I
New York, Aug. 1O.-In view OF the
prominence which Count Tolstois last
last work, ''Kreutzer Sonata,'' has lately
received by being prohibited transmission
through the mails, an interview with the
famous author undoubtedly will be read
with interest. Thomas Stevens, who
is travelling through Russia, stoppad at the
country estate of the count, and the cor
respondent sends four column account OF
that visit, which is published in this morn
ingis Sunday World. Stevens says: 1T
needs only few minutes social inter-
course with Count Tolstoi to discover
that, like the rest of US, he has his weak
points. The count does not disdain noto-
riety, though he may not be conscious OF
it. He possesses a fair share of au-
thors' vanity in spite of the humiliation OF
spirit aud suppression of human exaltation
that is the chief foundation of his creed.
Tolstoi likes Americans, because Of all the
Englisha speaking world they were the
first to translate, read and appreciate his
productions. In the matter of land owner
ship Tolstoi is a great admirer of the theo-
ries Of Henry George. He considers
George The greatest American citizen of the
present time. He believes, however, in d
system of communal rather than
of national ownership of land
The count believes that all forms of gov
eminent are humbugs and that the whole
machinery of law and lawyers, courts and
judges, is barbarity, and is an excuse for
setting one man above another, and enabl-i
ing the privileged few to rob the many.
One cannot talk with Tolstoi for any length
of time without the subject of religion COM
ing to the top. ''Only foolish people, he
says, trouble their heads about whether.
there is or is not a personal God, or whether
Christ was or was not more than human.
People are mistaken IN doing good here in
| the hope of future reward. This is the es-
sence of selhshneSs, to put the best in
! humanity on the level of commerce. There
| is no merit in making O bargain by which
| you are to receive double some time in the
future in return for giving poorer brother
| a kopeck or crust OF bread to-day. This
is not charity, but usury, pure and simple.
Priests, ministers and churches the count
| holds in no sort of esteem. The priests are
part and parcel of the governmental machin-
cry for grinding the faces of the poor and
| living without work. To swing a censor
and chant senseless masses is, in his opin-
|
| buifoonery if devoted to planting and digs
ging potatoes would suffice them to ear5e
| their bread, and then there would beno me-
of preying on the ignorant and superstitiT
! According to the count a minister OF
| gospel who accepts salary and lives
is a r0bber. The only difference beJW
him and the footpad is that whereas
latter knocks you down and rifles y
pockets, the minister gets at the pockets OF
honest people by more ingenious if less
violent process. In both cases the results
are the sane-bOth ministers and footpadS
eat food that they never produced, and
which consequently cannot possibly be-
theirs by right. Such is the counts creed.
| Temperance finds in the great novelist
an enthusiastic supporter. He neither
drinks Intoxicating beverages nor smokes,
and includes in the term many other indul-
gences that the ordinary advocates of tenn :
| perance consider apart from their creed
To him romance has from all time been the
, theme of the poet and novelist. Tolstoi
, deems it a species of moral depravity on a
, par with gluttony, smoking of opium or in
, diligence in strong drink. A person find
ing himself or herself in love should fight
against it as against the opium
, habit or any other poisonous thing
Theater going, dancing, romantic literature
of all kinds, anything, in short, that ex-
cites the imagination TO thoughts of love is
llUG6UpcrdQCe. Ouplu JU6 U6Nll III Ills
most awful guise.
In speaking of the relations of the sexes
7 TolstoI talked with the same freedom from
t restraint as if he talked of digging potatoes
5 or moving hay. The countess and heI
sister from ST Petersburg sat at the other
end of the table, on one occasion, when the
count was particularly inquisitive about
the natives of East Africa. To an ordi
nary mortal the situation would have been
S embarrassing in the extreme. The ladies
: however, were busy chatting together anC
: their ears, of course were closed to any
O thing the count or ] might have said. His
: interest in the relation of the sexes seemed
y to your correspondent abnormal almos
: morbid. Men and women, he insisted
should love one another only as friends OF
. as brother and sister Matrimony brough
! about by romantic love is an unholy ant
Il unnatural alliance. chat in nine cases GU
u Of ten resulted in unhappiness for both par
/ ties to the contract. The views espresso.
by Posonicheff in ''Kreutzer Sonata un
doubtedly are those of Tolstoi.
Previous to his conversion the count haC
been an ATHEIST. After, he said he becom
r convinced that salvation lay in living
e christly life. In truly unseifish sens
O the count was for getting rid of his Pre-
i perty forthwith by distributing it anon
20 the peasantry. His plan was to descend q
% once to the level of the poorest of thos
p about MIN ana cam uV1ng Win Inc pioV
=, and hoe. That this was not done is due er
- tirely to the countess and friends Of tn
= family The wife of Tols.oi is buxoI
- lady who looks about forty. She has
broad matronly figure, a kind motherl
face and was the daughter of a st. Peters
burg physician. She is the mother
1t thirteen children of whom nine are living
l. The eldest daughter and two younge.
"a children were at home; the others wei
a travelling or away visiting and the eldes
( son was officiating as secretary of the con
- mission at the Prison congress. Tn
countess acts as her husbands amanueDs
and copyist. The copies and corrects a
his manuscripts. She seems to be a mo:
excellent woman. Their family life appear
ne to be altogether charming; both the wi
lg and children idolize the count The elde'
daughter is, | think, inclined to be di
ciple of her father. His nieces also thin
their uncle the embodiment of wisdom al
n goodness and the only point on which the
n openly take issue with him is Oh the su
IL lect OF romantic love as denounced in Il
~ ''Kreutzer Sonata"
II Rains in Kansas.
KANSAS CITY, Aug. 11.-Specials repo
\ --o,aroI ord uo1.x- heavy rains duriuu n