The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-08-17
COUNT roLsroI AT HOME.
Visit to the Demented Novelist-Geore
Francis Trains PARALLEL.

Francis Trains Parallel.
The New York World publishes an inter
view with Count Leon Tolstoi, obtained by
one of their correspondents who is now
travelling from Moscow to the Crimea.
Yasnia Poiejana is the name of the great
novelist's ancestral estate and its once
imposing avenue leading from the highway
is oyergrown with weeds and vagabond
tree-shoots, while on the p.astered wall OF
a tumble-down lodge is chalked in Russian
Come to the house."
The Countess Tolstoi was entertaining
five or six young ladies on the veranda.
Presently there appeared on the steps OF
the porrico thin. sun-browned man OF
medium height. clad in coarse linen suit.
A cheap home-made-eap of the same mate
rial as his suit adorned the head To which
the world is indebted for "War and Peace u
Rude boots, as ungainly as the wooden
shoes OF Germany, attested mutely to the
eminent novelisi's skill--or lack of it--as a
cobbler. Both cap and boots were the
counts own handiwork. The linen trous-
ers were loose and the shirt looser The
latter was worn. Moujik fashion, outside
the trousers, and was gathered about the
waist with a belt of russell leather.
The count looks thin and worn from his
recent illness, but says he is now in good
health. He is taking q season of "koumiss
C.
OF his own with imported Bashkir experts
to manufacture the tipple, which is made
by fermenting mares milk.
Every man." said the novelist, sought
10 do enough work each day to pay for the
food he eats and the clothes he wears. I'M
less he does that be is sponging his living
of the labor of other people, and is doing
an injustice to his felow-men.
81 make my own boots, and ii my
women would let me would also make ali
my own clothes. / do not have to work
very long hours TO pay for what I con-
sumo, and so find plenty of time to write
and study. / am only 62 years old, and
intend to write good deal"
The counts future work he intends shall
be On educational rather than on purely
social matters. He says the foundation OF
the system which he will ivocate will b
purity and perfection in the parents. he
boys will get their perfection from the
fathers, the girls from the mothers.
1.-THE present SYSTEM continued the
count. sis full of evils. People have be-
come so used to evils that they are no
longer capable of distinguishing the evil
from the good"
ToIstoi says his first work on education
may not appear during his lifetime. He
thinks it would be good thing if every
author would pigeon-hole his manu-
scripts and publish nothing during his
life.
His "Kreutzer Sonata" he says, was an
unfinished work, and was not intended by
him to be published in its present form.
ter judgment, itIwas given to the world. He
is now preparing an ''epilogue" to it that
will shortly appear.
He is also writing treatise on intemper-
ance, setting forth his ideas regarding the
use OF tobacco, alcohol, opium, hasheesh,
rich food and various other indulgences
| that come under the ban of his creed.
In regard to KEENAN, and Siberia, Tolstoi
says KEENAN, is right. The government is a
monument of superstition and injustice.
| AS for himself, he went on in the even tenor
| OF his way. dong whatever his conscience
| approved of, regardless of laws and gov
| ments.
Last winter his eldest daughter open ed q
| school for the children on the estate The
| village pope (pries) sent a memorial to the
| government asserting that the instruction
| given in the school was not orthodox. The
governor of lula, his personal friend, was
Obliged to order the school closed. The
winter was then about over and the chill
dren had to go TO work in the fields. so not
| much harm was done.
His daughter intends to open the school
| again, however, next winter. and to reopen
1t as often as the authorities close it up.
Schools are in every village, but nothing
| is taught but "nonsensical catechism" and
the three Rs" Yet great improvement
| has taken place since the emancipation.
| Ii is now possible for every peasant to
| learn to read and write.
The count was offered q copy of "Look.
| ing Backward" but he had already read il.
| He didn't know whether the government
| permitted IL to circulate in Russia. but he
| had received copy through friend The
| story was very well told. he said, but that
was all he could say for it.
There was nothing new in it, and all the
| ideas had been taken from Carl Marx s
"kapital." Henry Georges "Progress
and Poverty" is far superior, he thought.
| he was astonished at the popularity of
Looking Backward"
Among the governments of the present
day Tolstoi thinks the United States gov
eminent long way ahead. 1t is almost a
mis- axe, be says, to call it q government"
at ali in the general acceptation OF the
term. Certainly 1t was not TO be thought
OF as republic" in the sence that France
is a republic.
Three Russian pilgrims appeared at the
gate, unkempt, sallow. dirty and ragged.
The count gazed at them with admiration,
and ordered rvant TO give each of them
coin. he considers the pilgrims lie ideal,
all but the superstition.
The count told story of young man of
good family whom he had known in the
Cadet Corps IN St Petersburg. who once
turned up a. his house as pilgrim. as road
worn specimen as any of the three before
Us. de had been pilgrim for a wear.
Alter staying with Tolstoi while, and tast-
ing the sweets of a comfortable lie. ne one
morning suddenly disappeared, without a
kopeck in his pocket, and again became a
piigrlm.