The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-30
ToLsroI a HYPocRITIcAL FRAUD.
According to Frau seurOn. Long
Time GOverne~S in His Family.

According TO Frau seurOn. Long
Time GOverne~S in His Family.
From the New York Home Journal
Frau Anne seuron. for many years
governezs in Count Tols;ors household,
has published a book OF personal remi-
niscences which VIII rudely shock the ad-
mirers OF the great Russian writer. Fra u
SeurOn. while declaring herself still one
Of his greatest admirers. says that he is
not a harmonious. simple character that
he Is not a genius. a true vein of precious
metal IN the rock. hut a PATCHWORK, a bit
OF mosaic, whose cracks and faults have
been so well dauhed over that they APP
pear, 10 many people, 10 form a smooth
united surface. lie is no auchOrits, con-
WINGED of the nOthiusness Of the world,
VINO has conquered himself and has
turned his back on it in disdain. but a man
who has carried mis- vanity over into the
new life which he has fashioned after
his own pattern. Waen he finds that his
sins and his principles cannot be recon-
ciled by any amount Of discussion, he
turns a somersault from his point of
view, withdraws TO his study, and be-
gins, with all the more zeal, 10 set down
in writing his laudatOns Of the elemental
~ principles of life which he has just
outraged. After firmly refusing, for more
than year, to touch meat he allowed
his family to persuade him to eat poul-
try, though he maintained that he intend
ed to adhere TO his rues. But the atten-
tive observer would hear the clatter Of
knife and fork in the dining-room during
the night, and the next morning the cold
roast beef which had been left on the Ia
bic would be found half devOured.
Tolstoi never confessed to his sin of
weak indulgence. but Frau Seuron de-
clares that she is sure of her facts. He
also INDUCED surreptitiously i'm a smoke
after preaching against ii. She concludes
that, while the count might be a temper
airy fanatic for abnegation, he was not
built for a saint. as a proof of this, she
alleges his treatment of his own peasants,
and of the poor and Of the beggars in gem
eral. His pockets We're usually very
tightly buttoned, even when a few kopeks
would have relieved the distress. She ac-
cuses him of being Indifferent. and says
that momentary. strOngly-overpoweri
impulses of miserliness often made him
hard-hearted. on such occasions he JUS
titled himself in his own eyes by his theo-
Iies as to the evil of money and the
blessings of poverty.
For example. when the peasants of his
village, Yasnaya Poyana, had but three
spades among them, and lacked all the
implements wherewith 10 cultivate the
land, he refused to help them to buy the
necessary tools. He said that precisely
this lack Of implements made them lend
to each other, and that was an act Of help
full brotherIy love" When the count,
who was constantly talking and writing
about brotherly love. talked with a beg
ging peasant, the despot of the sixteenth
century awoke in him. 1t was as if
abysses lay between them. An evil look
came into the counts eyes, and the petit
toner went away shaking his head
When the Countess TOlstoi, anxious for
her own future and that of her children,
wished to exploit his works, the count We
hemently protested against money, in his
usual strain. But when the countess per-
sisted, and carried on affairs too openly,
under his very nose, he cut a sOmer-
sault," went out and chopped wood. He
worked in earnest at such tasks as cart
ing and distributing manure He did not
change his dress for dinner, and brought
the odors in with him; as he has a strong
taste for perfumes, and did not stint him
self in the use of them, the combination
of smells sometimes required strong
nerves on the part of those present. Frau
Seuron takes very practical view of his
arduous labors; they replace, she says,
the riding and hunting which he has for
sworn. His healthy, muscular frame re-
quires a great deal of exercise, and he
takes 1t in this form because it suits his
health; and that is all there is to the fad
of hard labor for the salvation of the
| soul.