Then Tolstoi's letter, which during the day aroused only anger and indignation,--is it not outrageous and revolting, think some, that in the great collision of forces which contend with one another in Russia, Tolstoi cannot distinguish the right force from the wrong, but stigmatises all the struggling combatants by the one name of ungodly? During the day, I say, it is surely outrageous: in the daytime we would like Tolstoi to be with us and for us, because we are convinced that we and we alone are seeking the truth,--nay, that we know the truth, while our enemies are defending evil and falsehood, whether in malice or in ignorance. But this is during the day. In the night-time, things are changed. One remembers that Goethe also overlooked, simply did not notice, the great French Revolution. True, he was a German who lived far from Paris, while Tolstoi lives close to Moscow, where men, women, and children have been shot, cut down, and burnt alive. Moreover, there is no doubt that Tolstoi has overlooked not merely Moscow, but everything that went before Moscow. What is happening now does not seem to him important or extraordinary. For him only that is important to which he, Tolstoi, has set his hand: all that occurs outside and beside him, for him has no existence. This is the great prerogative of great men. And sometimes it seems to me--perhaps it is only that I would have it seem so--as though there were in that prerogative a deep and hidden meaning. When we have no more strength in us to listen to the endless tales of horrible atrocities which have already been committed, and to anticipate in imagination all that the future holds in store for us, then we recall Tolstoi and his indifference. It is not in our human power to return the murdered fathers and mothers to the children nor the children to their fathers and mothers. Nor stands it even in our power to revenge ourselves upon the murderers, nor will vengeance reconcile every one to his loss. And we try no longer to think with logic, and to seek a justification of the horrors there where there is and can be none. What if we ask ourselves whether Tolstoi and Goethe did not sec the Revolution and did not suffer its pain, only because they saw something else, something, it may even be, more necessary and important? Maybe there are indeed more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.