Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 2White, Andrew Dickson
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Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 2
White, Andrew Dickson
Cornell University; Diplomats -- United States -- Biography; White, Andrew Dickson, 1832-1918
This last burst was evidently too much for Tolstoi. He said not a
word in reply, but seemed wrapped in overpowering thought, and
anxious to break away. We walked out with the old Raskolnik, and
at the door I thanked him for his kindness; but even there, and
all the way down the long walk through the park, Tolstoi remained
silent. As we came into the road he suddenly turned to me and
said almost fiercely, "That man is a hypocrite; he can't believe
that; he is a shrewd, long-headed man; how can he believe such
trash? Impossible!" At this I reminded him of Theodore Parker's
distinction between men who believe and men who "believe that
they believe," and said that possibly our Raskolnik was one of
the latter. This changed the subject. He said that he had read
Parker's biography, and liked it all save one thing, which was
that he gave a pistol to a fugitive slave and advised him to
defend himself. This Tolstoi condemned on the ground that we are
not to resist evil. I told him of the advice I had given to
Dobroluboff, a very winning Russian student at Cornell
University, when he was returning to Russia to practise his
profession as an engineer. That advice was that he should bear in
mind Buckle's idea as to the agency of railways and telegraphs in
extending better civilization, and devote himself to his
profession of engineering, with the certainty that its ultimate
result would be to aid in the enlightenment of the empire; but
never, on any account, to conspire against the government;
telling him that he might be sure that he could do far more for
the advancement of Russian thought by building railways than by
entering into any conspiracies whatever. Tolstoi said the advice
was good, but that he would also have advised the young man to
speak out his ideas, whatever they might be. He said that only in
this way could any advance ever be made; that one main obstacle
in human progress is the suppression of the real thoughts of men.
I answered that all this had a fine sound; that it might do for
Count Tolstoi; but that a young, scholarly engineer following it
would soon find himself in a place where he could not promulgate
his ideas,--guarded by Cossacks in some remote Siberian mine.
He spoke of young professors in the universities, of their
difficulties, and of the risk to their positions if they spoke
out at all. I asked him if there was any liberality or breadth of
thought in the Russo-Greek Church. He answered that occasionally
a priest had tried to unite broader thought with orthodox dogma,
but that every such attempt had proved futile.
From Parker we passed to Lowell, and I again tried to find if he
really knew anything of Lowell's writings. He evidently knew very
little, and asked me what Lowell had written. He then said that
he had no liking for verse, and he acquiesced in Carlyle's saying
that nobody had ever said anything in verse which could not have
been better said in prose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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