Metchnikoff was in Russia in the spring of 1909, and spent a day with Tolstoi. They were “fêted” and photographed together, the greatest artist and the greatest scientist of Russia. Tolstoi is 81 years of age. He took Metchnikoff out alone for a drive in his pony-cart so as to talk with him without interruption. “What do you think of life?” was the first question he asked, and one which it took my friend some time to answer. In regard to vegetarianism the two great men did not agree. When Metchnikoff declared that there was less cruelty on man’s part in killing wild animals to eat them than in leaving them to die by the tooth and claw of predaceous animals or from starvation, Tolstoi observed that that was argument and reason, and that he paid no attention to them; he only guided himself (he said) by sentiment, which he felt sure told him what was good and right! He was, however, deeply interested in an account of the cannibalism of savage races of men, concerning which he seemed to be quite uninformed. He also was profoundly interested in Metchnikoff’s view that Goethe, in the second part of _Faust_, is chiefly bent upon depicting the persistence of the amorous passion in old age—of which Goethe himself was an example—and Tolstoi declared that this gave a new meaning to the poem, which he had always hitherto found dull and unintelligible. But when Metchnikoff described in glowing words the joy and even rapture with which man will hereafter welcome the repose and mystery of death, having completed a long and healthy life of some hundred years, Tolstoi declared that this was indeed a fine conception, although it was entirely subversive of his own notions as to the significance of life and death. Tolstoi also stated that he had written his stories rapidly and without effort, but that his essays on morality and religion had cost him great labour; and, further, that he could not now remember the former, though the latter still were developing and incessantly occupied his thought.