“Look at all our historians: what dull, stupid men they are! For instance, Solovev. He was an incredibly dull man. And when some one gifted appears among them--a Granovsky, Kostomarov, Kudryavzev--and you ask, ‘What after all have they done?’ it turns out that they have done nothing of any importance or value. Take Kluchevsky, for instance: what has he done? He talks brilliantly, toys with the liberal point of view about Catherine the Great, and says that she was a whore--well, we knew that without him. Or take the man who dances the mazurka in the Moscovskya Vedomsti, Ilovaisky--he is an historian too! “What should be taught at school? Long ago, when I was interested in education, I came to the conclusion that school teaching ought to consist of two branches only, of languages and mathematics. This is the only positive knowledge that one can give a pupil. There is no humbug about this. Either you know it or you don’t know it. Besides, from this fundamental knowledge all science can develop. From mathematics come astronomy, physics, natural sciences. From languages, history, geography, and so on. But with us, who is taught and what are they taught? To-day I walked in the street. Drunken men were going about, swearing obscenely, dragging women after them. Who has ever said a single word to these men about their moral needs? What did we teach them? “The other evening I was coming home from the Turkish bath and walked near the theatres. Policemen on horseback were lounging about; coachmen with buttocks like this” (Tolstoi illustrated it with his hands) “and rows of buttons on their backs sit on the boxes. And in the illuminated theatres, crowded with people, a divine service is performed: a silly and distorted story _Sadko_ (an opera) is acted, or ‘When we dead awaken’ is played. It’s sheer madness!” 1901 _Moscow, February 1st._ Tolstoi began about a couple of months ago to learn Dutch, and now he reads quite easily, at the age of seventy-three! He has an original way of learning languages: he gets the New Testament in the language he wants to know, and whilst reading it through he learns the language. Tolstoi said to me recently about modern art: “The sense of shame is lost. I cannot call it anything else--the sense of æsthetic shame. I wonder if you know the feeling? I feel it most strongly when I read something that is artistically false, and I can call it nothing else but shame.” With regard to his play, _The Corpse_, Tolstoi said to me: “The son of the wife of the man I described came to me, and then the man himself. The son on behalf of his mother asked me not to publish the play,[1] because it would be very painful to her, and also because she was afraid of the consequences. I of course promised.