The conversation turned on Dostoevsky’s hatred of Turgenev. Tolstoi greatly blamed the libel on Turgenev in _The Possessed_. This hatred always surprised Tolstoi, and so did that between Goncharov and Turgenev. Tolstoi went on to say: “Now books are written by people who have nothing to say. You read, but you do not see the writer. They always try to give ‘the last word.’ They reject the real writers and say that they have become obsolete. It is an absurd notion--to become obsolete. Modern books are read just because one can get to know ‘the last word’ from them; and this is easier than to read and know the real writers. These purveyors of ‘the last word’ do enormous harm, they make people unused to thinking independently.” Some one mentioned Kant, and Tolstoi said: “What is particularly valuable in Kant is that he always thought for himself. In reading him you deal all the time with _his_ thoughts, and this is extraordinarily valuable.” About reading modern literature Tolstoi said: “I am much more ready to read the memoirs of some old General in the _Russkaia Starina_; he romances a little, like Zavalishin, about his merits and successes, but this can be excused, and there is always something of interest in it.” Tolstoi said further: “Brain work often tires the head, and when tired, you can’t work as fruitfully as with a fresh head. Generally speaking, in brain work the moment is very important. There are moments when your thoughts come out as if moulded in bronze; at other moments nothing happens.” _December 31st._ Tolstoi said: “I am always interested to see what can become obsolete in literature. I am curious to know what in modern literature will seem old-fashioned, as, for instance, Karamzin’s ‘Oh soever!’ etc., seems to us now. Within my memory it has become impossible to write a long poem in verse. It seems to me that in time works of art will cease to be invented. It will be a shame to invent a story about a fictitious Ivan Ivanovich or Marie Petrovna. Writers, if such there be, will not invent, but will only describe the significant or interesting things which they have happened to observe in life.” FOOTNOTES: [12] A. M. Dobrolyubov (1876), religious seeker. His adherents formed a “Dobrolyubovian sect” on the basis of Christian anarchy. D. began his literary activity as a poet of the decadent school. [13] Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky (1793-1856), the great Russian mathematician and geometrist (founder of the non-Euclidean geometry). 1906 _August 21st._ Speaking about art Tolstoi said: “Great works of art are for all time. They exist. They must only be revealed, as Michael Angelo said.” Tolstoi was reminded by this saying of Michael Angelo’s of a peasant who without any training cut wonderful figures in wood and said, when Tolstoi expressed surprise at the art with which he did it: “It is inside there. I am only taking off what is not needed.”