_May 11th._ The conversation turned upon Katkov. L. N. expressed the opinion that Katkov was not clever. Sophie Andreevna became annoyed and said: “Any one who disagrees with us must be a fool.” To which L. N. said: “The mark of foolish people is: when you say anything to them they never answer your words, but keep on repeating their own. That was always Katkov’s way. That is why I say that Katkov was a stupid man. Now, there is something of the same sort in Chicherin, yet can they be put even approximately on the same level? “Though,” L. N. added, “one has to respect every one. Among the virtues the Chinese place respect first. Simply, without any relation to anything definite. Respect for the individual and for the opinion of every man.” The conversation turned upon ancient languages and classical education. L. N. said: “When I studied and read a great deal of Greek, I could easily understand almost any Greek book. I used to be at the examinations in the Lyceum, and saw that nearly always the pupil only understood what he had learnt beforehand. He did not understand new passages. And, indeed, at school for every fifty words that were learnt at least sixty-five rules were taught. In such a way one can’t learn anything. “I am always surprised how firmly all sorts of superstitions possess people. Superstitions, such as the Church, the Tsar, the army, etc., live for centuries, and people have got so accustomed to them that they are not now thought to be strange. But the superstition of classical education arose with us in Russia before my very eyes. Above all, not one of the most zealous partisans of classical education can give a single sensible argument in favour of the system.” Then L. N. added: “There is also the superstition of the possibility of a ‘school’ in art. Hence all institutes and academies. The abnormal form which art takes now, however, is not the root of the evil, but one of its symptoms. When the religious conception of life changes, then art, too, will find its true methods.” L. N. returned to the Chinese virtue of ‘respect,’ and said: “Often remarkable men suffer from the lack of that Chinese ‘respect.’ For instance, in Henry George’s _Progress and Poverty_ Marx’s name is not mentioned at all; and in his recently published posthumous work hardly eight lines refer to Marx, and those speak of the obscurity, complexity, and emptiness of Marx’s works. “Apropos of obscurity and complexity, they are nearly always a proof of the absence of true meaning. But there is one great exception--Kant, who wrote horribly, and yet he makes an epoch in the development of mankind. In many respects he discovered perfectly new horizons.”