But in his mind he absolutely discriminated in favour of the intelligent, religious woman whom seldom he happened to meet in life and who always attracted his attention. So, for instance, he valued very highly the distant relative who brought him up, T. A. Ergolsky, for her self-sacrificing life; Mmes. M. A. Schmidt and L. F. Annenkov he respected for their true religious lives, and among the women writers he especially valued an American, Lucy Mallory, for her exceptional writings, from which he selected many thoughts for _The Reading Circle_. For women of this type he always had the greatest respect, recognising fully their merits and their great significance to humanity. In his literary works, Tolstoi, as is known, frequently reproduced the highest type of woman (for instance, Pashenka in _Father Sergius_, or the old woman, Maria Semenovna in _The Forged Coupon_). Also in his other writings, Tolstoi did not always express himself adversely about women, as can be seen, for instance, from the following extracts: “Oh, how I would like to show to woman the whole significance of chaste women. The chaste woman (not in vain is the legend of Mary) will save the world.” (Journal, August 3, 1898.) “One of the most necessary tasks of humanity consists in the bringing up of chaste women.” (Journal, August 24, 1898.) “The virtues of men and women are the same; temperance, truthfulness, kindness; but in the woman, these same virtues attain a special charm.” (_The Reading Circle_, June 2.) “Men cannot do that highest, best work, which brings men more than anything else nearer to God--the work of love, the work of complete self-surrender to him whom you love, which good women have done so well and so naturally, are doing, and will do. What would happen to the world, what would happen to us men, if women had not that quality and if they did not exercise it ... Without mothers, helpers, friends, comforters, who love in a man all that is best in him, and who with a suggestion hardly to be noticed, call forth and support all the best in him--without such women it would be bad to live in this world. Christ would not have had Mary and Magdalene; Francis of Assisi would not have had Clara; the Decembrists would not have had their wives with them in exile; the Dukhobors would not have had their wives who did not hold their husbands back, but supported them in their martyrdom for truth, there would not have been those thousands and thousands of unknown women, the very best, as everything that is unknown, the comforters of the drunken, the weak, the debauched, those for whom the consolations of love are more necessary than for any one else. In this love, whether it is directed to Kukin or to Christ, is the principal, great and irreplaceable strength of women.” (Appendix to Chekhov’s story, _Dushechka_.)