Tolstoï's antipathy to this affair does not come at all from any possible anti-Semitic feeling. He does not love the mercantile Jews, who have not the slightest trace of Christian spirit. He condemns anti-Semitism, however, in the most emphatic way. "Anti-Semitism," he said, "is not a misfortune for the Jews, for he who suffers wrong is not to be pitied, but he who does wrong. Anti-Semitism demoralizes society. It is the worst evil of our time, for it poisons whole generations. It makes them blind to right and wrong, and kills all moral feeling. It changes the soul into a place of desolation in which all goodness and nobility are swept away." In regard to other matters, Tolstoï does not use strong expressions. He parries them good-humoredly but decisively. When we were talking of the new romanticists, I used some severe language. I explained the uproarious applause of certain gifted but degenerate and perverse artists as a cynical attack on the inborn moral sense, and said, speaking from my own experience, that I had yet to meet one of those devotees of immorality whom I had not found on closer acquaintance to be morally deficient. When, however, I spoke of literary support of vice, the count raised his hand to stop me, and said: "Let us be gentle in our judgment of our fellow-men." Then he added, "Go on." I had, however, gained command of myself and begged pardon for my vehemence. I could not go on, however, for what had been on my tongue was only more bitter words. He looked at me kindly, and merely said, "Thank you." It is self-evident that Tolstoï did not mean by this to express sympathy with the Diabolics and other eccentrics. Moreover, he spoke flatly against art for art's sake, which he calls tiresome more than anything else. "Agonized productions of the search for originality, welcomed by idleness, and intended for the applause of the critics of so-called fine taste." He shrugged his shoulders over the fact that a monument had been erected to Baudelaire. He agreed with me, however, when I traced the interest in exotic suggestion in the creative arts, as for everything eccentric and bizarre, back to the tendency towards an entirely external naturalism, which would completely rule out from art the personality of the artist. He returned again to his text. "Without the deepest sympathy and complete identification with the subject no work of art can ever be produced."