If some or other of Leo Nikolaevitch's actions during the last months of his life were not to the taste of some of his family, such, for instance, as his depriving them of the inheritance of his literary rights, his making a will without their knowledge and participation, his leaving his manuscripts and diaries to other people, and lastly his departing from amongst them; and if the material loss or their wounded vanity leads them mistakenly to ascribe all this to the supposed mental enfeeblement, the weakness of old age, and the fatal influence on him of the circle of his "followers," at least there is no necessity for people who are in no way personally affected to follow the example of those of Leo Nikolaevitch's family who consider themselves injured and repeat their unfair charges, which come in reality to this, that Leo Nikolaevitch at the end of his life was in his dotage and did a whole series of bad and stupid things. Some of Leo Nikolaevitch's family wrongly imagined that since he had remained with his family so long he had lost all freedom of choice, and ought not to have moved from the spot until his death, like a thing laid on a shelf which cannot move of its own initiative. Leo Nikolaevitch was not only a living man, but a man of exceptionally strong and active inner life, which was continually growing and developing and spurring him on to new external manifestations which were often a surprise to those who watched him. On all the important occasions of his life he always acted without following any programme imposed on him from outside, or being affected by any personal influence; he was independently guided only by the prompting of his inner consciousness and entirely free from pose or any striving after effect. But at the same time he never drew back before the most extreme decisions when it was a question of obeying the dictates of his conscience. And so he had continually to do what was not foreseen or understood by others, and often not approved even by the majority of those about him.