With this letter personal intercourse between Tchaikovsky and Count Tolstoi came to an end. It is remarkable that this was not against the composer’s wishes, even if he did nothing actually to cause the rupture. The attentive reader will not fail to have gathered from the last words quoted from his diary that his acquaintance with Tolstoi had been something of a disappointment. It vexed him that “the lord of his intellect” should care to talk of “commonplace subjects unworthy of a great man.” It hurt him to see all the little faults and failings of this divinity brought out by closer proximity. He feared to lose faith in him, and consequently to spoil his enjoyment of his works. This delight was at one time somewhat disturbed by his hyper-sensitiveness. In a letter to his brother, Tchaikovsky criticises _Anna Karenina_, which had then just begun to make its appearance in the _Russky Vestnik_. “After your departure,” he writes, “I read _Anna Karenina_ once more. Are you not ashamed to extol this revolting and commonplace stuff, which aspires to be psychologically profound? The devil take your psychological truth when it leaves nothing but an endless waste behind it.” Afterwards, having read the whole novel, Tchaikovsky repented his judgment, and acknowledged it to be one of Tolstoi’s finest creations. In the presence of Tolstoi, Tchaikovsky felt ill at ease, in spite of the writer’s kind and simple attitude towards his fellow-men. From a fear of wounding or displeasing him in any way, and also in consequence of his efforts not to betray his admiration and delight, the musician never quite knew how to behave to Tolstoi, and was always conscious of being somewhat unnatural--of playing a part. This consciousness was intolerable to Tchaikovsky, consequently he avoided future intercourse with the great man. Greatly as Tchaikovsky admired Tolstoi the writer, he was never in sympathy with Tolstoi the philosopher. In his diary for 1886, writing of _What I Believe_, he says:--