Tolstoy, Leo - F. W. Farrar (essay date 1891)

F. W. Farrar (essay date 1891)

SOURCE: "Count Leo Tolstoi," in Social and Present Day Questions, Bradley & Woodruff, 1891, pp. 343-54.

[In the following essay, Farrar examines the events leading up to Tolstoy's religious conversion.]

But few men have ventured to publish to the world the full confession of their inmost lives, to lay bare to the gaze of millions the naked heart as it lies open before the eyes of God. It is right that there should have been this reluctance. Reserve and the dignity of reticence are bulwarks which God Himself has reared in our being, and no one with impunity can break them down. The sacredness of our individuality is the awful solitude into which no human foot should intrude, and in that holy solitude we are alone with God. Whatever good may have been done by the confessions of the few who have torn away the veils woven by nature, it is doubtful whether there may not have been a deeper harm. There have been...

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