Страница:L. N. Tolstoy. All in 90 volumes. Volume 71.pdf/115

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Ответ на письмо Жиркевича от 21 марта, в котором он спрашивал Толстого, не следует ли хлопотать о переводе Егорова и других сосланных ближе к Якутску.

1 Юлиан Игнатьевич Одаховский, полковник, сослуживец Толстого по Севастополю. См. о нем в т. 74.

* 115. Эрнесту Кросби (Ernest Crosby).

1898 г. Апреля 11? Москва.

23 April 1898.

My dear Crosby,

I think that Mr. Jones has noted quite rightly in refusing to help in the coercion that was wanted for the general good. (Coercion and all kind of violence is always wanted for the general good). To say that he acted rightly is not the adequate expression. I think he acted as he did because he could not act otherwise. To use coercion for a true christian is like a physical impossibility. And this impossibility is determining the position that such a man can occupy in society. Therefore I think that for a christian it is not necessary to renounce the position that he occupies for the reason of non-conformity of his position with his faith; he must only put in his position — it may be of an emperor, of a hangman, a president, a spy, a priest, a soldier, a judge — act in the position in which the christian enlightenment found him, as his conscience bids him, and the result will be just what it ought to be: he will be chassed from the position that he ocupied and that may be the best thing for him. That is what I think about the difficulty Mr. Jones is in.

It is great joy for me to know that there are men like Mr. Jones professing the christian doctrine not only in words but in deeds. Give him please my respect and love.

What a pitiful state of jingoistic hypnotization is your people in now. It is dreadful but gives me nothing unexpected and new. This terrible evil and superstition which is called a virtue and which is unhappily so strong in America — patriotism could not produce anything else. They do not gather grapes from thornes... And so patriotism produces only lies, violence, murder. The sole sorrow of my old age is that I have not succeded to communicate to my brothers the truth which I feel with the same

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