Religion: Tolstoy to Shaw

The smart retort to, “Do you want a fight?” is still, of course, “Sir, I am a Tolstoyan!”

Last week, however, it was revealed at London that Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), although an apostle of religious humility and the other cheek, once made a sharp retort to Bernard Shaw. The occasion was the submission by Mr. Shaw of several of his works for criticism to the Count. Tolstoy’s letter in reply was released, in London, by erudite Mr. Aylmer Maude, now collecting and translating Tolstoyana.

The letter, in part: “. . . Dear Mr. Shaw, life is a great and serious affair. . . . You are not sufficiently serious. . . . The questions you deal with are of such enormous importance that . . . to make them the subject of satires may easily do harm.”

Expounding his own views of religion in contrast to Shavian materialism, Count Tolstoy concluded:

“The difference in our views is merely this: That, according to you, mankind’s improvement will be accomplished when ordinary people become supermen, or fresh supermen are produced; while in my opinion it will occur when men disencumber the true religions of Christianity from all the accretions which deter them, and when all, uniting in the understanding of life which lies at the base of all, realize their reasonable relation to the world’s eternal origin and accept the guidance for life which flows therefrom. . . .”