canvas
protect the delicate (?) eatables during inclement weather. In very
severe weather the throng is smaller, the first to beat a retreat being,
apparently, the Tatars in their odd _kaftans_ "cut goring," as old women
say, who deal in old clothes, lambskins, and "beggars' lace." Otherwise,
it is always the same.

Our publisher's shop proved to be closed, in accordance with the law,
which permits trading--in buildings--only between twelve and three
o'clock on Sundays. On our way home the count expressed his regret at
the rapid decline of the republican idea in America, and the surprising
growth of the baneful "aristocratic"--not to say snobbish--sense.
His deductions were drawn from articles in various recent periodical
publications, and from the general tone of the American works which had
come under his observation. I have heard a good deal from other Russians
about the snobbishness of Americans; but they generally speak of it with
aversion, not, as did Count Tolstoy, with regret at a splendid
opportunity missed by a whole nation.

I am sorry to say that we never got our expedition to the Old Believers'
Church, or the others that were planned. Two days later, the count was
taken with an attack of liver complaint, dyspepsia,--caused, I am
sure, by too much pedestrian exercise on a vegetable diet, which does
not agree with him,--and a bad cold. We attended Christmas Eve service
in the magnificent new Cathedral of the Saviour, and left Moscow before
the count was able to go out-of-doors again, though not without seeing
him once more.

I am aware that it has become customary of late to call Count Tolstoy
"crazy," or "not quite right in the head," etc. The inevitable
conclusion of any one who talks much with him is that he is nothing of
the sort; but simply a man with a hobby, or an idea. His idea happens to
be one which, granting that it ought to be adopted by everybody, is
still one which is very difficult of adoption by anybody,--peculiarly
difficult in his own case. And it is an uncomfortable theory of
self-denial which very few people like to have preached to them in any
form. Add to this that his philosophical expositions of his theory lack
the clearness which generally--not always--results from a course of
strict preparatory training, and we have more than sufficient foundation
for the reports of his mental aberration. On personal acquaintance he
proves to be a remarkably earnest, thoroughly convinced, and winn