Page:Autobiography of Sophie Tolstoi.djvu/121

Rh them. Tolstoi himself wrote of his correspondence with Strakhov (in a letter of February 6, 1906, to P. A. Sergeenko): "In addition to Alexandra Andreevna Tolstoi, I had two persons to whom I have written many letters, which, as far as I can remember, might interest people interested in my personality. They are Strakhov and Prince Serge S. Urusov," (Letters, Vol. II. page 227.)

The friendship of Tolstoi and Strakhov lasted for twenty-five years, and on Strakhov's part there was thirty years' adoration of Tolstoi's genius, and of his great spiritual and intellectual qualities. V. V, Rosanov wrote the following after Strakhov's death: "Strakhov's attachment to Tolstoi was most deep and mystical: he loved him as the incarnation of the best and most profound aspirations of the human soul, as a special nerve in the huge body of mankind in which we others form parts less understanding and significant; he loved him for what was indefinite and incomplete in him. He loved in him the dark abyss, the bottom of which no one could see, from the depths of which still rise numbers of treasures; and there is no doubt that Tolstoi never lost a better friend."

Strakhov's works included: From the History of Russian Nihilism, 1890; Essays on Pushkin and Other Poets, 1888; Biography of Dostoevskii; The Struggle of the West with Our Literature, three volumes, 1882-86; and some scientific works.