Page:The Journal of Leo Tolstoy.djvu/140

 The Journal of Leo Tolstoi [1897

fallen. I think, I ask myself, what am I to do ; I doubt, I hesitate, as if I did not know or had for- gotten who I was and therefore what I was to do. To remember that I am not master, but servant and to do that to which I have been put. With what labour have I struggled and attained this knowledge, how undoubted is this knowledge and how I can forget it nevertheless not exactly for- get it, but live without applying it.

. . . Well, enough about this.

I am going to write out what I thought during this time :

i ) When all is said and done, it is those people over whom violence is used who always rule, i.e., those who fulfil the law of non-resistance. So women seek rights, but it is they who rule, just because they are the ones subjected to force they were and they still are. Institutions are in the power of men, but public opinion is in the power of women. And public opinion is a million times stronger than any laws and armies. The proof that public opinion is in the hands of women is that not only the construction of homes, food, are determined by women, and not only do the women spend the wealth, consequently control the labour of men, but the success of works of art, of books, even the appointment of rulers, are deter- mined by public opinion; and public opinion is determined by women. Some one well said that

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