Page:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf/23

 rules; but we must firmly keep this ideal before us in all its purity, and above all we must believe in it.

To those on a ship sailing near the land one could say, "Keep to that cliff, that cape, that tower," and so forth. But the time has come when the ship has left the land behind, and those on board must and can be guided only by the unattainable stars and the compass, which indicate the direction.

And both are given us.

"Diana."

Amongst other letters which I have received from various quarters in connection with The Kreutzer Sonata and the Afterword, which demonstrate that the necessity of reforming the view on the relations between the sexes is felt not by me alone but by a great number of thinking men and women, -whose voices are unheard and unnoticed only because they are stifled by the cries of the crowd defending with heat and tenacity the customary order of things ministering to their passions, -amongst these letters I received, on the 7th October, 1890, one enclosing a pamphlet entitled Diana.

This is the letter: "We have the pleasure of sending you a little pamphlet entitled Diana: a psycho-physiological essay on sexrelations, for married men and women, which we hope you will receive. Since your work, The Kreutzer Sonata, appeared in America, many people say 'Diana explains, fulfills, and renders possible the