Page:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf/88

 There is only one way of escape from your position: to stop, collect your thoughts, look around, and find an ideal (that is to say, find what you desire to be) and so live as to attain it.

I have always thought that one of the surest indications of the seriousness of one's relation to moral questions is strictness with oneself in the sex question... The snare into which N- has fallen is very comprehensible, and common precisely to such honest and truthful natures as I imagine his to be. Certain relations had established themselves, and he wished to dissimulate nothing, but straightforwardly and openly to acknowledge them, giving them a spiritual character. I perfectly understand his idea: to profit by that mental upheaval which the state of "being in love" causes, in order to use it for God's work. This is possible, and I think that the energy of people who find themselves in this position may considerably increase, and unexpectedly give apparently great results. I have even more than once seen this, and I know such cases. But in this instance the danger is that when the personal feeling ceases (which is very possible and probably), not only may this increase of energy suddenly collapse, but also all interest in God's work, of which I have also seen examples. And that this happens and may happen proves that God's work, God's service, cannot and should not rest upon any external condition, but on the contrary that all external conditions should rest upon it, upon the consciousness or its necessity and its joy. In the same way one may strengthen the energy of God's service by human praise, which is also often done; and again -the same danger of becoming indifferent to God's work as soon as man's approbation ceases.