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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: the only people who took to criticism were those who had no
creative faculty of their own. "The stupid ones judge the clever
ones," he said of professional critics. What he valued most in
Strakhof was the profound and penetrating thinker. He was a "real
friend" of my father's,--my father himself so described him,--and
I recall his memory with deep affection and respect.
At last I have come to the memory of the man who was nearer in
spirit to my father than any other human being, namely,
Nikolái Nikoláyevitch Gay. Grandfather Gay, as we
called him, made my father's acquaintance in 1882. While living
on his farm in the Province of Tchernigoff, he chanced to read my
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