Minute Particulars
Active love is always directed at somebody or something in particular. Abstract love of humanity is professed by Ivan Karamazov’s Grand Inquisitor, by Rakitin, and eventually by Ivan Karamazov’s devil. When it comes to meeting…
Category: Russia
Precepts and Parables
Of all the gospels, the Sermon on the Mount was the portion that impressed me most, and I studied it more often than any other part. Nowhere else does Christ speak with such solemnity; nowhere…
Reveling in Resentment
The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him,…
Russians Reciting Poetry as Prayer
Countless former prisoners described how memorized verse consoled them. It preserved their past life and their continuity with it. And it was something the authorities could not take away. Once stories about prisoners reciting poetry…
Soul Sentiment from the Nineteenth Century
I onward go, I stop,With hinged knees and steady hand, to dress wounds;I am firm with each—the pangs are sharp, yet unavoidable;One turns to me his appealing eyes—(poor boy! I never knew you,Yet I think…
This Is Because That Is…
I am spending my mornings reading the riveting new book by Gary Saul Morson, Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter. A short while back, I posted a…
Senseless Kindness
Yes, as well as this terrible Good with a capital ‘G’, there is every day human kindness. The kindness of an old woman carrying a piece of bread to a prisoner, the kindness of a…
One Way or Another
[Emperor] Alexander II said he did not fear the Liberals because he knew they could all be bought, if not with money, then with honors. –Leo Tolstoy, Writings on Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence
Gurus, Guides, Teachers
Hindus make a distinction between what are called upagurus and what are called satgurus. A satguru is what we’ve been talking about here as the guru; it’s the one who is the doorway. … Along…
Dear Anya
Thank you for your cool list of queries which I saw after I got back from vacation at Blue-Eye, Missouri! I will start with an easy one: “Favorite Book”— The Brothers Karamazovby Fyodor Dostoevskyas translated by…