ABSTRACT
THE 'nineties, however, were not only for Tolstoy a period of deep personal griefs and or intense literary activity; they were also a period of great inner struggle and re-orientation. "The thoughts and feelings that agitate you," he wrote to a friend in March 1891, "those new horizons you see before you, are just what agitate me, they are those in which I live. — Do not imagine that I defend the point of view which I formerly expressed in What I Believe. Not only do I not defend it, but I am glad we have outlived it. When starting on a new road one cannot help rejoicing at what one first sees before one, and it is excusable to mistake what is at the beginning of the road for the journey's aim."2
