Don't mistake half-measures for the real
thing. Why should a man not choose the highest? Only when you
have chosen the highest, you must set your whole heart on it, and
not just a little. Just a little leads to nothing. There, I am
tired of writing, and still have much left that I wanted to say.
I kiss you.
HELP FOR THE FAMINE-STRICKEN
AFTER my father had come to the conclusion that it was not only
useless to help people with money, but immoral, the part he took in
distributing food among the peasants during the famines of 1890,
1891, and 1898 may seem to have shown inconsistency and
contradiction of thought.
"If a horseman sees that his horse is tired out, he must not
remain seated on its back and hold up its head, but simply get
off," he used to say, condemning all the charities of the well-fed
people who sit on the back of the working classes, continue to
enjoy all the benefits of their privileged position, and merely
give from their superfluity.
He did not believe in the good of such charity and considered
it a form of self-hallucination, all the more harmful because
people thereby acquire a sort of moral right to continue that idle,
aristocratic life and get to go on increasing the poverty of the
people.
In the autumn of 1890 my father thought of writing an article
on the famine, which had then spread over nearly all Russia.
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