Lot 107: TOLSTOY, LEO.

Two autograph letters signed ("L. Tolstoy"), in English, to John Bellows, with a cabinet size photograph of him in his peasant's smock

Condition Note: 4 pages, 8vo, one with envelope, Yasnaya Poliana, 12 December 1892 and 15/26 May [1893], one letter foxed, framed and glazed
thanking him for the gift of a book which contains much to interest him, particularly on the way the Holy Spirit forms the foundation of "all what we can know of God and of his will" and expressing the wish that it could be available in Russian, adding that he entirely concurs with Bellows's view that one should distinguish between one's own will and the will of God, and referring to his latest book ("I am only ashamed that I did not say all what I try to say in this book long time before...").

John Bellows (1831-1902) was a printer, lexicographer and archaeologist. A Quaker, he spent a month during the Franco-Prussian war as a commissioner for the Society of Friends, investigating the effects of hostilities on the local population in France. In 1892 he travelled to the Caucasus to visit and assist a group of exiled Russian pacifists, the Stundists and Dukhabors. It was during this trip that he first met Tolstoy in Moscow. They became friends and corresponded for several years afterwards.

The lot includes a quantity of correspondence by and relating to the Dukhabors, an album of photographs, some taken during the visit to Russia (including one showing Tolstoy at Yasnaya Poliana), and other related material.