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Children's Writer: Mumbai India
http://santosh-santoshgulati.blogspot.com
http://toshigulati.blogspot.com
http://santoshgulatipoems.blogspot.in/2011/07/blog-post_9300.html
Work by Klaus Hugler
Foreword
Tolstoy was of the opinion that his thoughts – and thus also his works – belong to all people and that no individual could view them as his possession or have exclusive access to them. This was in accordance with the convictions that he developed in the course of his life. Therefore, at the end of his life, he decided that the Tolstoy family should have power of disposal solely over the early works which he had composed before 1880.
At 75, Tolstoy put together a comprehensive collection containing the thoughts of authors and religious books of wisdom from all over the world. This collection includes Tolstoy’s own thoughts, those which he considered to be his most valuable. A selection of these are included here. Tolstoy entrusted this collection to his friends with the words, “It is my wish that in the daily perusal of this book, the reader may experience the same beneficial feelings which I had during its compilation and which, in reading it, are still evoked in me.”
The slavic doctor Dr. Albert Skarvan, a personal friend of Tolstoy’s, translated these thoughts into German. And the German Philosopher Eugen Heinrich Schmitt, who had a close relationship to Tolstoy, arranged the publication of the German translation. Schmitt spoke of this work as a “favourite plan of Tolstoy’s” and added that Tolstoy wanted to leave behind “a Bible for modern people, in as much as they were growing up in the noble culture of the future…a book of comfort and for meditation”. Tolstoy quoted freely without citing sources and therefore the unconstrained use of these thoughts is completely in accordance with their author’s view of the matter. The editor hopes, as Tolstoy once hoped, that even today they may “inspire good thoughts and feelings in the reader.” |
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