4a. From Count Leo Tolstoy

Yasnaya Polyana,
Oct. 7, 1909

M. K. GANDHI

TRANSVAAL

Just now I have received your very interesting letter, which gives me great pleasure. May God help all your dear brothers and co-workers in the Transvaal. This fight between gentleness and brutality, between humility and love on one side, and conceit and violence on the other, makes itself ever more strongly felt here to us also—especially in the sharp conflicts between religious obligations and the laws of the State expressed by the conscientious objection to render military service. Such objections are taking place very frequently.

I have written A letter to a Hindu and am very pleased to have it translated (into English). The title of the book on Krishna will be communicated to you from Moscow. As regards rebirth I, for my part, shall leave out nothing; for, as it appears to me, the belief in a rebirth will never be able to strike such deep roots in and restrain mankind as the belief in the immortality of the soul and the faith in divine truth and love; of course I would accommodate you, if you so desire, to delete those passages in question. It will give me great pleasure to help your edition. Publication and circulation of my writings, translated into Indian dialects, can only be a matter of pleasure to me.

The question regarding monetary payment of Royalty should not at all be allowed to appear in religious undertakings.

I give my fraternal greetings and am glad to have come into personal contact with you.

LEO TOLSTOY
Tolstoy & Gandhi, p. 63