In publishing the diary devoted to my friendship of nearly fifteen years with Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi, I think it best to state first what my aim was in making notes, and the method I pursued in doing so. I put down chiefly Tolstoi’s words, and to some extent the events of his private life, making no attempt to select what would be interesting from some special point of view, but adopting no method and attempting to supply no connection between one entry and another. My diary, therefore, is in no sense “literature.” Its aim is to be a document.

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