Note 114 — 1896

Afanasie Afanasevich Fet (Shenshin) (1820–1892), a Russian lyric poet and translator and friend of the Tolstoi family. Concerning the relations of Tolstoi with him, see My Recollections, by Fet (Volume II, 1890) and The Biography of L. N. Tolstoi by Biriukov. In the letter of November 7, 1866, Tolstoi wrote to Fet: “You are a man whose mind, not to speak of anything else, I value higher than any one of my acquaintances’ and who in personal intercourse is the only one who gives me that bread by which it is not alone that man lives.” Later Tolstoi and Fet became estranged from each other.