On Loose Leaves

In 1912, under the title “On Flying Sheets,” a small book of thoughts and aphorisms was published. Here is one of the aphorisms included in it. “To learn to read and understand the great book of nature, in order to align one’s will with the will of the Creator of the universe, is the highest and noblest goal of a human being. If people knew how to live in an inseparable spiritual and bodily unity with nature, then all their ages—and even death itself—would be marked by the charm of beauty, like spring, summer, autumn, and winter.”

Despite the notes of pessimism and doubt that flicker in his works, Golenishchev-Kutuzov never lost faith. One of the people close to him recalled: “His thought kept reaching toward the starry heights, and ‘mortal memory’ never left him. He had an extraordinary power of insight. It didn’t let him be satisfied with just a ‘worldly’ life that sinks into the earth; irresistibly it drew him toward the mountain heights illuminated by the sun of truth, goodness, and beauty. He remained faithful to it until the very end.”