That Which is Eternal

A letter from Leo Tolstoy to Valeria Arsenev, November 1856 

In 1856, Leo Tolstoy was 28 and already a published writer. He had returned from military service and was visiting family estates near Tula, Russia, where he met Valeria Arsenev, a young woman from a neighbouring noble family. Their families were close, and Tolstoy, still deeply idealistic about love, began writing to her.

This letter is not famous in the same sense as the others. It was not widely circulated, nor did it shape a nation, but it has been preserved for what it reveals: a private glimpse into the mind of a man known for chronicling the inner lives of others, now exposing his own. It shows the early seeds of Tolstoy’s emotional and spiritual intensity how love, to him, was not merely a passing feeling but a pursuit of the eternal.

Though Tolstoy never married Valeria, his letters to her mark the beginning of a long internal journey, one that would later inform his masterpieces. In this letter, he begins to distinguish between admiration and enduring connection. Between beauty and soul.

My Dear Valeria Vladimirovna,

I already love in you your beauty, but I am only beginning to love in you that which is eternal and ever precious — your heart, your soul.

Beauty one could get to know and fall in love with in one hour and cease to love it as speedily; but the soul one must learn to know. Believe me, nothing on earth is given without labour, even love, the most beautiful and natural of feelings.

Yours,

Count L. Tolstoy