Take your comments on board, brooks, and I admire Tolstoy for the reasons you state -- in holding fast to his "eccentric" principles. I think Dostoevsky was contrasting (I've just this minute communicated with him from the grave and he confirms this) Tolstoy's extravagant PR image (after all, he had all the swagger and inbred self-assurance of nobility) with D's own abasement as a man "from the underworld" who suffered the torments of the damned but who struggled mightily to keep up appearances that he was a full shilling.
No doubt there was more than a touch of envy there too for this giant who had the clout of illustrious lineage and vast estates behind him to defy authority and the church.