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of this is in his own untiring work in his schools, in his
distribution of books and tracts among the peasants, and his
gigantic scheme of a popular library, which is to contain a
digest of the best that has been written by the best men in all
ages, to be published in a popular form at one penny a volume.
After the radical change in his ideas and life, or rather the
ripening of those ideas that had been germinating and
growing within him all his lifetime, he devoted himself
entirely to help and raise the downtrodden people by sharing
their life. His attempt in Moscow, after his removal there in
1881, to aid the teeming masses of the miserably poor and
degraded in that city have been most graphically described by
himself in his book “What to do?” Here he says :—
“Through much painful struggle I came to see that I had a
share in the cause of all this misery. I stood up to my ears
in the mud, and wanted to pull others out of it! I, the
parasite, I, the louse, which eats into the leaves of the tree,
want to promote the health and growth of that tree! I now
come to the following simple conclusion, that it is my duty to
reap and use the fruits of the labours of others!
“By a long and roundabout way I reached the unavoidable
result that was expressed a thousand years ago among the
Chinese: ‘If one man is idle, some one else dies of hunger.’”
Tolstoi despaired of being able to help the poverty and vice
that prevailed in the city, and seemed inseparable from populous
towns. He therefore left Moscow, to lead the life and share
the toil of the peasants.
It is quite natural that such a man as this should have
attracted many admirers and followers—many more of the
former than the latter!—and that he should also have drawn
upon himself many vehement criticisms and bitter calumnies.
It is difficult to over-estimate his great influence both in his
own and in foreign countries, although this has been greatly
disparaged by some; over the youth of Russia it has been
especially great. Banned by the censor, his later writings are
being copied, distributed clandestinely, and read by millions.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of young men have through his
influence left the terroristic party and donned the armour of
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