Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/17

Rh Labor, we shall see that Tolstoï's theories are the same as Bondareff's. Without doubt the philosophic novelist has his own originality of ideas; but it is not the less true that he found the first outlines of his doctrine in Bondareff's book. And is it not an admirable spectacle to behold this great genius, the celebrated author of War and Peace, seeking in the home of the humble peasant the word of life, the magic formula which permits us to construct here below the heavenly Jerusalem of which we all dream?

Labor does not only show us how, under Bondareff's influence, Tolstoï's ideas on the social reform to be produced by physical labor are developed, but it enables us to comprehend more clearly how this theory and its consequences are only now arrived at.

What have they not said of Tolstoï, as laborer and shoemaker? A recent letter says: "Tolstoï's compatriots fail somewhat in respect towards this grand old man. From them comes the story of his learning the trade of shoemaking. We see this nobleman established in a shop, and we hesitate whether to admire or pity him. We should do neither. He does not make the trade his condition of life, but only a distraction, seeking a mental repose in manual exercise. Others make arms or weights; he