Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/10

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Both women were very religious, but the grandmother was firmly Orthodox and used to take little Lyeskov to holy places and monasteries, while the aunt was a Quaker, and it is interesting that throughout his life Lyeskov had equal sympathy with, and appreciation of, the mysticism and ritualism of the Church and the rationalistic faith of Evangelical Christians. The grandmother and the aunt were equally ready to help their neighbours and were always engaged in works of practical charity, and that, too, left a profound impression on Lyeskov, who held that practical love for others was the chief qualification of a good man. Lyeskov's religious feeling and his belief in the importance of Christian charity brought him very near Tolstoy, and at one time he took part in Tolstoy's publications for the peasants ('The Posrednix'), writing several beautiful legends of the early Christian times, the moral of the stories always being that the work most pleasant to God is to help our fellow men. But he differed from Tolstoy in this, that Lyeskov never idealised the primitive conditions of life, and so far from rejecting art, science, political institutions, etc., he thought that the way to make human life—especially Russian life—better, was to become more and not less civilised. Lyeskov attached great importance to all the practical measures that tended to make the peasants better educated, healthier, less inclined to get drunk, etc., and he enthusiastically welcomed the reforms of Alexander II.; But the exceptional opportunities he had had of studying Russian life at first hand convinced him that what matters most are not good laws or institutions in themselves, but the people who carry them out—and the people whom he met in Petersburg in the 'sixties' and who were going to make the 'new' Russia, disappointed him by their lack of practical sense and of knowledge of the real conditions of life. His first ground for quarrel with the 'Nihilists' was the abstract character of their theories—they seemed to him