Page:Rebels and reformers (1919).djvu/342

 when one is face to face with death, two and two still make four?"

Hundreds of people had flocked to the little country station when it was known that Tolstoy lay ill there. It was an extraordinary scene. Peasants who loved him jostled newspaper men who wanted the latest news. Photographers and police officers, literary people and aristocrats were there, and messages and telegrams arrived from all over the world. Multitudes of his poor peasants came to his funeral, and many wept aloud.

"Our great Leo is dead," cried one. "Long live our great Leo's spirit."

Tolstoy's body was laid where he had wished to lie, on the spot where his brother Nicholas had buried the green stick on which was written the great secret it was Tolstoy's purpose in life to discover.

What was the secret of Tolstoy's power?

Every one who came near him seemed to feel it, and most of those who read his books. It is true that there still exists a certain number of people who recognize him only as a novelist. These are generally among the upper classes and among literary people who are impatient with him for having neglected his art. If it had not been for his novels it is probable that his influence would not have been nearly so far-reaching. It is doubtful whether fashionable people would have taken any notice of his serious books at all. But the fact that he had written "Anna Kare