Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/349



NCE some guests were gathered in a rich man's home, and it happened that a serious conversation about life arose.

They talked about persons absent and persons present, and they could not hit upon a single one contented with his life.

Not only did each one find something to complain of in his fortune, but there was not one who would consider that he was living as a Christian ought to live. All confessed that they were living worldly lives, concerned only about themselves and their families, thinking little about their neighbors, and still less about God.

Thus talked the guests, and all agreed in blaming themselves for their godless, unchristian lives.

"Then why do we live so?" cried one youth. "Why do we do what we ourselves do not approve? Have we not the power over our own lives? We ourselves are conscious that our luxury, our effeminacy, our wealth, and especially our pride—our separation from our brethren—are our ruin. In order to be important and rich we must deprive ourselves of everything that gives man joy in living; we crowd ourselves into cities, we make ourselves effeminate, we ruin our constitutions; and notwithstanding all our diversion, we die of ennui and of disgust because our lives are not what they ought to be.

"Why live so? Why destroy our lives so, and all the good which God has bestowed on us? I mean to give up living as I have. I will give up the studies I have begun;