Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/468

 policeman, and by giving up to the evil man all that he wishes to take from me, if by not taking part in governmental institutions of courts, educational institutions, universities, by not recognizing private property, you fall to the lowest degree of the social scale, you are trodden down and abused, you become a tramp─a beggar, and the light which is in you is wasted, no one sees it; and therefore is it not better to keep one's self at a certain degree of independence of need, and the possibility of refinement and intercourse with the great majority of the people? It really seems so. And it seems so because so dear to us are the amenities of life, our refinement, and all those so-called pleasures which it provides us, and we act against our conscience saying so. It is unjust because on whatever low plane he may stand he will always be with men, and therefore in a condition to do them good. But whether the professors of a university are better, whether the inmates of a cheap lodging-house are more important, for the Christian profession, is a question which no one can decide. My own feeling and Christ's example plead for the indigent; only the indigent can preach, that is, teach the reasonable life.

I may argue beautifully and be sincere, but no one will ever have faith in me as long as it is seen that I am living in a palace and with my family wasting every day the cost of a whole year's food for a poor family. But as regards our so-called culture, surely it would seem to be time to cease speaking of it as of a blessing. In spoiling a man, it spoils altogether ninety-nine out of a hundred, but it can never add anything to a man.

You probably know about Siutayef. Here we have an unlettered muzhik, but his influence on men, on our intelligence, is greater and more important than all the Russian savants and writers, including all the Pushkins and Byelinskys, from Tretyakovsky down to our time. So in losing you lose nothing. And if any one leaves