Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/481

 and feeling, everything, lead us to this:—before all other acts of love toward living men, to support this life of our brethren, to deliver them from suffering and death which overtakes them in their unequal struggle with nature, in other words, lead us to the first act necessary for the life of men—to primitive, coarse physical labor on the soil.

Just as a spring cannot ask where it is to send its water, whether it shall spurt up on the grass and the leaves of the trees, or trickle down to the roots of the grass and the trees, so the man that believes in the teaching of truth cannot ask what he must do first of all; whether to teach them, defend them, amuse them, give them the pleasures of life, or support them when they are perishing from need.

And just as the spring of water flows down over levels and fills the ponds, and quenches the thirst of animals and men, only after it has soaked the soil, so also the man that believes in the teaching of truth can help along the less pressing demands of men, only after he has satisfied the first demand, that is, when he has helped in the nourishment of men, in their salvation from destruction in consequence of their struggle with need.

The man that follows, not in word, but in deed, the teaching of truth and love, cannot be mistaken in the direction in which first of all he must apply his activity. Never can a man who applies the meaning of his life to the service of others, be so mistaken as to begin to help cold and hungry humanity by founding cannon, by the manufacture of elegant objects, or by playing on the fiddle or on the pianoforte.

Love cannot be stupid. As love for one person does not permit the reading of novels to him when he is hungry or putting on him costly earrings when he is cold, so love for men does not allow it to be possible to serve them by amusing the prosperous, while allowing the cold and hungry to die of their necessities.

True love—expressed in deeds, not words—not only cannot be stupid, but it is the only thing that gives true sagacity and wisdom.