Page:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf/5

 individuality in the service, then marriage is undoubtedly a fall and a hindrance, just as it would be a hindrance for people who formerly had been working in a field with all their members free to rope themselves together in pairs." With equal simplicity all other doubts and misgivings solved, I believe -if the reader indeed desires their solution.

To avoid undesirable misunderstandings I should like to make it clear that when alluding to woman in unflattering terms Tolstoy refers exclusively to worldly, materialistic women, and that the very vehemence of his protest is the proof of his sense of the supreme importance, dignity, and influence for good of the true woman of Christian spirit.

As for myself and my colleagues in this work, we undertake each new issue of such collections of Tolstoy's thoughts with so much the greater satisfaction and pleasure, that we know from the expressions of sympathy and encouragement which reach us on all sides to what an extent these publications do indeed satisfy a heartfelt demand on the part of many and many of our readers.

V.TCHERTKOFF

CHRISTCHURCH, 15th August, 1901.