Page:Tolstoy - Demands of Love and Reason.djvu/18

Rh fearing the depth and the water he supposed to be there, while a foot below him was the dry bottom.

Yet we must not trust to that bottom; we must go forward prepared to die. Only that love is true love, which knows no limit to sacrifice—even unto death.

A very strange and happy thing has happened to me of late. I have begun to feel the possibility of the uninterrupted happiness of love. I used to be so crushed by the wickedness around me, and in my own heart, that I could only speak and think of love in imagination. But now I am beginning to feel its blessedness. It is as though little flames of light and warmth were beginning to pierce through a damp wood fire; and I believe, know, and feel, love and goodwill—and I see now what can hinder and bedim them.

I look upon the ill-feeling I bear certain people in quite a new way now, and fear it, because I know it hides light and warmth from me. And I am persuaded that in this feeling of love and pity I have found the secret of true life, which alone gives uninterrupted peace and joy…

I think, and not only think, but feel, that I can love those who are called wicked but who are only in error. I used