Page:Tolstoy - Demands of Love and Reason.djvu/8



(24th June, 1893), I thought:—Let us imagine people of the affluent class (for clearness' sake, say a man and a woman; it may be husband and wife, or brother and sister, or father and daughter, or mother and son), who have vividly realised the sin of a luxurious and idle life lived amidst people crushed by work and want.

They have left the town, have handed over to others (or in some way rid themselves of) their superfluities, have left themselves stocks and shares yielding, say, £15 a year for the two of them (or have even left themselves nothing), and are earning their living by some craft, say by painting on china, or translating