Page:Tolstoy - Demands of Love and Reason.djvu/9

6 good books, and are living in the country, in a Russian village.

Having hired or bought themselves a hut, they cultivate their plot of ground or garden, look after their bees, and at the same time give medical assistance (as far as their knowledge allows) to the villagers, teach the children, and write letters and petitions for their neighbours, &c., &c.

One would think no kind of life could be better. But, nevertheless, this life will be hell, or will become hell, if these people are not hypocrites and do not lie, i.e., if they are really sincere.

If these people have renounced the advantages and pleasures of life which town and money gave them, they have done so only because they acknowledge all men to be brothers—equals before their Father. Not equals in ability, or, perhaps, in worth; but equals in their right to life, and to all that life can give.

One may possibly have doubts as to the equality of people when one considers adults each with a different past, but doubt becomes impossible when one looks at children. Why should this boy have watchful care and all the assistance knowledge can give towards his physical and mental development, while that other charming child, of equal or even greater promise, is destined to become rickety, crippled, or dwarfed from lack of milk, and to grow up