Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/228

 212 ESSAYS AND LETTERS

limitations, reservations and retrenchments, but when it is expressed fully. As the truth that the sum of the angles in a right-angled triangle is equal to two riglit angles, loses all meaning and importance if it is ex- pressed thus : that the sum of the angles in the triangle will be approximately equal to two right angles — so also the truth that a man ought to work with his hands, if expressed in the form of advice, or of an expression of its desirability, or of an assertion that perhaps it may be useful from certain points of view, etc., loses all its meaning and importance. This truth has mean- ing and importance only when it is expressed as an absolute law, the infringement of which involves in- evitable ills and sufferings, and the observance of which is demanded of us by God, or by reason — as Bdudaref expresses it. Bondaref does not demand that every man should absolutely put on peasant's slioes and follow the plough, though he says that that would be desirable and would liberate people sunk in luxury from the delusions that torment them (really, nothing but good would come from exact obedience even to that demand) ; but Bondaref says that every man should consider the duty of physical labour — of direct partici- pation in those labours of which he enjoys the fruits — as his first, chief, and indubitably sacred obligation, and that people should be brought up to recognise that duty. And 1 cannot conceive how any honest and thoughtful person can disagree with that opinion.

[1890.]

The above article was contributed to Vengerofs Biographi- cal Dictionary of Russian Writers. Concerning Bondaref, see foot-note, p. 1, of this volume.