Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/49

Biography volume. We learn from his letter to Dembinsky in 1886, what moved Tolstoi thus to cater for the humblest of his readers: "These millions of poor Russians who just know their letters stand before us like so many hungry little daws with wide-open mouths crying to us: 'Gospoda native writers! throw into these mouths of ours spiritual food worthy of you and us, nourish us hungry ones with the living literary word!' — And the simple and honest Russian people deserves that we should respond to its call."

Of late years Tolstoi has lived for the most part at Yasnaya Polyana, in the bosom of his family, working with and for his tenants continually, and yet finding time to answer daily the thousands of letters which reach him from all parts of the world, asking for his counsel and assistance in every imaginable sort of difficulty. At the present moment, with perhaps the single exception of Fr. John of Cronstadt, he is indisputably the most popular personage in the Empire of the Tsar. In the winter he generally resides at Moscow, frequenting, by preference, charitable institutions and working men's concerts, despite his seventy years taking the liveliest interest in every question of the day, especially those relating to religion and morality, and delighting everyone by the alertness of his intelligence and the generous breadth of his sympathy. In 1899 the veteran astonished and delighted the world of literature with his "Voskresenie" ("Resurrection") a noble work (despite its occasional extravagances) from every xli.