Page:Rebels and reformers (1919).djvu/314

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his powers of thought and observation must have been. He continued this book, and brought out later other volumes entitled "Boyhood" and "Youth." They are all three full of beautiful things. Tolstoy also wrote about the Caucasus, a novel called "The Cossacks," a romantic story of the strange, wild people who inhabit this part of Russia.

At the time of the Crimean War, Tolstoy experienced as a soldier the horrors of battle. He was at the siege of Sebastopol, and wrote the book of that name. It made a great sensation when it came out, soon after the war was over. Its profound understanding of the feelings of men who were constantly facing death and danger, and of those who were dying, made a deep impression on people.

Tolstoy, from seeing war, formed his very strong opinions against it. He became from that time one of the most passionate apostles of peace. He saw how much that is splendid is sometimes brought out in people who face the terrors of war, but, on the other hand, he saw its fearful uselessness, the waste of noble human beings, the suffering it causes everywhere, and the destruction, in some, of all human feeling. "It is not suffering and death that are terrible," says Tolstoy, "but that which allows people to inflict suffering and death."

Tolstoy after Sebastopol left the army and went back to St. Petersburg, this time to live in a literary circle, where he was welcomed by distinguished au-