upon vegetables. He dressed like a peasant too, in summer in a smock and in the winter in a sheepskin coat and cap and high boots. He refused to have any one to wait on him, and did his own room. This was not easy to him, as, though he had always hated luxury, as an aristocrat he had taken certain things for granted, such as the fact that his clothes would always be folded and brushed and put away by a servant. By nature he was very untidy, and it was really an effort to him to pick up his things and keep them in order. In earlier days, when he had dressed and undressed, he let all his clothes tumble on to the floor, and there they would lie in different parts of the room until they were picked up. To see him pack his portmanteau for a journey was said to be an unforgettable sight, the confusion and disorder was something so hopeless. But now he tried to turn over a new leaf so as not to give people trouble.
Tolstoy saw the utter uselessness of preaching what you never intend to practise. He was quite determined to carry out all he asked others to do. After all it is more by the life you lead and example rather than by words that you persuade people, and Tolstoy tells a true story in this connection. It is as follows:
The Tolstoy family took into their house a dirty, homeless little boy, to teach him and to benefit him generally. "What," asks Tolstoy, "did the boy see and learn?"
He saw Tolstoy's own children, older than himself
