almost as if this was what hurt me most—much more than that he had hanged himself. . . . And since that day I haven't known a single hour of happiness.
My Religion
By Leo Tolstoy
(From an essay in which the Russian novelist and reformer, 1828-1910, has set forth the creed by which he lived)
What is the law of nature? Is it to know that my security and that of my family, all my amusements and pleasures, are purchased at the expense of misery, deprivation, and suffering to thousands of human beings—by the terror of the gallows; by the misfortune of thousands stifling within prison walls; by the fears inspired by millions of soldiers and guardians of civilization, torn from their homes and besotted by discipline, to protect our pleasures with loaded revolvers against the possible interference of the famishing! Is it to purchase every fragment of bread that I put in my mouth and the mouths of my children by the numberless privations that are necessary to procure my abundance? Or is it to be certain that my piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat?
