CHAPTER XVIII
TOLSTOY’S FLIGHT AND DEATH
The principal work of the last years of Tolstoy’s life was the re-editing of “A Cycle of Reading”; he wished to present with greater lucidity the treasure of the world’s thoughts collected by him during many years. Modest in appreciation of his own work, to this “Cycle of Reading” he gave a great importance.
“All my chatterings,” he said, with his habitual severity to himself, “will be forgotten, but this work will survive.”
And it is the opinion of many of us that in it he has laid the foundation of the universal religion of which he dreamt in his youth.
Simultaneously with this strenuous intellectual labour, and while carrying on a voluminous correspondence, a process of spiritual illumination was incessantly taking place within Tolstoy. His kindness, goodwill, and affability towards his innumerable visitors, his modesty and austerity regarding himself, reached, in the last year of his life, the
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