“ They resorted to violence, knowing that they rendered themselves liable to violence in return, and they are suffering the natural consequences of their mistaken action. I cannot imagine," he continued, "any darker conception of hell than the state of some of those unfortunate people in Siberia, whose hearts are full of bitterness and hatred, and who, at the same time, are absolutely powerless even to return evil for evil. ”

“ Count Tolstoi, however, continued to maintain that the only way to abolish oppression and violence is to refuse absolutely to do violence, regardless of provocation. He said that the policy of passive resistance to evil which he advocated as a revolutionary method is in complete harmony with the character of the Russian peasant, and he referred to the wide and rapid spread of religious dissent in the empire as showing the chance of success which such a policy would have, in spite of repressive measures. ”

“ If you were let alone, you could perhaps convert a few hundred thousand peasants to your views ; but do you think you would be let alone? As soon as your teaching began to be dangerous to the stability of the state, it would be suppressed. Suppose for the sake of argument, that you succeeded in converting a quarter of the population ; the Government would draw soldiers enough from the other three quarters to put that one quarter in prison or in Siberia, and there would be an end of your propaganda and your revolution. ”

“ It has long been a reproach against Vegetarianism that it produces no great men. Its opponents all too willingly forget such names as Buddha, Plutarch, Wesley, Milton, Sir Isaac Newton, Shelley, and other epoch-making Vegetarians, who have helped to mould the destinies of the world ; and they sneer at the simplicity of teach-ing which is to them foolishness and a rock of offence. To the long list of Vegetarian heroes and giants must now he added the honoured name of Count Leo Tolstoi, the Russian novelist and social reformer. ”

“ The rather small eyes, deeply set under shaggy brows, are of the peculiar grey which lights up in excitement with a flash like that of drawn steel ; the nose is large and prominent, with a singular wideness and bluntness at the end ”

“ But the fame of the Novelist is rapidly being eclipsed by the reputation of the Social Reformer; and it is in this character that Tolstoi has a special claim upon the interest and sympathy of Vegeta-rians. Living at the centre of the most autocratic em-pire of the world, nurtured in traditions of imperial rule, saturated with an at-mosphere of cynical dis-content, Count Tolstoi has preserved untainted the freshness of an original soul. He is not content to look out upon a world that sins, suffers, and sor-rows, through the rose-tinted glasses of the pro-fessional optimist ”

“ Leo Tolstoi is intensely human - his breast beats responsive to the complex chords of nineteenth century exis-tence; he feels and there-fore he knows, he believes and therefore he loves. For, indeed, sympathy must ever he the warp and woof of the fabric whereon the poet pictures the great drama of life ”

“ I was just about to ask my driver if we were not almost there, when he gathered up his reins, turned into what seemed to be an old wood-road leading away from the turnpike on the right in the direction of an inclosed forest, and said, "Na konets daiekheli" ("At last we have arrived") . ”