I could not subscribe to this conclusion, neither could I see anything strange in his sudden departure. I knew of a number of similar flights in his life, and the reasons for them, and, therefore, I was little surprised. And as to suspecting him of failing mentality, I had but a short time before read the latest of his writings, entitled "_Three Days in a Village_," in which I had seen no sign of a lessening of his power of mind and heart and soul. And it is obvious that the Russian government, likewise, saw no lessening of his mentality, for it promptly suppressed the publication of it. An enterprising newspaper man, however, succeeded in forwarding a copy to our country, which enterprise not only rescued for us the last of Tolstoy's writings but also furnished us an explanation of his sudden and fatal flight. Divided into three parts. The article, a comparatively short one, was divided into three parts, each a heart-rending recital of miseries in villages neighboring the count's estate. First part described peasant poverty. The first part deals with wayfaring men. From six to twelve of them visit these villages daily in search of bread and clothes, of work and shelter. Some are blind or lame, some sick or feeble, some are very old or very young, some are maimed or crippled, dragging with them hideous memories of the recent Japanese war. Many of them are ignorant and filthy, but some of them are intelligent and revolutionary, who look upon the prosperous as thieves, and ask for their share of the coined blood pressed from the hearts of the poor and down-trodden. To keep these unceasing streams of wayfaring paupers from becoming a government charge, they are parcelled out by the authorities among the poor and helpless peasantry, good care being taken that they are not loaded upon the landlords, merchants or priests. The wickedness of this course is fully intelligible only to those who have some conception of the indescribable poverty and misery of Russian peasants. Stripped of almost all by taxation and by landlord oppression and by priest and constable extortion, many of them have scarcely food and room enough for themselves and cattle, scarcely clothes enough to cover their nakedness, no money with which to buy the absolutely necessary farming-implements, or to keep their wretched hovels from toppling over their heads. And yet, notwithstanding their appalling misery, Tolstoy saw their hearts go out in pity to these wandering paupers, and religiously dividing their crust with those yet more unfortunate than they, not knowing how soon they themselves might be in a similarly wretched plight. Second part described peasant misery.