We have two natures: the animal nature, which decays and dies, and the spiritual, which lives forever. Life consists in doing those things which gratify our desires, and thus bring happiness. But when we attempt to live and gain happiness by the gratification of our animal natures we meet only disappointment, for animal desires can never be really satisfied. Therefore we need to be regenerated, which is nothing more than the enthronement of our spiritual natures and the denying or casting-out of our animal natures. The gratification of our spiritual selves is found in Love, the only good, and the essence of love consists not in self-pleasing but in seeking our happiness in the happiness and well-being of others. Thus do we obey the law of God and become one with Him. In the exercise of our desires for the well-being of others we will not only deny ourselves all carnal desires, but never oppose force by force--love will be sufficient to overcome all enemies. We must not even flee from suffering, danger, or death, but accept each as good, whereupon it will cease to have power to harm us. This life of love is opposed to all selfish acquisition of property. To be truly happy, we must get back to the soil, abandon the artificialities of city life, labor for our food, and give to others. Though Tolstoi turned so often, and finally without backsliding, to the peasant class, he did not so much champion their cause as he gemmed a crown for the obscure life as such. He could not pity those whose ways were laborious, because to him no other career than bodily toil could bring the highest good. The outbursting, fiercely passionate soul of all his later years was for the pitiable masses who still chose swords rather than plowshares, who preferred a lawsuit to a loss, who loved the city more than the country, who saw joy in the factory and none in the farm. Those who have only a shivering admiration for the terrors of Russian fiction in general will find in Tolstoi’s short-stories much that is sweet and gentle; yet, being the most Russian of all Russian fiction-writers, he could but cry aloud with the pity of his people. But greater than his pity was his passion for preaching. Sermons big and little lurk in every corner of his stories to fix you with their relentless eyes. Even when the tale is not clearly didactic, a swift vision of moral relations is sure to come to him who reads. For an instance, take “My Dream,” the story of a Russian prince whose daughter runs away with a married man and bears him a child. At length the sister-in-law of the prince pleads with him to forgive his daughter. Here is his severe reply: “I have suffered enough. I have now but one desire, and that is to put her in such a position that she will be independent of others, and that she shall have no further need of communicating with me. Then she can live her own life, and my family and I need know nothing more about her. That is all I can do.”