to the death in the Christian community of a “minister of God, who was pious as a S. Francis of Assisi, candid as a young girl, of a rigid asceticism, and renowned for his charity.” Logically speaking, the death of such a man should have been peaceful. Had he been a fictitious character, his author would not have described his death except in the conventional fashion. This is what really occurred, according to the letters of an intimate friend of the dying man, who wrote as follows: “Our poor friend is fighting death inch by inch in a way that is positively tragic. He who was so full of resignation, so serene, so perfectly at peace with his own soul, _is terrified by the approach of death_. It is a _horrible sight_, that moves one to tears. We are powerless not only to afford him physical relief but to console the terrible anguish which assails the clear intellect that clings so desperately to life, and which death will claim while fully alive. ‘I could still,’ he cried, ‘give a course of lectures on theology or political economy, and I must die.... It is terrible to be fully conscious.... How much better it would be if I could not think!... And what is it that we ask of God? Eternal happiness! It is just as if one of your workpeople came and asked you for a thousand francs for a day’s work!’ You would answer him, ‘What nonsense you talk, you must be mad, my friend!’ _It is hard to die._ I confess to you, my friend, that this makes one reconsider religion and philosophy.... The goodness of God is not what we think ... _there is a mystery over us_.... Is death then truly the King of Terrors for those who have led good lives?” What is this love of life which makes death so terrible? It is a very interesting question, and Tolstoi himself has published an essay on “the fear of death.”[145] He tries to prove that the feeling arises from a false conception of life. “Those who fear death,” he says, “fear it because it seems an empty darkness, but the darkness and emptiness present themselves merely because they have a false conception of life.”[146] According to Tolstoi man should have no greater fear of death than of any of the other changes to which it is subjected by life. “No one is afraid of falling asleep,” he says, “and yet the phenomena of sleep are like those of death—there is the same loss of consciousness. Man does not fear sleep, although the arrest of consciousness is as complete as in death.”[147] Tolstoi thinks that the fear of death is a superstition, and that it disappears when we see life as it is.[148]