"I have altered the method of my diction and my writing. The language of the people has sounds to express all that the poet can say, and it is very dear to me. It is the best poetic regulator. If you try to say anything superfluous, too emphatic, or false, the language will not suffer it. Whereas our literary tongue has no skeleton, you may pull it about in every direction, and the result is always something resembling literature." To the people he owed not only models of style; he owed them many of his inspirations. In 1877 a teller of _bylines_ came to Yasnaya Polyana, and Tolstoy took notes of several of his stories. Of the number was the legend _By what do Men live?_ and _The Three Old Men_, which became, as we know, two of the finest of the _Popular Tales and Legends_ which Tolstoy published a few years later.[5] This is a work unique in modern art. It is higher than art: for who, in reading it, thinks of literature? The spirit of the Gospel and the pure love of the brotherhood of man are combined with the smiling geniality of the wisdom of the people. It is full of simplicity, limpidity, and ineffable goodness of heart; and that supernatural radiance which from time to time--so naturally and inevitably--bathes the whole picture; surrounding the old Elias[6] like a halo, or hovering in the cabin of the cobbler Michael; he who, through his skylight on the ground-level, sees the feet of people passing, and whom the Lord visits in the guise of the poor whom the good cobbler has succoured.[7] Sometimes in these tales the parables of the Gospel are mingled with a vague perfume of Oriental legends, of those _Thousand and One Nights_ which Tolstoy had loved since childhood.[8] Sometimes, again, the fantastic light takes on a sinister aspect, lending the tale a terrifying majesty. Such is _Pakhom the Peasant_,[9] the tale of the man who kills himself in acquiring a great surface of and--all the land which he can encircle by walking for a whole day--and who dies on completing his journey. "On the hill the _starschina_, sitting on the ground, watched him as he ran; and he cackled, holding his stomach with both hands. And Pakhom fell. "'Ah! Well done, my merry fellow! You have won a mighty lot of land!' "The _starschina_ rose, and threw a mattock to Pakhom's servant. "'There he is: bury him.' "The servant was alone. He dug a ditch for Pakhom, just as long as from his feet to his head: two yards, and he buried him." Nearly all these tales conceal, beneath their poetic envelope, the same evangelical moral of renunciation and pardon. "Do not avenge thyself upon whosoever shall offend thee.[10] "Do not resist whosoever shall do thee evil.[11] "Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord."[12] And everywhere, and as the conclusion of all, is love.