SOURCE: "Religious, Moral, and Didactic Writings," in Introduction to Tolstoy's Writings, The University of Chicago Press, 1968, pp. 94-117.

In the following essay, Simmons presents an overview of Tolstoy's philosophical writings.

1

When Leo Tolstoy and his three brothers were children they used to play a game which had been started by the oldest, the eleven-year-old Nicholas. He possessed a wonderful secret that would make all men happy, he told them, and he had written it on a little green stick which he had buried at a certain spot by the edge of the road in the Zakaz Forest near their house at Yasnaya Polyana. By performing special tasks, his younger brothers would one day learn the secret. Huddled together in a shelter made of boxes and chairs covered with shawls, the children would talk fervently about the mysterious secret written on the green stick. When it became generally known...