in that difference, let us imagine that Tolstoy had died before the summer of 1908, when he uttered his overwhelming protest against the political massacres ordained by Russia.  In place of that protest, in place of the poignant indignation which appealed to Stolypin’s hangmen to fix their well-soaped noose around his own old neck, since, if any were guilty, it was he—­in place of the shame and wrath that cried, “I cannot be silent!” we should have had nothing but our own memory and regret, murmuring to ourselves, “If only Tolstoy had been living now!  But perhaps, for his sake, it is better he is not.”

And now that he is dead, and the world is chilled by the loss of its greatest and most fiery personality, the adversary may breathe more freely.  As Tolstoy was crossing a city square—­I suppose the “Red Square” in Moscow—­on the day when the Holy Synod of Russia excommunicated him from the Church, he heard someone say, “Look!  There goes the devil in human form!” And for the next few weeks he continued to receive letters clotted with anathemas, damnations, threats, and filthy abuse.  It was no wonder.  To all thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, to all priests of established religions, to the officials of every kind of government, to the Ministers, whether of parliaments or despots, to all naval and military officers, to all lawyers, judges, jurymen, policemen, gaolers, and executioners, to all tax-collectors, speculators, and financiers, Tolstoy was, indeed, the devil in human form.  To them he was the gainsayer, the destroyer, the most shattering of existent forces.  And, in themselves, how large and powerful a section of every modern State they are!  They may almost be called the Church and State incarnate, and they seldom hesitate to call themselves so.  But, against all their authorities, formulae, and traditions, Tolstoy stood in perpetual rebellion.  To him their parchments and wigs, their cells and rods and hang-ropes, their mitres, chasubles, vestments, incense, chantings, services, bells, and books counted as so much trumpery.  For him external law had no authority.  If it conflicted with the law of the soul, it was the soul’s right and duty to disregard or break it.  Speaking of the law which ordained the flogging of peasants for taxes, he wrote:  “There is but one thing to say—­that no such law can exist; that no ukase, or insignia, or seals, or Imperial commands can make a law out of a crime.”  Similarly, the doctrines of the Church, her traditions, sacraments, rituals, and miracles—­all that appeared to him to conflict with human intelligence and the law of his soul—­he disregarded or denied.  “I deny them all,” he wrote in his answer to the Holy Synod’s excommunication (1901); “I consider all the sacraments to be coarse, degrading sorcery, incompatible with the idea of God or with the Christian teaching.”  And, as the briefest statement of the law of his soul, he added: