opinion—­the only power which subdues Governments—­would become evident, demanding freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, justice, and humanity.”

From a distance, the bustling politicians and reformers of happier lands might regard this quietism or wise passiveness as a mere counsel of despair, suitable enough as a shelter in the storm of Russia’s tyranny, but having little significance for Western men of affairs.  Yet even so they had not silenced the voice of this persistent rebel; for he rose in equal rebellion against the ideals, methods, and standards of European cities.  Wealth, commerce, industrial development, inventions, luxuries, and all the complexity of civilisation were of no more account to him than the toys of kings and the tag-rag of the churches.  Other rebels had preached the gospel of pleasure to the poor, and had themselves acted on their precepts.  Other reformers, even religious reformers, had extolled the delights of women, wine, and song.  But here was a man despising these as the things after which the Gentiles seek.  Love intrigues, banquets, wealthy establishments, operas, theatres, poetry, and fashionable novels—­what had they to do with the kingdom of God that is within?  He touched nothing from which he did not strip the adornment.  He left life bare and stern as the starry firmament, and he felt awe at nothing, not even at the starry firmament, but only at the sense of right and wrong in man.  He did not summon the poor to rise against “the idle rich,” but he summoned the idle rich, the well-to-do, the gentry of independent means, the comfortable annuitants, the sportsmen, the writers and dramatists of pleasure, the artists of triviality, the pretty rhymers, and the people who are too busy for thought, to rise against themselves.  It was a much harder summons to obey, and generally they answered with a shrug and a mutter of “madness,” “mere asceticism,” or “a fanatic’s intolerance.”

Yet they could not choose but hear.  Mr. Kipling, in agreement with an earlier prophet, once identified rebellion with the sin of witchcraft, and about Tolstoy there was certainly a witching power, a magic or demonic attraction, that gave the hearer no peace.  Perhaps more even than from his imaginative strength, it arose from his whole-hearted sincerity, always looking reality straight in the face, always refusing compromise, never hesitating to follow where reason led.  Compromise and temporise and choose the line of least resistance, as we habitually do, there still remains in most people a fibre that vibrates to that iron sincerity.  And so it was that, from the first, Tolstoy brought with him a disturbing and incalculable magic—­an upheaving force, like leaven stirring in the dough, or like a sword in unconditioned and unchartered peace.