vol. xxx, no. 4 april 1926 universal brotherhood - a fact in nature

THE THEOSOPHICAL PATH
always, were full of sincerity and good will, he did not know the real
needs of the lower classes of Russia, because he had not yet experienced
the suffering and misery of their poor, wretched existence. It was, how-
ever, his first attempt to enlighten the people and to better their con-
ditions. He left his estate moved by the urge to finish his studies, and
went to St. Petersburg; there he passed through several examinations
and returned again to spend a year in Yasnaya Polyana.
It is said that he lost considerably in playing at cards, at that
time. Tolstoy felt uneasy and realized that if he did not change his way
of living altogether, he would not be able to pay his debts. Thus, in
order to economize and also to see new surroundings and new people,
he left his paternal estate once again and went to the Caucasus, where
his beloved brother, Xikolas, with whom he was in an unusual friendship
many years till the death of the latter, served as an officer.
It was in the Caucasus, in the midst of primordial nature and
grand scenery, among the eternal youth of the wild and primitive life,
in the simplicity of a Cossack milieu and the sane and healthy habits
and customs of the aboriginal population, that Tolstoy, some twenty-six
years of age then, felt once more, and perhaps for the first time in the
true sense, the blessing of the great solitude, face to face with the grandeur
of nature, in that glorious corner of his native country. Disgusted for
the time being with the pettinesses of a landowner's life, he was touched
by a romantic dream of military glory and the love of primitive life among
the wild tribes of the mountains. This existence had for the time being
a great charm for his weary soul.
Tolstoy did not conceive the idea of entering at once in the army,-
which he did later on. He started a hunter's life, in company with an
old Cossack, Epishka (immortalized in The Cossacks under the name of
Eroshka). With the five rubles (two dollars and a half) he spent monthly,
Tolstoy became able to pay his debts in a very short time.
After that he yielded to the advice of some relatives and entered
the military vocation by enrolling himself in the fourth battery of the
Twentieth Artillery Brigade as a non-commissioned officer. If we wish
to know something about his life, his thoughts, and the gradual evolution
of his conceptions at that time, we ought to turn to his Cossacks, that
wonderful description of the wild life of a still more wild country along
the winding Terek that rushes headlong through the midst of gigantic
rocks and boulders, in scenery of primordial beauty and overwhelming
grandeur. "FTThat happiness," he wrote, "to be alone with nature, to
contemplate her,, to talk with her!"
In the leading type of his story, Olenin, we immediately see the