Society will never be at peace, said he, until man will have learned the service of sacrifice. And man will never be happy until he will have learned to find his happiness in making others happy.[7]
My Visit to Tolstoy
(Concluded.)
A Discourse, at Temple Keneseth Israel,
by
Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, D. D.
Philadelphia, January 8th, 1911.
Tolstoy's fatal flight.
The world was amazed, a few weeks ago, at the news that Tolstoy had fled from his family and home, with the resolve to retire to some wilderness, there to await his end. Guesses as to the cause were many, and the opinion was quite general that extreme old age had affected his reason.
Explained in light of last article of his.
I could not subscribe to this conclusion, neither could I see anything strange in his sudden departure. I knew of a number of similar flights in his life, and the reasons for them, and, therefore, I was little surprised. And as to suspecting him of failing mentality, I had but a short time before read the latest of his writings, entitled "Three Days in a Village," in which I had seen no sign of a lessening of his power of mind and heart and soul. And it is obvious that the Russian government, likewise, saw no lessening of his mentality, for it promptly suppressed the publication of it. An enterprising newspaper man, however, succeeded in forwarding a copy to our country, which enterprise not only rescued for us the last of Tolstoy's writings but also furnished us an explanation of his sudden and fatal flight.