When I was a little fellow, we used to study every day, and only on Sundays and holidays went out and played with our brothers. Once my father said: "The children must learn to ride. Send them to the riding-school!" I was the youngest of the brothers, and I asked: "May I, too, learn to ride?" My father said: "You will fall down." I began to beg him to let me learn, and almost cried. My father said: "All right, you may go, too. Only look out! Don't cry when you fall off. He who does not once fall down from a horse will not learn to ride." When Wednesday came, all three of us were taken to the riding-school. We entered by a large porch, and from the large porch went to a smaller one. Beyond the porch was a very large room: instead of a floor it had sand. And in this room were gentlemen and ladies and just such boys as we. That was the riding-school. The riding-school was not very light, and there was a smell of horses,...
The Free Age Press is an earnest effort to spread those deep convictions in which the noblest spirits of every age and race have believed—that man's true aim and happiness is “unity in reason and love”; the realization of the brotherhood of all men: that we must all strive to eradicate, each from himself, those false ideas, false feelings, and false desires—personal, social, religious, economic—which alienate us one from another and produce nine-tenths of all human suffering. Of these truly Christian and universally religious aspirations the writings of Leo Tolstoy are to-day perhaps the most definite expression, and it is to the production of very cheap editions of his extant religious, social and ethical works, together with much unpublished matter and his new writings, to which we have special access (being in close touch with Tolstoy), that we are at present confining ourselves. We earnestly trust that all who symp...
I had lived all my life out of town. When, in 1881, I went to live in Moscow, the poverty of the town greatly surprised me. I am familiar with poverty in the country; but city poverty was new and incomprehensible to me. In Moscow it was impossible to pass along the street without encountering beggars, and especially beggars who are unlike those in the country. These beggars do not go about with their pouches in the name of Christ, as country beggars are accustomed to do, but these beggars are without the pouch and the name of Christ. The Moscow beggars carry no pouches, and do not ask for alms. Generally, when they meet or pass you, they merely try to catch your eye; and, according to your look, they beg or refrain from it. I know one such beggar who belongs to the gentry. The old man walks slowly along, bending forward every time he sets his foot down. When he meets you, he rests on one foot and makes you a kind of salute.&nbs...