district, moving about from house to house, from village to village, from canton to canton, gathering information about the needs of each family and individual, feeding the hungry, tending the sick, comforting those who have lost their breadwinners, and utterly forgetful of himself. From morning until night he is on his legs, distributing, administering, organizing, as if endowed with youthful vigor and an iron constitution. Hail, rain, snow, intense cold, and abominable roads are nothing to him."

The Countess was equally busy in Moscow. A letter she wrote in the "Russian Gazette" produced the result described as follows:

"People of all classes and conditions were coming up on foot or in carriages, entering the house, crossing themselves before the icons, putting packets of bank-notes upon her table, and going their ways. In a short time the table was literally covered with bank-notes. The Countess was engaged in sealing up these offerings, and sending them off at once to her sons and daughters, who are in the tea-stalls and corn-stores in the famine-stricken districts."

The whole family were employed throughout the period of the famine, in making known the condition of the people to the world, in collecting money, and personally attending to its distribution, and, one adds very reluctantly, in bearing the harsh criticism and blame of a certain portion of the Russian press and people.

A man like Tolstoi in a country like Russia could not live long without becoming "a suspect." During the famine "the high-born family of his excellency were made the objects of many fierce onslaughts, as well as the Count himself. In a country so much governed as Russia, it was regarded as extremely

suspicious for "private persons, perhaps forming a private society," — that great dread in despotic governments, should go about collecting information about the famine; and " conspiracy" was at once charged by some journals. But his later writings have at last been published in his native country, and are said to exert a great influence; so it was not possible to make great headway against him at that critical time, and he was able to keep on with his work. That there is much that is revolutionary in his teachings no one can deny, especially upon the subject of marriage. But his latest evangel, that of manual labor for all, need not be regarded as dangerous, even in Russia. And certainly there is nothing alarming in his new golden rule, which he states. thus: "Get others to work for you as little as possible, and work yourself as much as possible for them; make the fewest calls upon the services of your neighbors, and render them the maximum number of services yourself."

One would be glad to hear that his work is satisfying to himself, and that he, who has sacrificed so much for an idea, is not haunted by doubts of its real usefulness. But we are told by a late visitor that he, at parting, uttered the following sad and remarkable words:

"I do not know whether what I am doing is for the best, or whether I ought to tear myself away from this occupation. All I know is that I cannot leave this work. Perhaps it is weakness; perhaps it is my duty which keeps me here. But I cannot give it up, even if I should like to. Like Moses on Mt. Horeb, I shall never see the fruit of my labors. I shall never know whether I have been acting for the best or not. My fear is that what I am doing is only a palliative."

One is reminded of Ruskin's old age by that of Tolstoi. Like Ruskin, he did brilliant and valuable literary work in youth and middle age, and received his meed of fame. But in his later years he has poured forth much that is irrelevant and almost childish, though always in brilliant fashion, and has lost his hold upon the attention of the world. But Tolstoi's is the happier lot, in that he has a devoted wife and sympathizing family, while Ruskin sits by a lonely fireside, and is not even cheered by the memory of happy domestic days. That these men wrought for others in the day of their strength, loved the world with surpassing love, and strove to make it better, happier, nobler, must somehow lighten the burden of their years; and though the shadows be very deep about them as they go down the western slope of life, that thought must light their pathway like a star. In Russia the work to be done is so vast, the reforms needed so many and radical, the changes which the times in which we live demand so revolutionary, that the patriotic and public-spirited grow hopeless and are unnerved, and the constant danger is that only babblers will come to the front. Stronger practical men than Tolstoi must do the great work; but it will be his glory that he tried in his own way to do something; forgot his ease, his prospects, and his fame, and became a servant to all; suffered for his convictions, and roused many other noble souls to aid in the supreme struggle. Not what he has done, but what he sought to do, will be his lasting He goes swiftly now,

monument.

"Upwards towards the peaks,
Towards the stars,

And towards the great silence."

RUDYARD KIPLING.

PUDYARD KIPLING is one of the latest of the

young men of genius to awake in the morning and find himself famous. Far across the plains and the jungles of India his name had flown in the night. The little book printed on brown paper, and passed from hand to hand, had done it. Only a handful of barrack-room ballads had wrought the spell. Very soon they flew across the seas, and the larger world of Europe read and laughed, and began to criticise. In the language of his own "Conundrum of the Workshop, "

"When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the club-room's green and gold,

The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mould

They scratch with their pens in the mould of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start,

When the Devil mutters behind the leaves: 'It's pretty, but is it art?" "

But the period of questioning did not last long, and the literary world soon decided that it was art, and with a pungent new flavor which they relished. The daring young Englishman had carried more than the outer entrenchments, he had raised his flag over the fort. Perhaps, if one said he had stormed the barri