DEATH OF TOLSTOI.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 314, 23 November 1910, Page 5

DEATH OF TOLSTOI.

SUCCUMBS TO -HEART FAILURE. St. Petersburg, Monday. After Tolstoi's second cardiac attack yesterday, morphia was injected. The Countess was admitted to the bedside this morning, but her husband died without recognising her. A later message states that the first attack lasted twenty minutes. Tolstoi became conscious in the evening and then slept. A second seizure ocurred early in the morning. Tolstoi again slept, and did not regain consciousness, dying at six in the morning.

Tolstoi's attitude towards property has been a puzzle to his friends as well as to his critics, and it seems still wrapped in a good deal of mystery. The Russian sage was convinced firmly that no man should retain private possessions, and that there should be a literal application of the Scriptural injunction: "Sell all that thou has and give to the poor." In practice he did not proceed to the full length of his conviction, appar ently because members of his family objected strongly to privation being forced upon them. On one occasion Tolstoi was travelling in a third-class railway carriage, and one of his fellow passengers, a merchant, insisted upon plying him with questions. "Is it true that you have given up your possessions?" asked the inquisitive gentleman. "Yes," replied Tolstoi, "All that I had I made over to my wife." "Excellent" retorted the merchant. "I shall do the same; then when my creditors come down on me I shall be able to say I have not a kopeck.' The retort wa3 rather brutal in its homely directness. Tolstoi was not a hypocrite, but he sometimes allowed his idealism to over-shadow his commonsense. He was strangely ignorant of all industrial and commercial matters, and he was ready always to condemn the achievements of those whose work had been remote from his own experience. The result was that all his splendid earnestness and passionate desire for the truth did not save him from appearing foolish on occasions in the eyes of ordinary people who were trying to make the best of the world as they found it.

DUMA'S TRIBUTE OF RESPECT. Received November 22, 6.40 p.m. St. Petersburg, Yesterday. The Duma adjourned, after adopting a resolution of tribute to Tolstoi as a worker for the glory of mankind. Members of the extreme right opposed the resolution. THE CZAR AND TOLSTOI. SIMPLE BURIAL RITES. Received November 23, 8.50 a.m. St. Petersburg, Yesterday. The Czar wrote on the margin of the official report of his death a eulogy of Tolstoi's creations of the Fatherland's type of character. Tolstoi, before his death, dictated this message: "I am going away. Others remain who understand the purport of this life. To them be it given to carry out that which 1 aimed at doing and failed." The body was clothed in peasant dress and placed in a plain oak coffin, which was conveyed to Yaanayapoliana to-day. The burial rites in accordance with Tolstoi's wishes were without religious ceremonial.