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ESSAYS AND LETTERS
I
INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS
'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken.'—Gen. iii. 19.
The above are the title and the epigraph of a book by Timothy Miháylovitch Bóndaref[1] which I have read in manuscript.
That book seems to me very remarkable for its strength, its clearness, and the beauty of its language, as well as for a sincerity of conviction that is apparent in every line, but above all for the importance, truth, and depth of its fundamental thought.
- ↑ T. M. Bóndaref was born a serf in 1820, In 1858 he was sent to serve for twenty-five years in the army, but joining the sect of 'Sabbatarians' (who accept the Old Testament as authoritative, and follow the Jewish faith in many things), he was banished in 1867 to Údina in Siberia. There, as a ploughman of great energy, he built up for himself a fairly comfortable peasant home, but again impoverished himself by efforts to spread his doctrine of 'bread-labour.' His book could not be published in Russia, but has been translated into French and other languages. Another title Bóndaref gave to his book is 'The Agriculturist's Triumph.'
