http://www.vqronline.org/way-all-flesh-tolstoy-and-mortality

And so the great man searched. Schopenhauer, Solomon, and Buddha offered no solace.Scientific rationalism was a coffin for his soul. Others of his own class and education had no clue. Then, in a suicidal stupor, he began to see that the supernaturalism and irrationality of faith, and all the vulgate attached to it, wasn’t so stupid after all: “It alone gives mankind answers to the questions of life and consequently the possibility of living.” Writing War and Peace and Anna Karenina wasn’t enough; the love of his wife wasn’t enough; the lives of his children weren’t enough; Leo Tolstoy also had to have an invitation from the infinite. And those who mailed him this invitation to the infinite were the peasants—​because, like Gerasim in Ivan Ilyich and unlike all the poseurs from Tolstoy’s own set, the peasants didn’t pretend. Their beliefs weren’t disconnected from their lives; their superstitions were meaningful because they enhanced happiness. Furthermore, their privation and ceaseless hardship were not sources of wonder or remorse—​they accepted existence as it was. And by accepting existence as it was they accepted its cessation too. Tolstoy’s rabid dread of death turned him into something of a slummer: This genius with deep wealth and unmatched renown tried unsuccessfully to embrace privation and even took to wearing the peasant’s traditional dress. But it’s one thing to wear their clothes; quite another to live their lives.