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anarchist woman
AN ANARCHIST WOMAN
 

An

Anarchist Woman

 

By
HUTCHINS HAPGOOD

Author of “The Autobiography of a Thief,”
“The Spirit of Labor’?

 

 

 

NEW YORK
DUFFIELD .& COMPANY

1909

 

 
CopyRIGHT, 1909, bY
DUFFIELD AND COMPANY
“The best government is that which
makes itself superfluous.’
GOETHE
CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I,

II.
TIL.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.

ScHOOL AND FAcTOoRY .
DomEsTIc SERVICE .

DomEsTIC SERVICE (CONTINUED)

ADVENTURES IN SEX
Marie’s SALVATION
TERRY

THE MEETING

THE RoGues’ GALLERY . 4
THE SALON .

More OF THE SALON
Tue END OF THE SALON
Marie's ATTEMPT
Marte’s FAILURE
Marie’s REVOLT
TerRy’s FINISH

PAGE
12

48
65
73
94
120
147
186
217
239
261
280

299
PREFACE

T is possible that in fifty years people now
called “ anarchists” will have in America
as respectable a place as they now occupy in
France. When we are more accustomed to
social thought, we shall not regard those who
radically differ from us, as mad dogs or
malevolent idiots. We may, indeed, still look
on them as mistaken, but what now seems to
us their insanity or peculiar atrociousness
will vanish with our growing understanding
and experience. When we become less crude
in civilisation, they will seem less crude to
us. When, with growing culture, we see
things more nearly as they are, the things we
see, including the anarchists, will seem more
sympathetic.

This book is not an attempt to justify any
person or set of persons. It is not a political
or economic pamphlet. It represents an
effort to throw light on what may be called
the temperament of revolt; by portraying the
mental life of an individual, and incidentally
of more than one individual, I have hoped to
Preface

make more clear the natural history of the
anarchist; to show under what conditions, in
connection with what personal qualities, the
anarchistic habit of mind arises, and to point
out, suggestively, rather than explicitly, the
nature, the value, and the tragic limitation of
the social rebel.
An Anarchist Woman

CHAPTER I
School and Factory

YV EEN I first met the heroine of this tale,
Marie, she was twenty-three years old,
yet had lived enough for a woman of more
than twice her age; indeed, few women of any,
age ever acquire the amount of mental
experience possessed by this factory hand and
servant girl. She had more completely~
translated her life into terms of thought thant
any other woman of my acquaintance. She
had been deeply helped to do this by a man of
strange character, with whom she lived.
She had also been deeply helped by vice and
misery. The intensity of her nature showed
in her anemic body and her large eyes, dark
and glowing, but more than all in the way she
had of making everything her own, no matter“
from what source it came. Everything she
said, or wrote, or did, all fitted into her per-
sonality, had one note, her note. But perhaps

[r]
An Anarchist Woman

the most intense quality of all was—and is—
this never-failing though gracefully mani-
 fested energy, resulting in unity of character
.©and temperament in expression. To keep
tt | ceverything i in tone is a quality of art; it is also
a sign of great, though not always obvious,
energy.

Marie was born in a Chicago slum in 1884.
Her mother, half French and half German,
was endowed with cruelty truly international.
Her father was a drunken machinist of
German extraction, generally out of a job.
Both the parents beat the little girl, the mother
because she was cruel, the father because he
was a beast.

Her earliest memories are connected with
the smoky streets of the West Side. The smell
of the Stock Yards suggests her youth to her,
as the smell of walnuts brings back to the more
fortunate country man the rich beauty of a
natural childhood. The beatings she received
from her parents and the joy of her escape to
the street—these are the strongest impressions
derived from her tender years. To her the
street was paradise; her home, hell. She
knew that when she returned to the house she
would find a mother half crazy with poverty

[2]
School and Factory

and unhappiness and a father half crazy
with drink; and that, if for no other reason
than for diversion and relief, they would
beat her.

The authorities finally succeeded in forcing
the little girl’s parents to send her to school,
where she remained only two years. She was
not quite ten years old at the time, and the
memories she has of her school life are only
a trifle less unpleasant than those of her home.
The last day in school especially lives in her
recollection; and she thus described it in a
letter to me:

“Tt was a warm morning toward the end
of May, and room seven in the Pullman
School was pervaded with an intense excite-
ment. For soon examination day would come
and the pupils were being prepared for the
occasion. The children fidgeted uneasily in
their seats and even the teacher became nerv-
ous and impatient, glancing often at the big
clock which ticked so monotonously and
slowly. Soon it would be twelve o’clock and
teacher and pupils would have a respite for a
few hours. If only those stupid children
would solve those problems in arithmetic, the
most difficult study, they would not have to

[3]
An Anarchist Woman

stay after school. But it happened just as the
teacher had feared: A dozen children, of
whom two were boys, did not give correct
answers. After the school was dismissed
the stupids were ordered to go to the black-
board, and stay there until they saw the
light.

“ Meanwhile the teacher sat at her desk with
a despairing look on her face and the general
air of a martyr, as she noticed the futile
efforts of those stupid children. But she was
evidently determined not to help them out of
their difficulty. After a while, one of the
boys solved the problem and was dismissed.
The other children looked at his work and
quickly copied it before the teacher could
erase it from the blackboard. Not I, however,
for I was at the other end of the room and
my eyes were weak. I enviously watched the
other children leaving the room, until I was
alone with the teacher. I tried the terrible,
senseless problem again and again and
became so confused and nervous that I was
on the verge of tears. All the little knowl-
edge I had of mathematics left me com-
pletely. Finally the teacher lost her patience
and showed me how to get the answer.

[4]
School and Factory

“You stupid girl!’ she said, ‘you will
never pass the examination.’

“But I did not care. I ran from the school-
house, and on my way home kept saying to
myself: ‘I don’t have to pass, for I’m going
to work next week, and I’m so glad. Then
T’ll never, never have to study arithmetic any
more. Oh, how I wish next week were here
already.’ I was not quite twelve years old and
I would have been working even then if my
prospective employers had not instructed my
parents to secure a certificate showing that I
was fourteen years old.

“The next Monday morning, bright and
early, with this new certificate, which was
sworn to by my mother and duly attested by
a notary, I presented myself at the office of
Messrs. Hardwin & Co., in South Water
Street. They were wholesale dealers in mis-
cellaneous household supplies, from bird-seed
and flavouring extracts to bluing and lye, the
latter the principal article. Mr. Hardwin, a
benevolent looking old gentleman with a
white beard and a skull-cap, glanced at the
certificate, and patting stupid me kindly on
the head, hired me for two dollars a week,
and sent me upstairs where I was put to work

Lad
An Anarchist Woman

washing old cans collected from the ash
barrels and alleys of the city. After being
cleansed, they were filled with lye, and new
covers sealed on them. Then they were cov-
ered with neat white labels, and packed in
cases and delivered to all parts of the United
States.

“This sort of work was not what I had
expected to do. But I was told by my mother
that all people who worked for their living
had to start in that way, and gradually work
themselves upwards. So I waited patiently
for the time when I might, perhaps, secure the
position of labelling. Then, too, I thought
that great place would bring an increase of
salary, for I had already learned that the
lighter the work, the heavier the pay.

“About this time the firm received large
orders for lye, and all hands were put to
work filling the cans with this corrosive
material, for which purpose rubber gloves
were used. As I was the latest addition to the
factory, and the greenest girl in the place, it
was easy for the older and more experienced
girls to secure the best gloves for the work.
The old, worn out ones, which were full
of holes, fell to me, who was too young and

[6]
School and Factory

timid to rebel against these conditions. After
a week of this work my hands were all eaten
by the lye and it was torturing agony to
move them in any way. At night my mother
used to put salve and bandages on them, but
this treatment was of little avail because the
next day my hands would be covered with
that horrible stuff which ate deeper
and deeper, until the pain became unbear-
able.

“So, one morning, I went to Mr. Hardwin
and begged him, with tears in my eyes, to let
me work at something else until my hands
were healed. He looked at my swollen fingers
and said: ‘My poor girl, you certainly shall
work at something else. I will give you a
nice easy job making bird-seed boxes.’

““T was immediately put at my new work,
which seemed really delightful to me, but I
was rather lonely, as I was the only girl on
that floor. JI made thousands and thousands
of those boxes, which were stacked in heaps
upon the shelves above my head. Directly
behind me was a great belt, connected with
the cutting machine up-stairs, which all day
long cut out the round pieces of tin needed
to cover the cans of lye after they were filled.

[7]
An Anarchist Woman

This belt as it whirled round and round made
a great noise. But I soon grew quite used to
it. I became like a machine myself. All alone
I sat there, day after day, while the great belt
whirred out the same monotonous song. I
kept time to its monotony by a few movements
of the hands endlessly repeated, turning out
boxes and boxes and boxes, all alike. I saw,
heard, and felt almost nothing. My hands
moved unconsciously and instinctively. At
this time, I think, the first feeling of profound
ennui came to me, that feeling which to shake
off I would at a later time do anything, any-
thing, no matter how violent and extreme it
was. Only at noon time when the whistle
shrieked did I seem alive, and then I was
dazed and trembling.

“The great belt then stopped whirring for
half an hour and I sat and ate my frugal meal,
listening eagerly to the talk going on about
me. Sometimes the girls made me the butt of
their jests, for they were envious of me, be-
cause of my easy job, and hinted that I was
not getting this snap for nothing. All of this
I did not in the least understand, for I was not
much more than twelve years old.

“One morning I was surprised and

[8]
School and Factory

delighted to see Mr. Hardwin come in and
ask me how my hands were, and if I still
suffered much pain. I was so grateful that
tears came to my eyes as I answered. That
night I told my mother what an extremely
kind and good man Mr. Hardwin was. He
repeated these visits several mornings in
succession, always asking me how I was
getting along, and patting me on the head or
shoulder as he went away. I had been working
perhaps two months at this job, when one
morning it happened that I was the first one
of the employees to arrive at the factory. While
I was in the dressing-room removing my
wraps, a knock came on the door, and Mr.
Hardwin entered. Quickly seizing me in his
arms, he covered my face with kisses, and did
not quit until he heard someone approaching.
He left hastily, saying ‘Don’t tell!’ the only
words he uttered during the scene. I was so
amazed that I did not even scream. Nor did
I understand, but I did feel troubled and
ashamed. All that morning I was uneasy and
nervous, and the following day I waited out-
side until some of the girls came, so that I
should not have to go into the factory alone.
The day following I received an envelope

[9]
An Anarchist Woman

with my pay, and was told that my services
were no longer required.

“T got a beating at home as a result of my
discharge, but as I soon found another job,
my parents became comparatively kind to me
again. This new work was in a candy factory,
where I was both startled and amazed at the
way the beautiful, sweet candies were made.
I remained there about six months, when I
was discharged because I had been late
several times in one week. The next job was
in a brewery, where I labelled beer bottles.
This was the cleanest and most wholesome
place I ever worked in. We had a whole
hour for dinner, and the boys and girls were
all so jolly. Nearly every day after lunch
we played on mouth organs and danced on the
smooth floor until the whistle blew for work
again. Oh, there, it was good to work! Three
4 times a day each employee received a bottle
of nice cold beer, which, after several hours
of hard work, tasted lovely. The people
there seemed to think it was not evil to be
happy, and I naturally agreed with them
against the good people outside. But one ill-
fated day my parents heard that a brewery
was an immoral place for a young girl to work

[10]
School and Factory

in, and that if I remained there I might lose
my character and reputation. So I was taken
away and put to work in another place and
then in another, but I am sure that I never
again found a place that I liked half as well
as the dear old bottled beer shop.”

[11]
CHAPTER II

Domestic Service

WHEN Marie was about fifteen years old,
her mother took her away from the
factories and put her into domestic service.
Factory work was telling on the girl’s health,
and the night freedom it involved did not
please her mother. The young woman for
some time had felt the charms of associating
with many boys and girls unchaperoned and
untrammelled. She liked the streets at night
better than her home.

“When I got into the street,” said Marie,
“T felt like a dog let loose.” Of course, she
hated to go into domestic service, where the
evenings would no longer be all her own,
but her mother was still strong enough to
have her way.

“At that time,” Marie wrote me, “I was
a poor, awkward girl, somewhat stupid, per-
haps, but who would not be at my age and in
the same environment? I had received most of

my education in the factories and _ stores
[12]
Domestic Service

down-town, which was perhaps beneficial to
everybody but me. Even my mother, who in
some ways was stupid and hard, noticed that
this sort of education was likely to have what
is called a demoralizing effect on me. So
she induced a kind-hearted, philanthropic
woman, Mrs. Belshow, to take me as servant
girl. Mrs. Belshow was high in affairs of
the Hull House Settlement Workers, and
generously paid my mother one dollar and a
half a week for my services.

“Mrs. Belshow had a beautiful house. At
first these fine surroundings, to which I was
entirely unused, made me more awkward
than ever. But soon I got accustomed to the
place and became very serviceable to my
employer. I was lady’s maid as well as
general housekeeper, and my fine lady duly
appreciated my work, for she never asked me
to do service after half-past nine at night or
before half-past five in the morning. Besides,
she allowed me Sunday afternoon free, but
only to go to church or Sunday School. For
the honourable lady told me very kindly that
she did not wish to interfere with my religion
in any way whatever. This advice I accepted
meekly, as I was greatly in awe of her, though

[13]
An Anarchist Woman

I should have much preferred to spend my
half holiday in my home locality and to dance
there with other stupid boys and girls in
Lammer’s Hall, where the entrancing strains
of the concertina were to be heard every Sun-
day afternoon. The young folks out that way
were not strong on religion; or, if they were,
they would receive all the soul’s medicine
necessary by attending church in the morning,
no doubt thereby feeling more vigorous and
fit for enjoying the dance afterwards.

“But I, poor stupid, had learned from my,
mistress that dance-halls were vile and
abominable. Of course, I believed all that
Mrs. Belshow told me. I had not the slightest
idea that she did not know everything. Why,
she belonged to Hull House, that big place in
Halsted Street, which had flowers and lace
curtains in all the windows, and big looking-
glasses and carpets and silver things on the
inside; and many beautiful ladies who wore
grand silk dresses and big hats with feathers
came to see my mistress nearly every day, and
they all talked a great deal about the evils of
dance-halls and saloons and theatres. I had
always stupidly thought that those places
were very nice, especially the dance-halls,

[14]
Domestic Service

because I always enjoyed myself there better
than anywhere else. I had never been in a
theatre, but I had often been in the saloons to
rush the can for my father, and I had noticed
that people seemed to enjoy themselves there.
There were long green tables in the saloons on
which men played pool, and there were books
scattered about in which were jokes and funny
pictures. And the men played cards and told
stories and danced and sang and did about
anything they wanted to. This seemed to me
good, and I felt sure at the time that if I
were a man I should like to be there, too.

“ But now I learned that these were terrible
places, dens of vice and crime. What vice
was, I did not know, but crime meant mur-
dering somebody or doing something else
dreadful. I thought about what I heard the
fine ladies say until my poor little head
became quite muddled. Left to myself, I
could not see anything so terrible about these
places, but if these finely dressed ladies said
they were terrible, why they must be so. They
knew better than I did. But I wondered
dreamily if all terrible places were as nice as
dance-halls.

“After the novelty of the situation wore

[15]
An Anarchist Woman

away, life became rather wearisome to me,
and I sometimes wished I were again working
in the old factory. I thought of the evenings,
when my day’s work in the factory was done
and I was walking in the streets with my
chums, telling them, perhaps, of the small
girls who worked with me in the factory, and
of the guys who waited for them on Saturday
nights and took them to the show. And one
of the girl’s guys always used to give her a
whole box of the swellest candy you ever
tasted.

“ Dreaming thus one day of all the happy
times I had known, I loitered over my work,
as I fear I often did, and was sharply repri-
manded by my mistress, the honourable lady,
who wanted to speak to me as soon as possible
on a matter of grave importance. I finished
making the bed in a hurry and went into the
presence of Mrs. Belshow, who said to me:

““ My dear child, how old are you?’ -

““ Past fifteen, ma’am.’

“* Fifteen! H’m, you’re quite a big girl for
your age. I’m astonished that you have no
more self-respect, or your mother for you!
How is it that she allows you to go about with
such short dresses? Why, it is shameful; I am

C16]
Domestic Service

surprised, for your mother seemed to me a
sensible sort of a woman. I declare, I never
would allow my daughter to expose herself
in such a shameless manner, and I certainly
will not allow anyone in my employ to do so.
Only the other day my attention was called
by some of my friends to your most careless
condition. They said they could not help
noticing it, it was so dreadful. It is this kind
of thing which causes a great part of the vice
and immorality with which we are sur-
rounded. Unless a mother has common
decency enough to clothe her child properly,
it seems hopeless for us to accomplish any-
thing. Now, my dear child, I want you to go
home this very night and tell your mother
you must positively have some long dresses,
or no self-respecting person would care to
associate with you. And you must try to have
at least one respectable garment by Sunday,
for I am ashamed to have you seen going out
of my house in your present condition. Run
along now and don’t be home later than ten
this evening.’

“During this long harangue I stood gazing
on the floor, blushing painfully. I wanted to
tell my mistress why I had no longer dresses,

[17]
An Anarchist Woman

put could only stammer ‘ yes, ma’am’ and ‘no,
ma’am,’ and was very glad to escape from the
room as soon as my lady had finished.

“When my mother heard about the affair,
she was very indignant, and demanded why
Mrs. Belshow did not buy the dresses for
me. ‘For my part, she said, ‘I have no
money to waste on such trash. I’m sure, what
you are wearing now is all right. It’s not so
short, either, nearly down to your shoe tops.
‘But I suppose I must get you something, or
she will fire you. I'll give you a dress that'll
be long enough all right—one that goes right
down to the floor, and if Mrs. Belshow doesn’t
like it, shell have to lump it. I can’t afford
to get you new dresses every year and you not
through growing yet. Gee, that Mrs. Bel-
show must think we’re millionaires!’

“When I made my appearance the next
Sunday morning in a neat long skirt, the
honourable lady praised me very highly, say-
ing that now I looked like a respectable
young woman. ‘Why, you actually look
pretty, my child,’ she said. ‘You must get a
nice ribbon for your neck, and then you will
be fine.’ This remark made me very happy,
for I had been secretly longing for a dress of

[18]
Domestic Service

this kind. Now, at last, I was a real grown-up
lady. Perhaps I might soon have a fellow,
who would take me to the show, just like the
girls in the factory. I thrilled with joy. Later
I looked into the mirror a long while, admir-
ing myself and dreaming of the afternoon,
when I would be free. I decided that I
would go to the dance, and pictured to
myself how surprised and envious the other
girls would be, when they saw me looking so
fine. I would certainly not miss one single
dance the whole afternoon, for I was sure the
boys would be fascinated and that the swellest
among them would see me home in the
evening.

“These joys made the morning an unforget-
table one; but soon it was time to get ready to
go. JI went to my room and curled my hair,
and then was more pleased with myself than
ever. I really looked pretty! Oh, the joy of
it! I do not need to explain, even to a man.
Briefly, I looked sweller than ever. The only
thing needed to complete my toilet were some
bright ribbons to fix in my hair and around my
throat. I recollected having seen some very
pretty ribbons in my mistress’s scrap-bag
which would do admirably. So I brought the

[19]
An Anarchist Woman

scrap bag from the store room and dumped the
contents on my bed, and soon found just what
I wanted—two beautiful bits of silk. I hastily
stitched them together, and was all ready to
go. I could return the silk to the bag the next
morning and my mistress would never know
they had been gone. I thought regretfully
what a shame it was to throw such beautiful
things into a scrap-bag.

“Poor, vain little me! I came home later
than usual, that never-to-be-forgotten night !—
very tired, but very happy. And I had been es-
corted all the way by the grandest young man
I had ever known. I lay awake for a long
time, reviewing everything that had happened.
I had never dreamed it was possible to be so
happy. It was because I was now a grown-up
lady! I should never forget that all my happi-
ness was due to my mistress, for it was through
her that I had my long dress. I decided to
be more serviceable than ever, not dream and
dawdle over my work, and never to be angry
when my mistress scolded me. I would dis-
obey her only in one thing—about going to
Sunday School. At least, I would not go every
week, perhaps every other Sunday, so she
would not notice. In the midst of these

[ 20 ]
Domestic Service

good and delightful thoughts I fell asleep, and
slept so soundly that the alarm bell in the
clock did not awaken me at the usual hour.

“Tt did awaken Mrs. Belshow, however,
who was just about to drop off to sleep again,
when it occurred to her that she had not heard
me moving about as usual, so she went to my
room and aroused me in the midst of a beauti-
ful dream about the handsomest boy you ever
saw just as he was paying me the greatest
attention!

‘Jumping out of bed, I was horrified to
find it was six o’clock, fully half an hour late.
I rushed about my work, dreading the mo-
ment, yet wishing it were over, when my mis-
tress should summon me for the scolding I
was sure would come, for if there was one
thing Mrs. Belshow hated more than anything
else, it was being late. All too soon came the
dreaded moment. Breakfast was scarcely
over, when I was requested to go to my room.
That was rather surprising, for, as a rule, I
received my scolding in the lady’s room, while
I was assisting her to pull on her stockings or
comb her hair.

“JT had scarcely crossed the threshold of my
room when my knees knocked together and I

[21]
An Anarchist Woman

nearly fell over, for there, standing in the
centre of the room, with a piece of silk in her
hand and an ominous frown on her face, steod
my mistress. She pointed an accusing finger
at me and asked coldly, ‘Where did you get
this?’ Receiving no answer, she continued,
‘Don’t tell any lies, now, to add to your other
crime.’ I stood there, as if glued to the floor
and could only gaze at her dumbly and ap-
pealingly. I tried to speak in vain; but even
if I had been able to, she would not have given
me a chance. She brought all her eloquence
to bear upon the stupid girl before her; she
wanted to make me see what a very evil act I
had committed.

““Oh, how sorry I am!’ she cried, ‘that
this thing has happened. But you are very
fortunate that it has occurred in my house,
rather than in somebody else’s, for I know
what measures to take to cure you of the pro-
pensity to crime which you have so clearly
shown. I shall, of course, have to send you
away immediately; for I could never again
trust you in my home, for although it is only
a trifle that you have stolen,—yes, deliberately
stolen,—yet anyone who takes only a pin that
belongs to another, will take more when the

[ 22 ]
Domestic Service

opportunity offers. So, in order to cure you
of this tendency, I myself will conduct you to
your mother and impress upon her the neces-
sity of guarding and watching you carefully,
as a possible young criminal. I never should
have expected this of you, for you have quite
an honest look. Now, dress yourself quickly
and bundle up whatever belongs to you. I
will remain in the room while you are pack-
ing. Are you sure you have taken nothing
else which does not belong to you?’

“This question loosened my tongue, which
hitherto had clung tightly to the roof of my
mouth. Dropping on my knees before my
mistress, I fervently swore that I had taken
nothing, that I had not meant to take any-
thing. I had meant to wear the pieces of silk
only once and then put them back where I
had found them. With tears rolling down my
face, I begged her not to tell my mother.

“¢T will work for you all my life without
pay,’ I cried, ‘if you will only not tell my
mother. Indeed, I did not mean to steal, so
please don’t tell my mother!’

“This I urged so vehemently and with
such floods of tears that finally my kind-
hearted mistress said: ‘My dear child, if you

[23 ]
An Anarchist Woman

will promise me faithfully never to do any-
thing like this again, I will not tell your
mother. But let this be a lesson to you; never
to take anything again, not even a pin, that
does not belong to you. You can never again
say, with perfect truthfulness, that you have
not stolen. I am glad to see that you have
such respect for your mother that you do not
want her to know of this, and for your sake I
will not tell her. I have a meeting at Hull
House to attend in half an hour, and before I
leave I wish you would scrub up the kitchen
and your room and then you can go.’

“So saying, the honourable lady left the
room quite satisfied with herself for having
(perhaps) rescued another human being from
the paths of vice and crime. I went about my
work with a heavy heart. Forgotten were all
the joys of yesterday! Now, just as I was be-
coming used to my place, Imustleaveit. And
I must tell my mother some reason for it. But
T could not tell the truth. Ah! yes, I would
say that my mistress was about to close up the
house and go South for the winter. That
would be a fine excuse. I had heard and read
that many rich people go South for a time in
the cold weather, so surely my mother would

[24]
Domestic Service

not doubt it. I went away, feeling easier in
my mind, and never saw my honourable mis-
tress again.

“ Many days have passed since then, and I
have been serving several different ladies. I
learned a lesson from each one of them; but I
shall never forget what I learned from the
kindhearted, philanthropic Mrs. Belshow, a
prominent settlement worker in a large city.
It’s a lesson that Mrs. Belshow will never
learn, or could never understand. All of
which shows, perhaps, that I was simple at the
time rather than stupid; for I find that I am
still receiving my education—not from books,
but from the way people treat me, and from
what I see as I pass through life.”

[25]
CHAPTER III
Domestic Service (Continued)

NEARLY a year had passed,” continued

Marie, “since I had began to work at
service, and my experiences had not been of
the sort that makes one love one’s fellow-
creatures. For the most part I had worked
for people who were trying to make a good
showing in society and had not the means to
do so. How often during those weary days
of drudgery I looked back at the dear old
days when I used to work in the factories!
Then I could go to the dance! Now, it was
very difficult, even if my mother had not been
so strongly against it. I could not understand
why my mother so sternly forbade me to go.
When I asked her why she objected, the only
answer I received was: ‘It is improper for a
girl of your age.’ ‘Why is it improper?’ I
asked myself, and could find no answer. So I
disobeyed my mother and danced whenever I
had the chance. Whenever I did succeed in
going, my heart almost broke from sheer hap-

[ 26 ]
Domestic Service (Continued)

piness. Oh, how supremely, wonderfully
joyous I felt! How I forgot everything then
—my mother, my drudgery, everything that
made life disagreeable! Whenever the music
started, I felt as if I were floating in the air,
I could not feel my feet touching the floor.
All the lights merged into one dazzling glow
and my heart kept time to the rhythm of the
music. When the music stopped, the glorious “
illumination seemed to go out and leave only
a little straggling light from a few badly
smelling kerosene lamps. The beautiful, fan-
tastic music had been in reality only a harsh
horn accompanied by a concertina or some
other stupid instrument jangling vile music.
The young boys and girls were all a common,
stupid lot, and the odour of the stock yards
permeated the room. But when the mystical
music begins again, and the dance starts,
presto! change, and I am again floating in
rhythmic space and the faces and dim lights
have changed into one glorious central flame.

“T shall never forget one awful night, when
my mother, who had heard that I was at the
dance, came into the hall, and there before all
the boys and girls dragged me out and away
to our home. I was so ashamed that I did not

[27]
An Anarchist Woman

show myself in that dance-hall again for
months. I cannot help thinking my mother
was wrong, for I needed some outlet to my
energy. Like many a poor working girl, I had
developed into womanhood early and conse-
quently was full of life. The dance satisfied
this life instinct, which, when that outlet was
made difficult, sought some other way.

“At that time I had a position as nurse-
maid, my duties being to take care of two
beautiful, but spoiled children, who had
never received proper care, because their
mother, a wealthy woman, was too indolent
to make any effort in that direction, spending
most of her time lying in bed with some novel
in her hand. The house was filled with sen-
sational, sentimental books. They were to be
found in every room, stacked away in all the
corners.

“At first I attempted to do what I thought
was my duty, that is, to keep the children neat
and clean and try to train them to be more
gentle and obedient, but I soon saw that what
their mother wanted was for me to keep them
out of her way. My ambition about them
faded away, and I sought only to fulfil my
mistress’s wishes. I used to take the two

[ 28]
Domestic Service (Continued)

children up into the store-room, in which were
all sorts of miscellaneous things, including
stacks and stacks of paper-covered novels, lock
the door, and allow the children absolute lib-
erty, while I sat down comfortably and ex-
amined the books.

“Here a new life opened before me. I read
these novels constantly every day and half the
night, and could hardly wait for the children
to have their breakfast, so eager was I to get
at my wonderful stories again. Even when it
was necessary to take the children out for an
airing, a novel was always hidden in my
clothes, which I would eagerly devour as
soon as I was out of sight of the house. Dur-
ing the four weeks spent at this place I read
more than forty novels. Even on Sunday,
when I was free, I sprawled out on the bed
and read these sensational books. I thought
no more of my beloved dances, for I was liv-
ing in a new world. Here I was in a beauti-
ful house, where I did almost nothing but loll
in the easiest chairs and feed my soul on
stories about beautiful, innocent maidens, who
were wooed, and after almost insurmountable
difficulties, won by gallant, devoted heroes.

“ But soon I became so absorbed that even

[ 29 ]
An Anarchist Woman

the few duties I had, became very irksome to
me, for they interfered somewhat with my
reading. Every morning I had to bathe and
dress the little ones, who, not seeing the neces-
sity for these operations, struggled and
screamed and bit and kicked. I had accepted
this daily scene as a matter of course, but
every now and then it rather irritated me. One
morning the hubbub was unusually long and
loud, so much so that the noise disturbed the
mother, who was breakfasting and reading in
bed. She came to the room in a stew and
asked me what was the matter. When I told
her, she angrily said: ‘When I engage a nurse
girl for my children, I do not expect to hear
them squealing every morning. Remember
that, and do not let me hear them again.’

“The little boy, who was precocious for his
age, heard what his mother had said, and see-
ing that he had not been scolded for his ill
behaviour, began to scream and struggle more
than ever, and his little sister imitated him, in
a dutiful, feminine way. I then lost my pa-
tience, seized the little boy, dragged him to
his mother and said: ‘ Here’s your boy. Tend
to him yourself; I cannot.’

“T was, of course, told to bundle up my be-

[ 30 ]
Domestic Service (Continued)

longings at once and go. I did not forget to
pack away among my things some of the
novels, feeling that since they had all been
read by Madame, they were only in the way.
When I said ‘good-bye’ to the children,
Madame came to me and said very kindly,
‘Marie, I’m really sorry this has occurred, for
you are one of the best nurse girls I have ever
had, and the children seemed to get along so
nicely with you, too!’ I was so surprised at this
speech that I could make no answer and so I
lost my chance of remaining, for it is quite
certain she wanted me to stay. But it was
fated to be otherwise, and once more I re-
turned to the home of my parents.

“My mother was not overjoyed to see me.
It was a mystery to her why I did not keep
my jobs longer. I promised to get another
place as soon as possible and begged her to
allow me to stay at home the rest of the week.
To this she consented rather grudgingly, and
I flew to my beloved books and read till sup-
per time. I was beginning at it again in the
evening when my mother rudely snatched the
book from me saying, that it was not good for
young girls to read such stuff. I begged ear-
nestly to be allowed to finish just that one story

[31]
An Anarchist Woman

and she finally said that perhaps I might read
it the next day. In the morning I could hardly
curb my impatience; it seemed as though my
mother were inventing all sorts of useless
things for me to do, just to keep me from the
book. But at last I was free and, hastening
to my room, was soon absorbed in another
world. I was suddenly recalled to this earth
by a sharp blow on my head, and the book was
again snatched from me and thrown into the
fire and burned. It seemed that mother had
been calling me and that I had been too much
absorbed to hear; that she had finally lost her
temper and decided to punish me.

““ Don’t ever again read such trash as this,’
she cried in a rage. ‘Have you any more of
them?’

““ No,’ I said, fearing to tell the truth, lest
the rest of the books meet the same fate.

“She then sent me on an errand. As I left
the house I felt uneasy, thinking that my lie
might be discovered. The moment I returned,
I saw by the expression on my mother’s face
that my fears had been realised. The storm
broke at once.

““QOh, what an unfortunate woman I am!’
she cried, ‘to be treated thus by my own flesh

[32]
Domestic Service (Continued)

and blood, by the child that I brought into the
world with so much pain and suffering. O,
God, what have I done to deserve this? O
God, what have I done to be cursed with such
a child?—so young, yet so full of lies. What
will become of her? Have I not always done
my duty by her and tried to raise her the best
I knew how? Why did she not die when a
baby? I like a fool, toiled and moiled for her
night and day and this is my reward.’

“T had heard these expressions often, for
my mother was a hysterical woman in whom
the slightest thing would cause the most vio-
lent emotions which demanded relief in such
lamentations. And yet, frequent as they were,
they never failed to arouse in me feelings of
shame and rage—shame that I had caused my
mother suffering, and rage that she reproached
herself for having brought me into the world.
‘That expression of hers never failed to make
me wish that I had never been born—born
into this miserable world where I had to toil
as a child, and could not go to dances or even
read without receiving a torrent of abuse and
an avalanche of blows. What harm had I
done by my reading? True, I had not heard
my mother calling, but how often had I

[33]
An Anarchist Woman

spoken to her without being heard, when
she was engrossed in some newspaper or
book!

“So I remained quiet, when my mother
railed at me for my lie, too ashamed and bitter
to make defense or reply. This silence, as
usual, made my mother still more angry and
she shouted: ‘You ungrateful wretch, I'll
tell your father, and he’ll fix you so you won’t
feel like lying to your mother for some time
to come.’

“That threat nearly paralysed me with
dread, for my father was to me a strange man
whom I had always feared; my mother, when
she wanted to subdue me, only needed to say:
‘T’ll tell your father.’ I remembered the last
time my father had whipped me. I was a big
girl at the time, more than fourteen years old,
and working down town. I had to rise very
early in the morning, and it often happened
that I would fall asleep again after my
mother had called me. On that particular
morning mother had more difficulty than
usual in arousing me, scolding me severely,
and I replied rather impudently, I suppose.
She waited till I had got out of bed and was
standing in my bare arms and shoulders over

[ 34]
Domestic Service (Continued)

the wash bowl, and then she told father, who
came with a long leather strap, which I knew
well, as it was kept only for one purpose,
and beat me so severely that I carried the
marks for a long time. The strap was about
two inches broad, and with this in one hand,
whilst he held me firmly with the other, he
belaboured me in such a way that the end of
the strap curled cunningly around my neck
and under my arms and about my little breast,
making big welts which swelled at once to
about a fourth of an inch in diameter and were
for a few days a most beautiful vivid scarlet
in colour. Then they toned down and new and
milder tints came, and finally there was only a
dull sort of green and blue effect. Finally
even these disappeared from my body, but not
from me.

“Now, when I thought of the possible con-
sequences of the lie I had told, I could feel
those marks on my shoulders and arms. And,
at my mother’s threat, the thought that I might
be beaten again made me flush with shame. A
feeling of rebellion, of vivid revolt, came over
me. Why not resist, why not defend myself?
I remembered what a factory girl had once
told me—how she had defended herself

[35]
An Anarchist Woman

against her brother by striking him with a
chair.

“That is what I will do, I said to myself,
trembling with excitement, if my father tries
to beat me again. I am too old to be whipped
any more. I don’t care if he kills me, I will
do it. Perhaps when I die, and they see my
grave, they’ll be sorry.

““When father came home in the evening,
he seemed to sense trouble at once, for sud-
denly coming down on the table with his fist,
he demanded: ‘What in hell is the matter?
Here you both are going around with faces as
if you were at a funeral. I’m working hard
all day, and when I come home at night, by
God, I don’t want to see such faces around me.
What in hell is it, now tell me!’

“Mother told him, and he said: ‘Very
well, just wait till I’ve had supper, for I’m
damned hungry, then we’ll have a little un-
derstanding with my lady, who’s so mighty
high-toned since she worked for those swells.
Ill soon show her, though, she is no better
than we are.’

‘““When the important task of supper was
over he called me to him. I was trembling in
every limb, for I knew that my father was a

[36]
Domestic Service (Continued)

man of few words and that he would without
delay proceed to action. I managed to get a
chair between him and me. He went to work
deliberately, as if he were a prize-fighter.
First, he spat on his hands, and was about to
give me a knock-out-blow, when I, with the
courage of desperation, raised the chair above
my head, crying out, ‘ Father, if you strike me,
Tl hit you with this chair.” He was so aston-
ished at my audacity that his arms fell to his
sides and he gazed at me as if he had lost his
senses. I took advantage of this pause to make
for the door, but before I could escape, he
seized me by the arm and hurled me back
into the room, and then with blood-shot eyes
and bull-like voice he cursed and cursed. My
mother, fearing the effect of his terrible rage,
tried to intercede, but he pushed her aside,
shouting, ‘Oh, she’s the daughter of her
mother all right, and she’ll turn out to be a
damned just like you!’

“‘ He then came up to me, where I was stand-
ing really expecting my death, and to my sur-
prise only pressed his fist gently against my
head saying: ‘See how easily I could crush
you. The next time I hear anything about you,
I will.’ Cursing me and mother, he left the

[37]

 
An Anarchist Woman

house and he took him to a nearby saloon
where he drank himself insensible. Toward
morning he was brought home. Poor man, he
- just couldn’t bear to see long faces about him,
especially after a hard day’s work!

“In a few days I secured another place,
this time in a middle-class family. I remained
there nearly a year and was considered by my
mistress a model of willingness, patience, en-
durance, gentleness, and all the other slavish
virtues. I never spoke except when spoken
to and then I answered so respectfully! The
children might kick and abuse me in any way
they chose without any show of resentment
from me. This my mistress noticed and duly
commended. ‘Those dear children,’ she said.
“You know they do not realise what they are
about, and so one ought not to be harsh to the
dear pets.’

“T gave up reading books and even news-
papers; partly I suppose because I had for the
time satiated myself, especially with senti-
mental and trashy novels, and had not yet
learned to know real literature, and partly be-
cause, in my state of humility, I listened to
my mistress when she said reading took too
much time, that it was better to sew, dust, and

[ 38 ]
Domestic Service (Continued)

the like, when I was not busy with the chil-
dren. Everything I do, I must do passionately,
it seems, even to being a slave. I gave up
dances, too, and on my days out dutifully vis-
ited my parents. I had no friends or compan-
ions and was in all respects what one calls a
perfect servant—so perfect that the friends of
my mistress quite envied her the possession of
so useful a slave.

“T got pleasure out of doing the thing so
thoroughly; but yet it would not have been
so interesting to me if it had not been painful,
too. I was enough of a sport to want as much
depth of experience, while it lasted, in that
direction as in any other—in spite of, perhaps
partly because of, the pain. And what pain it
was, at times! Who knows of the bitter hatred
surging in my heart, of the long nights spent
in tears, of the terrible mental tortures I en-
dured! Sometimes it was as if an iron hand
were squeezing my heart so that I almost died;
sometimes as if a great lump of stone lay on
my chest. And my mistress seemed each day
somehow to make the iron hand squeeze
tighter and tighter and the stone weigh heavier
and heavier. If she had only known what a
deadly hatred I bore her—a hatred that would

[39]
An Anarchist Woman

not have been so severe if I had not been so
good a servant—had given myself rope, had
satisfied my emotions! If she had understood
that my calm, modest bearing was only a
mask which hid a passionate soul keenly alive
to the suffering inflicted on me, she would have
hesitated, I think, before she entrusted her
precious darlings to my care,

“This period of virtuous serving was the
severest strain to which my nature, physical
and moral, was ever put. I finally became
very ill, and had to be removed to my
mother’s house, as completely broken in body
as I had apparently been in spirit.

“T sat near the window gazing vacantly at
the scene below. All the morning I had sat
there with that empty feeling in my soul.
From time to time my mother spoke to me,
but I answered without turning my head.
Since my illness I seemed to have lost all
interest in life, and this, although everybody
was kind to me. My mother gave me novels
to read and money to go to the dances. The
books I scarcely glanced at, and what I did
read seemed so silly to me! And the dances
had lost their charm. I went once or twice,

[40]
Domestic Service (Continued)

but the music did not awaken any emotion in
me, and I sat dully in a corner watching, with-
out any desire to join in. And this, when I
was hardly past sixteen years of age!

“The day before, I had been down town
looking for a job in the stores, for my mother
had told me that I might work in the shops or
factories again, if I wished. Although even
this assurance failed to interest me, I had
obediently tried to find a position, but oh!
how weary I was and how I longed for some
quiet corner where I might sit for ever and
ever and ever without moving. This morning
I was wearier than ever, my feet seemed
weighted, and I could hardly drag them
across the room.. My mother asked me
anxiously, if I were ill. ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Then
my child,’ she replied, ‘you must positively
find work. You father is getting old and it
would be a shame to have him support a big
girl like you—big enough to make her own
living. Don’t you want to go back to your
last place? She would be very glad to have
you, I am sure.’

“This last remark aroused me, and I
replied that I would never go back, even if
I had to starve. ‘ Don’t worry, mother,’ I said,

[41]
An Anarchist Woman

‘Tl go now, and if I don’t find a place, I
won’t come back.’ ‘Oh, what a torture it is
to have children,’ moaned my mother. ‘ Don’t
you know your father would kill me if you
did not return?’

“Her words fell on heedless ears, for I was
already half way down the stairs. I bought
a paper and in it read this advertisement,
‘Wanted: a neat girl to do second work in
suburb near Chicago. Apply to No—
Wabash Avenue.’ Within an hour I presented
myself at Mr. Eaton’s office, was engaged by
him, received a railroad ticket and instructions
how to go to Kenilworth the following eve-
ning. On my way home I made up my mind
to tell nobody where I was going. I packed
my few belongings and told my mother that
I had secured a place with a certain Mrs.
So-and-so who lived in Such-and-such a
street. I lied to the best of my ability and
satisfied my mother thoroughly.

“The next morning I went away, and was
soon speeding to Kenilworth, where I was
met at the station by my future mistress and
her mother, two extremely aristocratic
women, who received me kindly and walked
with me to my new home, instructing me on

[ 42 ]
Domestic Service (Continued)

the way in regard to my duties in the house-
hold. These consisted mainly in being
scrupulously neat, answering the door-bell
and waiting on the table. I began at once to
work very willingly and obligingly, and also
helped the other girl working in the house-
hold, and everybody was kind to me in return.
I did not, however, take this kindness to heart
as I would have done a year or two earlier,
for I had learned to my cost that kindness of
this kind was generally only on the surface.

“But my new mistress soon proved to be a
true gentlewoman, who treated her servants
like human beings. To work for a mistress
who did not try to interfere with my private
life or regulate my religion or my morals
was an unusual and pleasing experience for
me. This lady was as tolerant and broad-
minded toward her servants as she was

toward herself, rather more so, I think, for.

cares and age had removed from her desires
and temptations for which she still had
sympathy when showing themselves in
younger people. I soon saw, to my astonish-
ment, that things which my mother and my
other employers had told me were evil, and
which I had learned almost to think were so,
[43 ]
An Anarchist Woman

did not seem evil to this sweet lady. I remem-
ber how kindly and sadly she said to me once,
when I had spent half the night out with a
young man: ‘ Little Marie, it is a sad thing in
life that what seems to us the sweetest and
the best, and what indeed is the sweetest and
the best, often leads to our harm and the harm
of others. It would be foolish of me to pre-
tend to know which of your actions is good
and which is bad; but remember that life is
very difficult and hard to lead right, and that
you must be careful and always thoughtful
of what is good and what is evil. I myself
have never learned to know for sure what is
good or evil, but as I grow older I am certain
that we act always for the one or for the
other.’

“Under these conditions, in the home of
such a sweet and tolerant woman, all the
throbbing joy of life and youth awoke again
within me. Cut off from the old scenes and
companions, I entered upon a new existence.
I made many friends with the young people in
the neighbourhood, and for the first time felt
free and without the opposition of anybody.
I had not written my mother or in any way
let her know where I was, and no disturbing

[44]
Domestic Service (Continued),

word came from my past. I sang all day at
my work, and in the evening I joined my new
companions and together we roamed and
frolicked to our hearts’ content. I had many
young men friends and could satisfy my
desire to be in their society, talk to, dance with
them, without arousing evil thoughts in others
or, consequently, in ourselves.

“Under these happy influences I grew
healthier and more wholesome in every way.
People began to say I was pretty, and indeed
I did grow to be very good-looking. My
figure had reached its fullest development
and the rosy bloom of youth and of health was
in my cheeks. I was strong and vigorous,
self-reliant and independent, and very happy.
I became quite a favourite and the recognised
leader in the mischievous frolics of the
young people. Hardly an evening passed that
did not bring a scene of gaiety. It seemed
to me that I had never lived before and
that I was making up for all the pleasures I
had not known. There was, indeed, something
heartless and cruel in my happiness, for I
never once wrote to my mother, selfishly fear-
ing to have my present joy disturbed.

“My fears had good reason, too, it seems,

[45 ]
An Anarchist Woman

for I had lived in those pleasant surround-
ings only a few months when one evening,
while I was enjoying myself at a moon-light
picnic, I was approached by a sober, stern-
looking man who drew me away from my
friends and asked me my name. When I
had told him, he showed me a newspaper
clipping of an article with the head-lines,
‘Mysterious Disappearance of a Young Girl.’
For some moments I stood as if turned to
stone, gazing stupidly at the paper. Then
troubled thoughts took possession of me.
‘What shall I do? What will become of
me?’ I remembered my mother so often say-
ing that if I ran away I would be put in the
House of Correction. At this thought I shud-
dered and exclaimed aloud, ‘No, no.’ The
man had been watching me closely and he
asked: ‘Is it true,’ pointing to the article. I
stared at him, for a moment too absorbed in
my inner terror to be very conscious of him.
When he repeated the question, I looked at
him with a more intelligent expression in my
eyes, and he, seeing my condition, spoke to
me kindly and persuasively.

“Tell me the truth,’ he said, ‘And I will
help and advise you.’ So I told him the whole

[46]
Domestic Service (Continued)

story, and he reassured me, saying. ‘Don’t
be afraid, little girl, I have no doubt your
mother will forgive you if you explain to
her in the way you have to me. It is hard
for children to understand their parents. I
know, for I have children of my own, and
sometimes they think me unkind when I am
trying to do my best for them.’ He was kind,
but he was firm, too, and said that if I did
not write my mother, he should do so him-
self. So I at last consented, and as a result
went back to the city: for my mother, my
unfortunate, cruel mother, wanted me, tor
some strange reason, to be near her.”

[47]
CHAPTER IV
Adventures In Sex

HEN Marie returned to her home, she
found that her father had died. It
made little difference, practical or other-
wise, to her or to her mother, except to make
her stay in the house less dangerous, though
quite as irksome, as formerly. Her mother
had, of course, reproached her bitterly for her
conduct in running away, and had kept up
her complaint so constantly that Marie could
hardly endure her home even for the night
and early morning. So for that reason, as
well as for the need of making her living,
Marie went again into service, going quickly
from one job to another in the city.

And now there came for her a period of
wildness, in the ordinary sense of the word.
It was not the simple joys of her Kenilworth
experience. She had returned to her mother’s
home in a kind of despair. It seemed to her
as if the innocent pleasures of life were not
for her. She had been torn away from her

[48 ]
Adventures in Sex

happiness and had been compelled to go back
to conditions she hated. Her passions were
strong and her seventeen-year-old senses were
highly developed by premature work and an
irritating and ungenial home. So, in a kind
of gloomy intensity, she let herself go in the
ordinary way of unguarded young girlhood.
She gave herself to a young fellow she met
in the street one evening, without joy but
with deep seriousness. She did not even
explain to him that it was her first experience.
She wanted nothing from him but the
passionate illusion of sex. And she parted
from him without tenderness and without
explanations, to take up with other men and
boys in the same spirit of serious reck-
lessness. She had for the time lost hope, and
therefore, of course, care for herself, and
her intense and passionate nature strove to
live itself out to the limit: an instinct for life
and at the same time for destruction.

From this period of her life comes a story
which she wrote for me, and which I quote
as being typical of her attitude and as throw-
ing light on her personality.

“The Southwest corner of State and Madi-
son Streets is the regular rendezvous of all

[49 ]
An Anarchist Woman

sorts of men. ‘They can be seen standing
there every afternoon and evening, gazing at
the surging crowd which passes by. One
sees day after day the same faces, and one
wonders why they are there, for what they are
looking. Some of these men have brutal,
sensual faces; others are cynical-looking and
sneer. These, it seems, nothing can move
or surprise. They have a look which says:
‘Oh, I know you, I have met your kind
before. You do not move me, nothing can.
I have tried everything, there is nothing new
. for me.’ And yet they cannot tear themselves
_ away from this corner, coming day after day
and night after night, hoping against hope
~ for some new adventure.

“Others stand there like owls, stupidly
Staring at the rushing tide of faces. They
see nothing, and yet are seemingly hypnotised
by the panorama of life. Here, too, pass the
girls with the blond hair and the painted
faces; they ogle the men, and as they cross
the street raise their silken skirts a trifle,
showing a bit of gay stocking. Here, too, is
the secret meeting-place of lovers, who clasp
hands furtively, glancing around with stealth.
All this is seen by the sensual men, who

[50]
Adventures in Sex

glance enviously at the lovers, and by the
cynical men whose cold smiles seem to say:
‘Bah! how tiresome! wait, and your silly
meetings will not be so charming!’

“On my evenings off I had sometimes
stopped to gaze at this, to me, strangely mov-
ing sight. I saw in it then what I could not
have seen a few months before; but not as
much as I can see now. Then it excited me
with the sense of a possible adventure.
Strange, but I never went there when I was
happy, only when I was uncommonly
depressed.

“On a chilly Sunday evening in October
T was waiting on this corner to take a car to
the furnished room of a factory girl, named
Alice, whom I knew was out of town. As I was
out of a job and did not want to go home, I
had availed myself of her place for a few
days. As I was waiting on this corner, I saw
a face in the crowd that attracted me. It was,
as I afterward learned, the face of a club
man, who had, on this Sunday evening,
drifted with the crowd and landed at this
spot. He, too, had stopped and gazed around
him, idly. Several times he started as if to
move on, but he apparently thought this place

[51]
An Anarchist Woman

as good as any other, and so remained. He
seemed not to know what to do, to be tired of
himself. His face was quite the ordinary
American type, clean-cut features, rather
thin and cold, with honest grey eyes, but, in
his case, a mouth rather sensuous and a gen-
eral air of curiosity and life which interested
me.

“T was sufficiently interested to allow sev-
eral cars to pass by, while I watched him. I
noticed by the way he looked at the women
who passed that he was familiar with their
kind. Several gay girls tried to attract his
attention, but he turned away, bored. Finally
I began to walk away, and then for the first
time his face lighted up with interest. I was
apparently something new. I wore a straw
hat, and a thin coat buttoned tightly about
my chest. My thin little face was almost
ghastly with pallor, and it made a strange
contrast with my full red lips, which were
almost scarlet, and my big glowing black eyes.
He probably saw that I was poor, dressed as
I was at that season. Why is it that for many
rich men a working girl half fed and badly
dressed is so much more attractive than a fine
woman of the town or a nice lady?

[52]
Adventures in Sex

“As I passed him, he said, ‘Good evening,’
in a low and timid tone, as if he thought I
surely would not answer. J think it sur-
prised him when I looked him full in the
face and replied, ‘Good evening!’ He still
hesitated, until he saw in my face what I
knew to be almost an appealing look. I knew
that in the depths of my eyes a smile was
lurking, and I wanted to bring it forth! A
moment later, I smiled indeed, when he
stepped forward, lifted his hat, and asked
with assurance: ‘May I walk with you?
Are you going anywhere?’

““Yes, I am going somewhere,’ I said,
smiling, ‘To a meeting place in Adams Street
to hear a lecture.’

“*QOh, I say, girlie,’ he cried, ‘You're
jollying. That must be a very dull thing for
you, a lecture.’

““Sometimes it’s funny,’ I said. But I
did not say much about it, as I had never yet
been to a lecture. I made up for that later
in my life! I of course had no intention of
going to this.

“¢ Come,’ he urged, ‘let’s go in somewhere
and have something to eat and drink.’

“Yes, I will have something, not to eat,

[53]
An Anarchist Woman

though, but let us go where there are lots
of people and lights and all that sort of
thing,’ I finished, vaguely.

“Charley tucked my arm in his and we
walked along State Street until we came to a
brilliantly lighted café. The place was
crowded with well-dressed men and beautiful
woman, eating and drinking, chatting and
laughing. Waiters were hastening to and fro.
An orchestra was playing gay music, as we
wound our way through the crowd to a
table. I was painfully conscious that my
shabby coat and straw hat attracted attention.
Some of the women stared at me with a look
of conscious superiority in their eyes, others
with a look of still more galling pity.
Charley, too, I thought, seemed nervous. Per-
haps he did not relish being seen by some
possible acquaintance with so dilapidated-
looking a person!

“But soon I lost consciousness of these
things and gave myself up to the scene and
the music. My sense of pleasure seemed to
communicate itself to my companion, who
ordered some drinks; I don’t know what they
were, but they tasted good—some kind of
cordial. I took longer and longer sips: it was

[54 ]
Adventures in Sex

a new and very pleasant flavour. He ordered
more of the same kind and watched me

with interest as I drank and looked about
me.

“Oh,” I said, ‘what beautiful women, and
how happy they are! look at that one with
the blond hair. Isn’t she beautiful, a real
dream?’

“Charley replied in a tone of contempt:
‘Yes, she’s beautiful, but I would not envy
her, if I were you—neither her happiness nor
her good looks. She needs those looks in her
business. Nearly all the women here belong
to her class.’

““Charles looked at me intently as he said
this. Perhaps he thought I would be angry
because he had brought me to such a place.
[But I watched the girls with even greater
interest and said: ‘Ah, but they must be
happy!’

“Charles shrugged his shoulders and said,
with contempt and some pity in his eyes, ‘A
queer sort of happiness!’

“T looked at him rather angrily. He did
not seem just to me.

“ You don’t like them,’ I said, ‘you think
they are vile and low. But you men seem

[55]
An Anarchist Woman

to need them, just the same. Oh! I think they
are brave girls!’

“Charles looked at me in apparent
astonishment. But then a thought seemed to
strike him. He was thinking that I might
be one of that class, for he asked me questions
which showed me plainly enough what he
was worrying about. He encouraged me to
drink again, and said with a self-confident
laugh, ‘you’re a cute one but you cannot fool
me with any such tricks.’

“T paid no attention to his remarks, and
did not answer any of his personal questions.
He could find out nothing about me. I
would only smile and say, ‘I don’t want to
know anything about you, why can’t you
treat me the same way?’

“‘T could see that the less he knew, the more
interested he became. He plied me with
drinks, perhaps thinking that the sweet liquor
would loosen my tongue. Soon I began to
feel a little queer and the room began to go
round, taking with it the faces of the men and
women. After this dizziness passed, I felt
very happy indeed, and smiled at everybody
in the room; and wanted to go and tell them
all how much I liked them. But I did not

[s6]
Adventures in Sex

dare trust my legs, they felt so heavy. I
thought I would like to stay there always,
listening to the music and watching the
people.

‘“T suppose my happiness heightened my
colour, for Charles said, ‘what a beautiful
mouth you have, what red lips. One would
almost believe they were painted. How your
upper lip lifts when you smile, Marie! Don’t
you want to go out now?”

“Yes, yes,’ I replied, hastily, ‘I must go
home now.’

“T sprang from my chair, I made for the
door, but he, quickly seizing his hat, followed
me and took my arm. I went very slowly for
my feet seemed weighted. They were inclined
to go one way, while I went another. So
when Charles led me I was quite thankful.
As we went out into the street he asked me
where I was living, what I did, and if I were
married, all in one breath. This made me
laugh merrily, as I assured him I was not
married. I told him I lived away out on the
West Side and that he could see me home, if
he wanted ; but not to, if it was out of his way,
for I was used to going alone. He eagerly
accepted, and we took a car.

[57]
An Anarchist Woman

“T fell dreaming on the way, of all nice
things. The days in Kenilworth came back to
me and I smiled to myself and wistfully
hoped my present happiness would last. My
companion eagerly devoured me with his eyes,
and asked me many pressing questions. I
answered only very vaguely, for my mind was
full of other things. So finally Charles, too,
was silent, and merely watched me.

“Suddenly I woke to the fact that I was at
Alice’s room, so I hastily arose and signalled
to the car to stop. Turning to Charles I
extended my hand in a good-bye and said:
‘This is where I live.’ But he quickly got off
with me saying he would see me to the house.
‘I don’t like to leave you alone this time of
night,’ he said. As we stopped in front of the
dilapidated-looking frame building where
I was staying for a few days, he seemed much .
embarrassed and not to know what to say.
Pointing upwards, I said, ‘ that’s where I live.’
‘Do you live alone?’ he asked. ‘ Yes, now, not
always. Good night—Charles,’ I answered,
mischievously, but with a real and disturbing
feeling taking possession of me.

“But he seized me by the hand: ‘Don’t
leave me yet, girlie,’ he pleaded. ‘Think how

[58]
r
om
“he

™

}
yf

5

J A

Adventures in Sex

lonesome I'll be when you are gone!’ He
drew me to him in the darkness, and I did
not object, why should I? My lips seemed to
prepare themselves and after one long kiss
that sad intensity seized me; and I sighed or
sobbed, I don’t know which, as we went up
the stairs together.

“‘ An hour later, as he was about to descend
the stairs, I said: ‘Charles, when will you
come again?’

““Oh, I can’t tell,’ he replied ‘but it will
be soon.’

“< Well,’ I said, ‘remember I shall be here
only a few days. Alice will be back within
the week. Come Wednesday evening.’

“ But he left with the remark that it might
not be possible! I did not care for him
deeply, of course, it was only an adventure,
but this stung me deeply. The light way he
took what he wanted and then seemed to want
to have no tie remaining! I felt as he did,

" too, really, but I did not want him to feel

so! I imagined in what a self-satisfied mood

he must be, how he walked off, with his

lighted cigar! He probably wondered what

sort of a girl this was who had given herself
[59 ]
An Anarchist Woman

so easily? Partly, too, no doubt, he laid it to
his charm and masculine virtue: though he
knew women were weak creatures, he also
knew that men were strong! Ah! I could
almost hear him muse aloud, in my imagi-
nation. His reveries, perhaps, would run
about like this:

““T was rather lucky to happen along this
evening! She was certainly worth while,
though pretty weak, I must say. She had fine
eyes and, by jove, what a mouth! She said,
“Wednesday.” I think I will go, though it
is never good policy to let girls be too sure
of you. Besides, how do I know she isn’t
playing me some game?’

“T didn’t know as much then as I do now
about man’s nature, but now I make no
doubt that as the time passed between then and
Wednesday Charles’s desire grew: it began
with indifference, but ended, I am sure, with
intensity: for men are like that! Their fancy
works in the absence, not in the presence, of
the girl. I am sure the girl with the red lips
and the deep dark eyes haunted him more
and more as time went on!

‘““At the time, I didn’t know just why, but
I did know that I wanted nothing more of

[ 60 ]
Adventures in Sex

Charley. He had never been anything but a
man to me—he was a moment in my life, that
was all. But I decided to meet him, for only
in that way could I really finish the affair.
Otherwise, if I merely broke the engagement,
he could imagine whatever he wanted to
account for it. No, he must be under no
illusion. He must know that I did not want
him!

“T waited for him in front of the house,
and on the appointed hour he arrived, look-
ing very happy and eager. He greeted me
with much warmth, to which I responded
coldly. He suggested going inside, but I
said: ‘No, I am going away. I have been
waiting here to tell you so, in case you came
to-night.’

“¢ But,’ he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone,
‘Did not you ask me to come, and now you
say you are going away. Is that fair to
me?’

“T shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘I
don’t know, but I’m going. Good-bye,’ and
I turned from him and started to walk away.
His tone changed to anger, as he said: ‘Now,
see here, Marie, I won’t stand for any non-
sense of this kind. You can’t treat me like

[61 ]
An Anarchist Woman

this, you know. What right have you to act
in this lying way?’

“T had been walking away and he follow-
ing, and as he stopped talking, he took my
arm, which I jerked away and impatiently
said: ‘Well, to be frank, I don’t want you
to-night. Whether I have a right to act so, I
don’t know or care. Why I asked you to
come I don’t know, unless it was because I
felt different from what I do now.’

“Charles adopted a more conciliating tone
and asked me when he might come. His in-
terest in me seemed to grow with my resist-
ance.

““T guess you’d better not come at all,’ I
said, coolly.

““But I want to,’ he said. ‘Do name the
night, any night you say.’

“Then I turned to him with angry eyes, and
cried out, ‘Oh, how stupid you are! Don’t
you understand that I don’t want you at all?’

“T again started to walk away, but he seized
my arm and shouted angrily: ‘You cannot
leave me like this without explaining some
things to me. In the first place, why did you
pull me on last Saturday night, and who are
you to turn me down like this?’ I answered,

[62 ]
Adventures in Sex

with flashing eyes, ‘I owe you no explanation,
but I will answer your questions. As to who
the girl is who can dare to turn you down, you
know very well she is not what you think, or
you wouldn’t so much object to being turned
down, as you call it. As to pulling you on,
you were the first to speak or, at any rate, it
was mutual, so you need not demand any ex-
planation. What you really want to know is
why I don’t want you now. If I were a man
like you, I suppose I should never even think
of explaining to anyone why I happened to
change in feeling toward some persons, but as
I’m a woman, it’s different. I must explain!’

“This speech I have no doubt made him
angry, but his pride came to the rescue and he
said with a show of indifference: ‘I was an-
gry, it is true, but only for a moment. It was
irritating to me to have a girl like you show
the nerve to throw me down; for I’m not ac-
customed to associate with your sort.’

“ At this insolence my face flushed hotly
and I opened my mouth to make some indig-
nant reply, but I thought better of it and only
walked away, laughing softly to myself. As
I went away, I heard him mutter, ‘What a
cat.’

[63 ]
An Anarchist Woman

“But, I imagine, he didn’t forget me so
easily. I have no doubt that the girl with the
red lips and deep dark eyes haunted him for
along time. Who was this girl who had given
herself to him once and only once? It is this
kind of a mystery that makes a man dream
and dream and curse himself.

“Probably for some time, as he joined the
crowd at State and Madison Streets, he hoped
to see me as I passed, but all things come to an
end and his passion for me did, no doubt, too.
But, in the routine course of his club life, mo-
ments came, perhaps, when he thought of little
Marie, her red lips, deep eyes, and pale, pale
face. I doubt if he ever told this story to any
of his boon companions.”

[64 ]
CHAPTER V

Marie’s Salvation

O* account of the irregularity of her life,

Marie lost job after job. Her relations
with her mother, never good, grew worse and
worse. Her profound need of experience, in
which the demand of the senses and the curi-
osity of the mind were equally represented,
impelled her to act after act of recklessness
and abandon. But, as in almost all, perhaps
all, human beings, there was in her soul a
need of justification—of social justification,
no matter how few persons constituted the ap-
proving group.

The feeling that everybody was against her,
that she was on the road to being what the
world calls an outcast, gave to her life an ele-
ment of sullenness and of despair. Perhaps
this added depth to her dissipation, but it took
away from it all quality of joy as well as of
peace. If her sensuality and her despair had
been all there was in her, or if these had con-
stituted her main characteristics, this story

[65 ]
An Anarchist Woman

would never have been written. Perhaps an-
other tale might have been told, but it would
have been the story of a submerged class, not
prostitutes, white slaves; and then it would
have been the story of a submerged class, not
of an individual temperament.

What was it that kept Marie in all really
essential ways out of this class of social vic-
tims? It was because, in the first place, of the
fact that her nature demanded something bet-
ter than what the life of the prostitute af-
forded. And it was natural that the greater
quality of personality that she possessed should
attract the kind of love and social support
needed essentially to justify to herself her in-
stincts. When she was very young Marie
secured the genuine love of two strong and
remarkable personalities; and at a later time,
there gathered about these three, other people
who enlarged the group, which gave to each
member of it the social support needed to
remove essential despair and desperate self-
disapproval.

One of these two persons so necessary to
Marie’s larger life was a woman whom she
had met several years previous to this point
in the story.

[66 ]
‘Marie’s Salvation

This woman was a cook, Katie by name.
She was born in Germany, and her young girl-
hood was spent in the old country. She had
only a rudimentary education, and even now
speaks broken English. ‘But she was endowed
with a healthy, independent nature, a sponta-
neous wit, and a strong demand to take care
of something and to love.

As natural as a young dog, she never
thought of resisting a normal impulse. Her
life as a girl in Germany was as free and un-
trammelled as a happy breeze. She lived in
a little garrison town in the South, and the
German soldiers did no essential harm to her
and the other young girls of the place. These
things were deemed laws of nature in her com-
munity. What would have been dreadful
harm to a young American girl was only an
occasional moment of anxiety to her. It never
occurred to her that it was possible to resist
a man. “I had to,” she said, very simply,
and did not seem to regret it any more than
that she was compelled to eat. She is also
very fond of her food. /

She came to America and worked as cook
in private families. She was capable and
strong and was never out of a job. She never

[67 ]
An Anarchist Woman

took any “‘sass”” from her mistress; in this re-
spect she was quite up to date among Ameri-
can “help.”

At the time she first met Marie she had
been working for a family several years, and
had reduced her employer to a state of whole-
some awe. She remained, like a queen, in
the kitchen, whence she banished all objec-
tionable intruders. Her mistress had a mar-
ried daughter, also living in the house, who
at first was wont to give orders to Katie, and
to interfere with her generally. One day
Katie drove her out of the kitchen with a vol-
ley of broken English. The daughter com-
plained to the mother, who took Katie’s side.
“You don’t belong in the kitchen,” she said
to her indignant daughter.

This episode filled Katie with contempt for
her mistress.

“She ought to have taken her daughter’s
side against me,” she said, “ you bet I would
have, if I had been in her place.”

The daughter had two young children. It
was to take care of them that Marie came into
the household. Marie’s mistress liked to stay
in bed and read novels, and this experience is
the one described by Marie in an earlier chap-

[ 68 ]
Marie’s Salvation

ter, how she locked herself and the children

in the store-room and read her mistress’s
books.

Katie fell in love with Marie almost at once.
She'was fifteen years older than the young girl
and as she had never had any children, all the
instinctive love of an unusually instinctive
nature seemed to be given to Marie. She saw
that Marie was not practical or energetic, and
this probably intensified the interest felt by
the more active and capable woman. She
took the young girl under her wing, and has
been, and is, as entirely devoted to her as
mothers sometimes are to their children.

The German cook was about thirty years
old at that time and had never loved a man,
though she had had plenty of temporary and
merely instinctive relations with the other sex.
So it was her entire capacity for love, mater-
nal and other, that she gave to Marie.

Almost at once Katie began to treat Marie
as her ward. She took her side against her
mistress, when the latter scolded the girl on
account of her indolence or slowness. “‘ Marie
is so young,” she would say, ‘“‘ almost a child;
and we ought to go easy on her.” She also
looked after Marie’s morals and tried to pre-

[69 ]

d
An Anarchist Woman

vent her being out late at night. This kind of
care had its amusing side, as Katie herself was
none too strict about herself in this regard.

For instance, Katie fancied the butcher’s
boy who used to come to the kitchen every day
with meat. He was only sixteen, and quite in-
experienced in the ways of the world.

“T did him no harm,” said Katie. “ But I
taught him everything there was to know. My
life was so monotonous and I worked so hard
then that I had to have him. I absolutely had
to, but I think I did him no harm and he was
certainly my salvation. But I didn’t let Marie
know anything about it. She was too young.
When she found out, years afterwards, she was
quite cross with me about it.”

This kind of relation existed between Katie
and Marie for several years. About the time
the girl went to Kenilworth and had her
idyllic experience, Katie married. Nick was
a good sort of a man, easy and happy, and a
sober and constant labourer. Katie had saved
some money, in her careful German way, had
even a bank-account of several hundred dol-
lars. It was not an exciting marriage; neither
of them was very young or very much in love,
at least Katie was not, but it was a good mar-

[70 ]
'Marie’s Salvation

riage of convenience, so to speak, and it might
have lasted if it had not been, as we shall
see, for Marie, and Katie’s affection for
her.

When Marie started in on her career of
wildness, Katie and Nick, her husband, had a
little home together. Into this home Marie
was always welcomed by Katie, but Nick was
not so cordial. They knew about the girl’s
looseness, and in their tolerant Southern Ger-
man way, they did not so much mind that, and
‘Katie was distinctly sympathetic: Marie was
old enough now, she thought. But Nick did
not like the hold the girl had on Katie’s af-
fection.

“You'll leave me for her, sometime,” he
would say to his wife, ominously. Katie would
laugh and call him an old fool. She couldn’t
foresee the circumstances that would one day
realise her husband’s fears.

It was about this time that Marie met the
man who has influenced her more deeply than

anyone else or anything else in her life, who! »

gave her a social philosophy, though to be

sure what would seem to most people a thor-

oughly perverse and subversive social phil-

osophy; but by means of which she had a
C71]
An Anarchist Woman

social background, and a saving justification
—was saved from being a mere outcast.
Terry, at the time he and Marie met, was
about thirty-five years old and an accom-
plished and confirmed social rebel. He had
worked for many years-at his trade, and was
an expert tanner. But, deeply sensitive to the
injustice of organised society, he had quit
work and had become what he called an an-
~varchist. His character was at that time quite
formed, while the young girl’s was not. It
was he who was to be the most important fac-
tor in the conscious part of her education.
But to explain his influence on Marie, it is
necessary to explain him,—his character, and
a part of his previous history.

[72]
CHAPTER VI
Terry

rT EBBY is a perfect type of the idealist.
We shall see‘how, in the midst of what
the world calls immorality and sordidness,
this quality in him was ever present; even
when it led to harshness to persons or facts.
Not fitting into the world, his attitude toward
it, his actions in it, and his judgment of it, are
keen and impassioned, but, not fitting the.
actual facts, sometimes unjust and cruel. Ten-
der and sensitive as a child, his indignation
is sO uncompromising that it often involves
injustice and wrong. But the beauty in him is
often startlingly pure, and reveals itself in un-
expected conditions and environment. I can-
not do better in an attempt to present him and
his history than to quote voluminously from
his letters to me, adding only what is necessary
for the sake of clearness. He wrote for me
the following poetic outline of his life: *
“The fate of the immigrant, sprung from
peasant stock, is to grow up in the slums and
* Terry’s letter, like Marie’s, I give verbatim.—H. H.

[73]
An Anarchist Woman

tenements of the great city. Such a fate was
mine. To exchange the rack-rented but limit-
less fields of Irish landlordism for the rickety
and equally rack-rented tenements, with the
checkerboard streets, where all must keep
moving, is only adding sordidness to spare
sadness. Surely, the birthday’s injury is felt
. in a deep sense by the poor. But the patient

ee fatalism of the peasant (so fatal to himself)

is equal to every calamity.

“T came from an exceptionally well-to-do
family of tenement-farmers, but a few genera-
tions of prolific birth rate, with the help of
successive famines and successful landlordism,
reduced us to the point of eviction. Enough
was saved from the wreck to pay for our pas-
sage in a sailing vessel to America. After be-
ing successfully landed, or stranded, on New
York, my father, with the true instinct of the
peasant, became a squatter on the prairies of
Goose Island. Here we put up, in the year
1864, a frame shanty of one room, in which
the nine of us tried to live. My father, the
only bread-winner, made from seven to eight
dollars a week. Absolute communism in the
deepest and most harmonious faithfulness pre-
vailed. Truly, as Burns says:

C74]
Terry

‘We had nae wish, save to be glad,
Nor want but when we thirsted;
We hated naught but to be sad.’

“T rejoice to say that I never got over this /
first blessed lesson in communism; even
though it was on a small scale, the family
contained the unity of a Greek tragedy. The
heart that throbs with little things may finally
throb for the world. And I learned nothing
in these days except the lessons of the heart.
The only necessary thing of which we had
almost enough was bread. The struggle for
existence, began on one continent, has con-
tinued on the other, with the surviving mem-
bers of the family standing shoulder to
shoulder for lack of room.

“Armed with a throbbing faith in every-
thing but myself, I boldly and voluntarily en-
tered the arena of commercial activity at the
pliable age of eight. My first job away from
home was in a mattress factory. Ah, that first
job! I was a triumphant Archimedes who had a‘
found his fulcrum. I helped move the world, |
for twelve hours a day and for two dollars a |
week.

“Then and later, I, like all people who
possess nothing, found that my best visions

[75]
An Anarchist Woman

have come to me while at work on something
y~ in which I had wistful faith; and when I
lost faith I blindly followed the economists
and philosophers who can never know the
mystic power of work over the worker. And
We it may be that herein lies the secret of the
fe philosopher’s ignorance and the worker’s
* ys slavery. A man stands to his job because of
the visions that come to him only when at
go. work.
oe “Though I helped move the world, I was
not an Atlas, and at last, I grew tired, for I
found the world moved me out of all propor-
tion to my capacity. Even at an early age, I
found that I had not the heart for the
fray. Stamped on my narrow forehead,
on my whole being, perhaps, so clearly
that every unsympathetic boss could un-
derstand at once, was the mark of the vis-
ionary. My pitiable willingness to work was
truly tragic.

“We were an eccentric family, especially
in our peculiar aloofness from others. We
clung desperately to one another long after
the necessity was past. Neither eviction nor
commerce could disband us. Only marriage

or death could separate us. Though we were
[76 ]

 

|
Terry

Catholics on the surface, we were pagans at
bottom. I had fed my fill on the fairy tales
of Ireland. Fortunately, these fairy tales
were told to me, not read, and told in such a
way that they led me to seek no individual
foothold in a world at war with my heart:
they helped to take away what the world calls
personal ambition. They strengthened my
natural quality as a dreamer, my tendency to
care only for the welfare of the soul. If I
could bring about no change in this world, it
should effect no alteration in me. This, as I
grew older, became a concious passion with
me: not to allow myself to be affected by the
world, or its ideals. Such was, at an early
age, my romantic resolution. Now, as the
colour in my hair begins to match the grey in
my eyes, and I look back over the changes of
almost half a century, I detect in the wreck
of my life almost a harmony, and something
rises above the ruins.

“On that frail foundation from fairy land
my trembling imagination rested, even amid
the sordid developments of my experience.
How often did I take my youthful oath that
the day should never come when I would out-

grow my feeling for all the world! I have
[77]
An Anarchist Woman

9, been put to the test, and, I hope, not found
~~ wanting.

“The end of my first ten years of life found
me regretfully divesting myself, one by one,
of my beloved folk-lore tales, and reverently
folding them away, in preparation for the
fray. I worked, during my second ten years,
as a journeyman tanner and currier; knocked
by fate and the boss from shop to shop and from
town to town. /I naturally sought solidarity

,’ with my fellows. Class feeling awoke in me,
and voluntarily and enthusiastically I joined
the union of my craft. Though I strained at
its narrow confines, I was at one with my class.
(During the ’7o’s and ’80’s the eight hour
movement laid me off on several strikes, long
and short. This enforced leisure was not idle-
ness for me, for in these periods the world of

| Sienc, art and philosophy shot their stray
gleams into my startled mind, and I found

, ,time to ponder on what leisure might do for

\/\/ the mob. What did it not do for me, and

what has it not done for me since? And I in

the very ecstasy of my being was one of this
mob.

““Whole hours, whole nights, I stole from

my needed rest to read and ponder on our

[78]
Terry

human fate. Sundays! Things after a day’s
labour incomprehensible to my stunned brain
were easily grasped on a glorious morning of
religious leisure. The apathy of my fellows
—how well I understood it when, with nerves
unstrung and muscles relaxed, after a tense
twelve hours of toil, I fell asleep over my be-
loved books! And how well, too, I understood
their amusement—the appeal of the poor
man’s club!—when in gay carousal we tried
to forget what we were. Even in the saloon
and dance-hall we told tales of the shop!
Oh, the irony of it! Was there no escape from
the madness of the mart, no surcease from the
frenzy of the factory or the shibboleth of the
shop!

“Yes! How well I recall the gay trans-
formation in my shop-mates when the whistle
blew on Saturday night. The dullest and most
morose showed intelligence then. The pros-
pect of rest, be it ever so remote—even in the
hereafter—roused them from their lethargy.
How alert and cheerful we were on holidays,
even the prolonged holiday of a strike brought
its pinched joys. Quite a number of my an-
cient comrades of industry looked forward to
the Poor House with a hopefulness born of

[79]
An Anarchist Woman

thwarted toil. The luckiest ones out of the
thousands whom I knew were those few who,
overcome at last, could find some sheltering
fireside and keep out of the way until nature
laid them off for good; the living envied the
dead.

“T took part in the famous bread riots of
*77, when I had to fly from the shop, before
an infuriated mob armed with sticks, stones,
pikes, and pitchforks. In the same year I saw
from a distance the great battle of the viaduct,
when the mob, armed as in the bread riots,
faced the federal troops and were shot down
and dispersed. It was about this time, too,
that I stood by as the ‘ Lehr und Wehr Verein’
in their blue blouses of toil and shouldered
rifles strode ominously onward. These men

- were the first fruits in America of Bakunin’s

ideals and work in Europe. They, too, were
put down, by an act of legislature.

“These proletarian protagonists whipped
me into a fury. My father, too, had his rifle,
and when drunk he invoked it, as it hung on
the wall, thus: ‘Come down, my sweet rifle,
how brightly you shine! What tyrant dare
stifle that sweet voice of thine.’ But my father
was only a Fenian revolutionist; and as it

[ 80 ]
Terry

was only a step for me from Ireland to In-
ternationalism, I was soon beyond his
creed.

“We had come to America during war
times, with the spirit of revolt already germ-

inating within us; and although we were” |
against slavery, our sympathies were with the ~

South. We were natural as well as political
democrats, and even when the mob was in the
wrong, I always became one of it. How
finely elemental, how responsive to the best
and the worst, is the mob when the crisis
comes!

“Although my thoughts were forming
through my readings and the larger events
about me, the everyday life in the shop was
perhaps the deepest cause of my growing re-
volt. The atmosphere of the frenzied factory
is well calculated to produce a spirit of sullen
and smouldering rebellion in the minds of its
less hardened inmates. From the domineer-
ing boss down to the smallest understrapper,
the spirit of the jailer and turnkey is domi-
nant. Much worse than solitary confinement
is it to be sentenced to ten hours of silence and
drudgery. The temptation to speak to the

man at your side is well nigh irresistible. But
[81 ]
An Anarchist Woman

to speak means to be marked, to have hurled
at you a humiliating reprimand, or, as a last
resort, to be discharged.

“No lunching between meals is allowed, al-
though it is a well-known fact that few work-
ers have the appetite at dawn to eat sufficient
food to last them till their cold lunch at noon.
From this comes the terrible habit, among the
older toilers, of the eye-opener, a gulp of rot-
gut whiskey, taken to arouse the sleeping
stomach and force sufficient food on it to last
till noon. As a convalescent victim of this
proletarian practice I am well aware of its
ravages on body and mind. It is the will-of-
the-wisp of false whiskey followed by false
hope, leading into the fogs and bogs of the
bourgeois and the quicksands of the capi-
talist.

“To be a moment late, means to be docked
and to have it rubbed in by an insult. To take
a day off, well—death is taken as an excuse.
There is no such thing in a shop as social
equality between boss and men. In my last
position as foreman I had charge of three hun-
dred men. Many of them were faithful com-
rades in many a brave strike, where starvation

pressed hard, whence they had emerged with
[82]
Terry

hollow cheeks and undaunted hearts. I soon
came to know them all, personally, intimately,
and liked them all, though I felt most strangely
drawn to those who worked for one dollar a
day. They all did their work faithfully, and
there was no complaint from the front office.
One day, however, the owner charged me with
treating the hands as if they were my equals.
I tried to make him see the human justifica-
tion of it, but he would have none of it. He
was a typical boss and also a millionaire
banker.

“Tt was about this time that I discovered
the deepest tonic my nerves have ever known.
The explosion of the Haymarket bomb found*.
a responsive chord, the vibrations of which ,
will never cease in me, I hope. The uncon-
scious in me was at last released, and I held
my mad balance on the crater’s edge and
gazed into it. Hereafter, I was to live on
dangerous ground, at least in thought. No
more doubt, no more shuffling now. I must
try the chords of my heart, the sympathy of
my soul, in open rebellion. The iniquities of
civilisation had ruined a fine barbarian in me, ©
and almost made of me a maudlin miscreant, ¥

willing to hang upon the skirts of a false
[83 ]
An Anarchist Woman

society. The Haymarket bomb made me
strip again and for a nobler fray.

“Of what avail was it, I reflected, to raise
one’s voice in the wilderness of theories? How
do any good by a social enthusiasm merely
expressed in theory? Such thin cerebral struc-
tures are shattered to pieces in the ordeal of
life. Ah, but this anonymous Avatar, this man
with the bomb! His instinct was right, but
how far short it fell, and must always fall.
He had settled the strife within him and be-
come definite to himself: that was all he had
done. I too must settle the strife within me.
I was plunged into prolonged dreams from
which I was aroused by hunger, hunger of
many kinds, and driven into my former haunt,
the shop.

“But now, when I stripped for work in the
factory and donned my vestments of toil, I
stood forth without falsehood. I knew, if not
what I was, at least what I wanted, rather
what I did not want. I did not want this, this
society!

“Each morning as I took my place in the
shop I had the feeling of my boyhood—as if
I were celebrating a High Mass before the
sacrifice of another day. There was much of

[84]
Terry

the Pontifical in me, for I was a rapt radical.
Each morning on my way to Commercial Cal-
vary I saw another sacrifice; I overtook small
shrivelled forms, children they were, by the
dim dawn. How their immature coughings
racked my heart and gave me that strange
tightening of the chest! I could not keep my
eyes from the ground whence came the sound
of small telltale splashes, after each cough.
Many times I stopped to hold a child who was
vomiting.

“Here was a woe too deep for tears; and I
must look with dry eyes or I should fail to
see. Have you ever noticed the searching dry
gaze of the poor? It is like the seeing, wistful
look of a child—which few can bear without
flinching. I had no need to read Dante’s
imaginary ‘Inferno.’ I was living in a real
one which made all imagination seem trivial.
‘The short and simple annals of the poor’
seems like poetry, but only superficially, for it
is not truth, but a fiction. It is false, for the
annals of the aristocracy are not so long,
neither are they so complex.

“T am not trying to plead for anything. I
am trying merely to express. Prepared for
everything, I have forgiven everything, even

[85]
An Anarchist Woman

myself. Everything that could happen has
happened to me, perhaps the worst that hap-
pened did not come from without, but from
within. My family came off safely enough
' from the fray of the factory. Only two of us
were maimed for life and five claimed for
death—out of a family of eleven. That teat
half a dozen for the statistician to figure on.’

Terry, a transcendental poet, who worked
in the shop for many years, had quit it some
time before he met Marie. The above letter
shows, in a general way, the mood which
finally brought about his social self-exile, so
to speak. The letter which follows gives a
specific instance of the kind of experience
, which disgusted the idealist with the imper-
fect world. He had been living against
society, had foregathered with outcasts and
had thrown down the gauntlet generally to
organised society, for some years, but he still
from time to time worked at some job or other.
An incident happening some years after the
meeting with Marie, which is still to be de-
scribed, is sufficiently typical of what finally
threw him entirely out from society to be
truthfully illustrative at this point.

“T was keeping open house for all comers,

[ 86 ]
Terry

regardless of law or order, morality or money. °

I wished to hurl myself and my theories to

the test, and gauntlet my defiance toa withered
world. It was a happy time, looked back on ~

now as a dream, in which, however, there was
an undertone of nightmare. We had three
little rooms up many mild flights of unbalus-
tered stairs. Our main furniture consisted of
mattresses which, like morning clouds, were
rolled away when the sun arose.

“For the shocking salary of six dollars a
week I was collector for the Prudential In-
surance company. One rent day I lacked
the necessary four dollars and a half. I tele-
graphed my other ego, my dear brother Jim,
in Pittsburg. The same day brought from
him a telegraph money-order for twenty-five
dollars, and soon afterward a letter asking me
to go to Pittsburg and help him out. I had
always been deemed an expert in the leather
line, especially in locating anything wrong in
the various processes. My brother was a
member of a new millionaire leather firm,
which was losing thousands of dollars every
week because they were unable to locate the
weakness in the process. Jim wanted me to
find the flaw.

[87 ]

\
An Anarchist Woman

“Tt was with the utmost repugnance that I
quit my happy slum life, but I loved Jim, and
it was the call of the ancient clan in my blood.
When J arrived in Pittsburg, without a trunk,
and with other marks of the proletarian on
me, Mr. Kirkman, the millionaire tanner,
showered me with every luxury—every luxury
except that of thought and true emotion.
Never before did I realise so intensely my in-
difference to what money can buy. My pri-
vate office in the shop was stocked with wines
and imported cigarettes: but I was not so well
off as in my happy slum.

day, in a flash of sonia Ts, Tocated and
showed the flaw in an obscure process; I was
completely successful.

“T had put no price on my services. For
Jim’s sake, I had worked like a Trojan, phy-
sically and mentally, for a month. With un-
limited money at my disposal, I had drawn
only twenty dollars altogether, and this I sent
to Marie, to keep the wolf away from the
Rogues’ Gallery, our flat.

“When the factory was running smoothly,
T told Mr. Kirkman that I would break in a
man for my place. He made me a tempting

[88 ]
Terry

offer to take full charge of the shop. I told
him I would not be a participant in exploiting
his ‘hands,’ who were getting only $7 to $8 a
week. Furthermore, I said I would not stand
for the discharge of any man for incompe-
tency. I had never in the shop met any man
I could not teach and learn something from in
return; I had never discharged a man, and
never would. The millionaire boss neverthe-
less continued to urge me to take the position,
and my brother Jim offered me two thousand
dollars’ worth of stock at par and a large
yearly salary. Well, I suppose, there’s no use
of anybody’s trying to move me when Jim
has failed.

“JT quit Pittsburg with nothing but the
price of a ticket to Chicago, though my
brother told me the firm would send me a
check for $500 or $1,000 for my services as an
expert. When, with a beating heart, I re-
turned to my dear Rogues’ Gallery, all was
change and dispersion. No more happy times
in our little balcony of fellowship, which had.
overlooked in its irresponsibility the jarring
sects and insects of this world: the most de-
lightful place in this world to me is a home
without a boss, and this home was for the time

[89]
An Anarchist Woman

gone. The possibility of being unfair to
Marie makes me draw a veil over the cause of
the breaking-up of the Rogues’ Gallery.
“Poor Jim found that the firm would not
pay me a cent for my really brilliant month’s
work, for the reason that I had refused to be
a conventional boss and had no written or
verbal contract or agreement. Jim therefore
resigned, forfeiting fifty dollars of weekly
salary and twenty-five thousand dollars in
stock, ten thousand of which he had offered me
to stay. Mr. Kirkman thought all the world
of Jim and could not run the shop without
him. Nor could he recover from the blow,
for he loved my brother, as everybody did.
Mr. Kirkman died a few weeks afterward,
and after a year or two the firm went into the
hands of a receiver. All this happened be-
cause of a few paltry dollars, which I did not
ask for, for which I did not care a damn—and
this is business! I heartily rejoice, if not in
Mr. Kirkman’s death, at least in the disper-
sion of his family and their being forced into
our ranks, where there is some hope for them.
“My brother Jim was one of the maimed
ones in my family. Twenty years ago, defect-
ive machinery and a surgeon’s malpractice

[90 ]
Terry

made one arm useless. The Pittsburg affair
broke up his beautiful home. He and his
whole-souled wife and charming children,
into whose eyes it was an entrancing rapture
for me to look, were a family without a boss;
they needed none, for they loved one another
perfectly. Jim is dead now, and the best I
can do is to send you his last letter; it has the
brevity of grief:

‘“““T have no explanation to offer for my
silence, more than a feeling which possessed
me shortly after my arrival here—a desire to
be considered a dead one, and am doing all
but the one thing that will make my wish a
reality. I am long tired of the game, and only
continue to play because of the hardships my
taking off would cause those who at present
are not able to care for themselves. A way
out of it would be to take them along, but I
think if the matter were put before them, they
would decline my proffered service; and take
a chance as half-orphans. You calling up our
boyhood days in “Little Hell” makes me
question still further if I have any right to
deny those dear to me the delights that only
the young can feel and enjoy. I made a great
mistake in coming to this Ohio town. The

[ord
An Anarchist Woman

chase for dollars which I am performing here
seven days every week is very disgusting to
me, and every day only adds to the pangs. I
am out all day selling goods, pleading for
trade and collecting for former weeks’ busi-
ness; and in the evening I must do the neces-
sary office work. Every day is the same, ex-
cept Sunday, when I make up the book-keep-
ing for the whole week and prepare state-
ments and the like, to begin the usual round
on Monday merning. It isa hell of a life and
I wish it were done. I have some consolation
in being able to call up at will those that I
love. I have-many a waking dream, while
tramping the hills, about the comrades that
have added to the joys of my former existence.
Let me hear from you occasionally, because a
letter from you seems to revive some of the
old feeling that formerly made life passable.’

“T suppose I shall recover in time from
Jim’s death. I wish I could have been with
him when he died. During his last half-un-
conscious moments the nurse proposed to send
for a priest. Jim’s soul must have made a last
effort, for raising himself erect, he flung these
words: ‘I hire no spiritual nurse,’ and then

[92]
Terry

asked his daughter of fourteen to bring him a
volume of Emerson and read to him. When
she returned with the book, he was gone.

“Of course, the doctor and all the wise ones
have Giaenosed Jim’s case. But I think he
sized up his case in that letter I sent you. He
died of that great loneliness of soul which
made of his wasted body a battered barricade
against the stupidity which finally engulphed
him. The soul of social and individual honour
and commercial integrity, he had the misfor-
tune to find few like himself. He yearned for
the ideal; and I am sure he went down with
that hope for humanity. Let us trust that
there is an ever increasing number of human
beings who have Jim’s malady—‘ seekers after
something in this world, that is there in no
satisfying measure, or not at all.’ If this let-
ter seems boisterously blue, remember it is
only the sullen marching of the black sap pre-
ceding the unfurling of the emerald banners
of spring, when all things break into a ‘shrill
green.”

[93 ]
\f

fs

' conduct and life. So it was with Terry. He

fe iret

CHAPTER VII
The Meeting

HE mood of rebellious idealism some-
times expresses itself in actual anti-social

is the most consistent anarchist I have known,

in the sense that he more nearly rejects, prac-

tically, all social institutions and forms of con-
duct and morality. He is very sweet, and very
gentle, loves children and is tender to every

‘\ felt relation. There is a wistful look always

in his eyes. He is tall, thin, and gaunt, his

a. hair is turning grey; but there is nothing of

*

| the let-down of middle age in his nature, al-
_ Ways tense, intense; scrupulously, deeply
‘rebellious.

Even before his meeting with Marie, his
open acts of sympathy with what is rejected
by society had put him more and more in the
position of an outcast. Some of the members
of his family had become fairly successful ini
the ways of the world. Terry might easily
have taken his place in comfortable bourgeois

[94 ]
The Meeting

society. But his temperament and his ideal-
ism led him to the disturbed life of the radi-
cal rejector. And he was rejected, in turn, by
all, even by his family.

Between him and his mother there was per-
haps an uncommon bond, but even she in the
end cast him out. He wrote of her:

“She taught me that I did not belong in
this world; she did not know how deeply she
was right. When she crossed my arms over
my childish breast at night and bade me be
prepared, she gave me the motive of my life.
She told me I would weep salt tears in this
world, and they have run into my mouth. She
loved me, as I never have been loved before

or since, even up to the hour of my social cru- _\,..:

cifixion: then she basely deserted me. But I
allied; and the motive she implanted in me
remains. Though a child without any child-
hood, I had my reason for existence, just the

same. Everything is meaningless and transi-|

tory, except to be prepared. And I finally be-
came-prepared for anything and everything.
My life was and is a preparation—for what?
For social crucifixion, I suppose, for I belong
to those baffled beings who are compelled to
unfold within because there is no place for

[95 ]

” Gad. ALN Pe f A PML vey 4 Ley &

\

Cunt
An Anarchist Woman .

them without. I am a remaining product of
the slums, consciously desiring to be there. I
know its few heights and many depths. There
have I seen unsurpassed devotion and unbe-
lievable atrocities, which I would not dare,
even if I could, make known. The truth, how
can we stand it, or stand for it? I think a
sudden revelation has wofully unbalanced
many a fine mind. Hamlet, revealing him-
self to Ophelia, drives distraught one of
the sweetest of souls. Fortunately we never
know the whole truth, which may account for
man being gregarious. One cannot help no-
ticing that they who have a hopeless passion
for truth are left largely alone—when nothing
worse can be inflicted upon them.”

Terry’s experience in the slums was no other
than many another’s, but the effect it made
upon his great sensibility was far from ordi-
nary. In another letter, speaking of what he
calls his “ crucifixion,” he wrote:

“Only great sorrow keeps us close, and that
is why, the first night after one of my deepest

~~ quarrels with my mother, I picked out a five-

. - cent lodging-house, gvedeoking my home, to

\! pass the night of my damnation in sight of the

‘\ lost paradise. I never had any reason, or I
[96 ]
n

The Meeting Byte :

would have lost it. Let me hope that I am
guided by something ‘deeper than that. ‘All
my life I have felt the undertone of society;
it has swept me to the depths, which I touched
lovingly and fearfully with my lips.
“Whenever and wherever I have touched
the depths, and it has been frequent and pro-
longed, and have seen the proletarian face to/,
face, naked spiritually and physically, the
appeal in| his eyes is irresistible and irrefut-)
able. I must do something for him or else
I am lost to myself. If I should ever let an
occasion go by I am sure I never could
recover from the feeling that something
irreparable had happened to me. I should
not mind failure, but to fail here and in my
own eyes is to be forever lost and eternally
damned. This looks like the religion of my
youth under another guise, but I must find
imperishable harmony somewhere. The
apathy of the mass oppresses me into a hope-
less helplessness which may acount for my
stagnation, my ineffectiveness, my impotence,
my stupidity, my crudeness, and my despair.
I have always felt lop-sided, physically,
especially in youth. My awkwardness became,
too, a state of mind at the mercy of any
[97]
An Anarchist Woman

spark of suggestion. My subjectively big
head I tried to compress into a little hat, my
objectively large hands concealed themselves
in subjective pockets, my poor generous feet
went the way of the author of Pilgrim’s
Progress. The result is a lop-sided mind,
developed monstrously in certain sensitive
directions, otherwise not at all. A born stum-
bler in this world, I naturally lurched up
against society—but, as often happens I have
lost the thread of my thought: my thoughts, at
the critical moment, frequently desert me, as
my family did; they seem to carry on an allur-
ing flirtation, and when I think them near
they suddenly wave me from the distance.
But, like a lover, I will follow on—follow on
to platonic intercourse with my real mistress,
the proletarian. And soul there is there. I
have met as fathomless spirits among the
workers as one will meet with anywhere.
Art never has fathomed them, and may never
be able to do so. Often have I stood dumb-
founded before some simple day-labourer
with whom I worked. Art does not affect
me, as this kind of grand simplicity in life
does. I keep muttering to myself: there
must be a meaning to our lives somewhere, or

[98 ]
The Meeting

else we must sunder this social fabrication
and create a meaning; and so my incantations
go on endlessly.

“The proletarian is that modern sphinx
whose thundering interrogative society will
be called upon to answer. You and I know
too well that society hitherto has answered
only with belching cannon and vain vapour-
ings of law, religion, and duty. But the toil-
ing sphinx, who has time only to ask terrible
questions, will some day formulate an
articulate reply to its own question, and then
once more we shall see that our foundations
are of sand—sand that will be washed away,
by blood, if need be. Some there are who
will weep tears over the sand: the pleasures
and the joy may die, for to me they are cold
and false. My joy cannot find place within
the four walls which shut out the misery and
brutality of the world.

“How be a mouthpiece for the poor?
How can art master the master-problem?
They who have nothing much to say, often
say it well and in a popular form; they are
unhampered by weighty matters. It takes an
eagle to soar with a heavy weight in its
grasp. The human being, rocking to and fro

[99 ]
An Anarchist Woman

with his little grief, must give way in depth
of meaning to him who is rocked with the
grief of generations past, present, and to
come. It is then that love might rise, love so
close to agony that agony cannot last: the
love that will search ceaselessly, in the slums,
in the dives, throughout all life, for the
inevitable, and will accept no alternative and
no compromise.”

This was the man who met Marie at a
critical time of her life. He was about
_thirty-five years old, had experienced much,
had become formed, had rejected society, but
-not the ideal. Rather, as he dropped the one,
he embraced more fervently the other. He
had consorted with thieves, prostitutes, with
all low human types; and for their failures
and their weaknesses, their ideas and their
instincts, he felt deep sympathy and even an
aesthetic appreciation.

Marie, as we have seen, was only seven-
teen, unformed and wild, full of youthful
passion and social despair, on the verge of
what we call prostitution; reckless, hope-
less, with a deep touch of sullenness and
hatred. She was working at the time in
the house of one of Terry’s brothers. Katie,

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too, was employed there; although she lived
with Nick, her husband, she still occupied
herself at times with her old occupation; and,
as ever, she watched Marie with a careful
eye, rather vainly so just then, for this girl
was as wild as a girl well could be.

One day Terry paid one of his infrequent
visits to his brother’s home, and saw the
plump and pretty Marie hanging clothes in
the yard. He was at once attracted to her,
and entered into conversation. He was
deeply pleased; so was the girl; and they
made an appointment. He soon saw what
her character was, and this was to him an
added attraction.

“JT had been looking for a girl like
Marie,” he said, “for several years. I had
made one or two trials, and they always got
me into trouble with my family. But the
other girls did not make good. They were
too weak and conventional and could not stand
the pace of life with me. I had early formed
a contempt for the matrimonial relation.
Five years I had nursed my rebellion and
waited for a chance to use it. ‘As soon as I
met Marie I felt I had met one of my own

kind. It was partly the fierce charm of a
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An Anarchist Woman

social experiment, the love for the proletarian
and the outcast; for I felt Marie was
essentially that. This element of my interest
in her Marie never understood—this uncon-
scious propaganda, as it were. She thought
it was all sex and wanted it so.”

Katie saw that Terry was making up to her
beloved Marie, and tried to prevent their
meetings; but in vain; the attraction was too
strong. Katie blackguarded Terry on every
occasion, until she finally saw it was hope-
less, and then invited him into her house to
meet the girl. There he began to go fre-
quently and the intimacy grew. Nick warned
Terry against the girl on account of her loose
character. “JI have often found her,” he
said, ‘“‘misconducting herself with some fel-
low or other. Why, she does so with every-
body. Only this evening I found her on the
front door-step with young Bladen. She is
not the kind for you to be serious about.
Everybody knows how common she is.”

Nick did not understand that an argument
of that kind tended only to confirm Terry in
his interst in Marie. Terry answered him
laconically: “That’s all right, Nick. When
you don’t want her, just send her to me.”

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Nick, as we have seen, was jealous of
Marie, because of Katie’s love for her; so
he fomented trouble between the two women.
Katie, too, was at this time more exasperated
with the girl’s conduct than she had ever
been before; and they had frequent quar-
rels. As the result of one of them, Marie
went off with Terry to his family flat, where
he was living alone at the time—to “have a
fish dinner,” telling the relenting Katie that she
would return in the evening. But she stayed
there with Terry all that night, for the first
time. In the morning Katie turned up bright
and early, burst into the flat, and reproached
Terry so bitterly that they almost came to
blows. But when Marie took Terry’s side,
Katie, terribly disappointed and hurt, yet
made up her mind that it was inevitable; and
Terry and Marie began to live together.

How did Marie feel about all this? What
was her condition at the time, and her atti-
tude toward this strange man, so different
from every other she had met? In a long letter
to me she has given an account of it all.

“T wrote you about my adventure with the
club man. Well that was only a single instance
of what finally became frequent with me. I

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An Anarchist Woman

had grown so fearfully tired of the life I was
leading in domestic service that the only
problem for me was how to get away from it
all. For a time, I had thought I could get
away only by marriage. I was ready to marry
anybody who offered me food and shelter,
and I had even thought of prostitution as a
means of escape from domestic drudgery. I
had not the slightest idea of what prostitution
in its accepted sense meant. I knew in a
vague way that women sold their bodies to
men for money, that they lived luxurious
lives, went to theatres and balls, wore beauti-
ful gowns and seemed to be gay and happy. I
was willing to marry any man who offered me
a home, without the least suspicion that in
that way, too, I should prostitute myself. But
no one at that time offered me this means
of escape, so I was quite ready to take
the only other way, as I thought, left to
mie.

“About this time I met an old girl-friend
whom I had not seen for several years; she
was a domestic servant, too, but was in
advance of me in her recklessness. When I
met her again she was in the mood to lose all the
little virtue left to her. She was quite willing

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to sell herself: she had done enough for love,
she said, marriage was now an impossibility,
and she might as well realise on her com-
mercial value. To these ideas I agreed, and
we arranged to meet in two weeks from that
day and try an experiment. Meanwhile she
was to go back to her home, get her belong-
ings, and tell her parents she had secured a
place as a servant-girl in Chicago.

“T left my position, and finding things
too disagreeable at home where I continually
quarrelled with my mother, I went to visit
Kate, until my friend should return.

“How my ideas and ideals had changed!
When I first began to dislike the work I was

forced to do, I dreamed that some charming »

fairy would come and release me: I had been
taught such a view of life from the novels of
Bertha M. Clay and E. D. E. N. Southworth.
Some rich man, young and charming, possibly
the owner of the factory I was working in,
would fall passionately in love with me,
marry me and carry me away to his palace!
Gradually, my ideas came down. I should
have been glad to marry a foreman, then
some good mechanic, and finally, some work-
man, however humble, whom I would love
[ 105 ]
An Anarchist Woman

dearly. And now I was deliberately pre-
paring for a life of prostitution!

“Tt was then, while living with my dear
friend Kate, whom I sometimes helped in the
work she did out, that I met my first, my last,
my truest lover and friend, Terry. We met
just at the right moment. I was filled with
rebellion at the powers that were crushing me,
breaking me, without realising why, or how,
or what I might make of myself, when he
came along and taught me in his own quiet
and gentle convincing way how cruel and
unjust is this scheme of things, and pointed
out to me the cruelty and tyranny of my
parents and of all society. He showed me
that marriage such as I had contemplated was
a bad form of prostitution, and he told me
why. Of course, I did not grasp all the things
he told me at once, but I listened and felt
comforted; I began to feel that perhaps I
might amount to something, might have some
life of my own, and that my rebellion was
perhaps justifiable. I began to understand
why work was so objectionable to me and
why I rebelled against the authority of my
parents. My conceptions of freedom were

crude, but I began to feel that my revolt was
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just, and was based upon the terrible injustice
whereby the many must toil so that the few
may live in splendour. I will not weary you
with all the details of the things I learned
at that time from Terry. To you it might
seem very raw and crude, and you no doubt
have read some of the pamphlets written by
socialists and anarchists dealing with the
labour question in all of its aspects. But to
me these ideas were quite new and they
seemed grand and noble.

‘“‘And Terry revealed to me, too, almost at
once, the great inspiring fact that there is
such a thing as beauty of thought—that there
is poetry and art and literature. This, too,
of course, came little by little, but do you
wonder I loved a man who showed me a new
world and who taught me I was not bad? He
put good books into my hands, and to my
grateful joy I found I liked these books better
than the trash I had hitherto read.

“T felt so much better, after seeing so
much of Terry, that I decided to go to work
again. Terry was against this. ‘Try it,’ he
said, ‘But I assure you you don’t need to
work. I have tried doing without work for v
many years, it is much easier than it seems.’

[ 107 ]
An Anarchist Woman

Nevertheless I got a job in a bicycle factory,
but I only stayed a few days. It seemed like
a stale existence to me! And besides, I was in
love and wanted to be with Terry all the
time. ‘By God,’ I said to him that night,
‘you are right! I’ll never work again.’

“My friend Gertrude, the girl with whom
I had intended to go in the last reckless
experiment, came to Terry’s flat to see me, and
get me to go with her. I had thought, after
IT gave up work, that Terry might offer me
marriage, but he told me quite frankly that
it was against his principles to marry any-
body. I was a little hurt and astonished at
this, but as I was very much in love and was
already beginning to imbibe his ideas, it did
not matter so very much to me.

“So, when Gertrude came, I led her to
Terry and asked him what he thought about
her plan. He said to us: ‘The kind of
prostitution you contemplate is no worse
than the kind often called marriage. Sell-
ing your body for a lifetime is perhaps
worse than selling it for an hour or for a day.
But the immediate result of this kind of
prostitution which you plan is very terrible
practically. It generally leads to frightful

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diseases which will waste your bodies and
perhaps injure your minds. The girls you
envy are not always as happy, gay, and care-
less as they seem. It is part of their business
to seem so, but they are not, or only so for a
very short time. Perhaps you will be better
off so than in domestic drudgery. It is a
choice of evils, but if you are very brave and
courageous you may perhaps get along with-
out either. But if forced to one or the other,
I recommend prostitution. It may be worse
for you but, as a protest, it is better for society,
in the long run.’

“He pictured to us as truly as he could
the life of the street-walker; he did not seem
to think that morally it was worse than any
other life under our social organisation, but
he did not make it seem attractive; nor did he
make the life of the domestic servant or
factory-girl seem attractive. He seemed to
feel that one might look on prostitution as,
under the circumstances, a grim duty—but it
was certainly grim.

“We were rather incredulous at the picture
Terry had drawn of the life we had resolved
to lead. Gertrude turned up her pretty
little nose and said it would not be like that

[ 109 ]
An Anarchist Woman

with her. We talked about it all that day and
night; and Gertrude decided to have a try at
it, while I was undecided. I was somewhat
piqued at Terry’s attitude. I had expected
him to oppose my plan, to do all in his power
to prevent it. But I did not understand him.
He knew that if I were determined, nothing
would prevent me, and all he could do was
to give us a faithful picture of what such a
life would be.

“Things were happening of which we were
ignorant for a time, but which helped to
settle our immediate problem. I had often
been seen going into Terry’s flat, and this was
food for gossip. It was said that Terry had
started a bad house, and had done so in the
flat belonging to his family, who were in the
country at the time. These stories reached
my mother’s ears, and also were told to
Terry’s mother and sisters, and the mischief
began. I was forbidden ever to cross my
mother’s threshold again, and he was
requested to leave the home of his virtuous
sisters which he had polluted and contami-
nated by his debaucheries with that immoral
person, myself.”

Marie omitted, in the above letter, the

[110 ]
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details of the split with the two families. It
seems that Terry had, on hearing about the
“rumours,” gone to his family, then near
Chicago, and presented to them his philosophy
of life; also his determination not to give up
Marie, and not to marry her. It was then
that the last rung was put in the ladder of his
family crucifixion, as he would call it. It
was then that his mother “basely deserted
him;” and Terry left for good, rejecting the
money offered him.

“T passed them up,” he said, scornfully,
“and after spending the night in the lodging-
house, I beat my way back to Chicago. I
had been gone several days, and when I got
back to the flat, where I went only to get
Marie and clear out for God knows where, I
found her gone, and no apparent way of find-
ing her address. I went to see her mother,
and had an awful scene with her. The violent
woman was in hysterics and, after a long
dispute, implored me to find her daughter.
‘T’ll find her,’ I replied, ‘for myself, and
left.

“ Marie afterwards told me that she and
Gertrude had gone to see her mother, when

I was in the country with my family, and that
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An Anarchist Woman

her mother had driven them away. Perhaps,
the mother realised the change in the girl.
Perhaps, too, she realised what must happen,
if she drove her away. Yet she did drive her
daughter away. From her own point of
’ view, it was diabolical to do so. Her anger,
her exasperation and her outraged desire to
rule drove her to doing what she must have
felt was the worst thing she could do. And
she did it in the name of virtue! Perhaps
it was for the best: I believe it was, but she
did not and I cannot see where her spiritual
salvation comes in.”

Terry finally found Marie—found her in
the midst of a short experiment, in company
with Gertrude, “in one of the social
extremes,”—to be plain, leading the life of a
prostitute.

I ask the reader to pause here and reflect.
Pause, before you conclude that this book is
an indecent and immoral book. Reflect before
you conclude that this woman is an immoral
woman. I am engaged in telling a plain tale
in such a way that certain social conditions
and certain social considerations and _ indi-
vidual truths may be illustrated thereby.
Consequently, I shall not pause, though I ask

[112]
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the reader to do so, in order to point a moral
in any extended way. In return for the
readers’ courtesy and tolerance, I will here
reassuringly assert that there will be found in
these pages no detailed description of Marie’s
life during her few months of prostitution;
and nothing whatever, from cover to cover, of
anything that in my judgment is either
immoral or indecent.

Well, Terry found her, and Terry did not
try to “reform” her. But he stood by her,
and was more interested, more in love with her
than ever. In addition to his personal inter-
est, he felt an even stronger social interest in
her. To live with a girl like that was
unconscious propaganda. This passion, as he
calls it, was now more deeply stirred than
when he first met her. This deeply aroused
his imagination and his keen desire to see
what the naked constitution of the soul is,
after it is stripped of all social prestige.

V i

Ce Ww

\
ih f
1

bra

If Marie had been simply a low, commer- { , é,,

cial grafter, Terry, the idealist, would not
have been interested. ‘But Terry knew that
Marie cared nothing whatever for money.
He regarded her as a social victim and in
addition a vigorous and life-loving person-

[113]
An Anarchist Woman

ality, an excellent companion for a life-long
protest against things as they are. He saw
she had the capacity for deep and excited
interest in truth, an emotional love for ideated
experience. These two human beings were
wonderfully fitted to each other: no wonder
they loved!

Terry, telling me about the girl’s exper-
ience during the two weeks or so before he
found her, dwelt especially upon how well
she was treated.

“She has a way of getting the interest,
almost the deference, of many people. She and
Gertrude were often reduced to the prover-
bial thirty cents, but they had little difficulty
in getting along. For instance, one day,
almost broke, they went to a restaurant and
ordered two cups of coffee. The negro waiter
knew what they were, and offered them a
nice steak, at his expense. Nor did he try to
‘ring in,’ to make their acquaintance. He
treated them with great respect. They went
there several times afterward, and always
found the negro waiter beaming with the de-
sire to help them for quite disinterested rea-
sons, and he never tried to meet them outside.

Marie always appreciated a thing like that.
[114]
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She took a delight in thinking about the fine
qualities in human nature.”

Marie is a frank woman, but it is natural
that she could never bring herself to talk
about this period of her life with entire open-
ness. She has, however, written me a letter
in which she tells the essential truth,
although clothing it with a certain pathetic
attempt to conceal the one episode in her life
about which, to me, she was perhaps
unreasonably reticent. She did not say that
she and Gertrude were separated from Terry
for a time, but she wanted to convey the
impression that she and Terry, from the start,
struggled along together, which was essen-
tially, though not literally, true. Continuing
her account, from the time the two families
cast her and Terry out, she wrote:

“So there we were, thrown out into the
harsh world, shelterless and almost money-
less. But we all three put our little capital
together, amounting to about eleven dollars,
went down town, and hired a furnished room.
We managed to live a week on this capital,
and then Terry pawned his watch, which
gave us five dollars. Gertrude soon dis-
appeared with an old roué and went out of

[115 ]
An Anarchist Woman

our lives. Terry and I kept along as best we
could. Kate helped us as much as we would
allow her to, and sometimes paid for our
room, and I would sometimes eat at her house.

“‘ During this period I was in a curious state
of mind and body. Living in the midst of so-
called vice, I was at first both attracted
and repelled. Yet my strongest feeling was a
hatred of the life I had formerly led, and
I was determined not to go back to it, happen
what might. I should probably have gone
much farther than I did, had it not been for
my love for Terry, which made me feel that
I did not want to throw myself entirely away.
So I did not know whether to go into the
game entirely or keep out of it. Terry did
not try to influence me, but seemed to watch
me, to make me feel that he would stand by
me in any event.

“For a time we were both of us dazed and
stunned by our sudden change in life. The
change was much greater for Terry than for
me. I don’t know what his thoughts and
feelings at that time were. They must have
been terrible. For years he had lived, for the
most part with his family, a quiet, studious
life, the life of contemplation; and now he

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was suddenly plunged into the roar and din,
with an ignorant and disreputable girl on his
hands whom he would not desert. We were
certainly on the verge of destruction. ‘The
inevitable would have happened, for no other
choice was left me, and I should have drifted
with the current and Terry would do and
could do nothing.

“Just at the crucial moment, Terry met an
old friend who offered him a political job,
organising republican workingmen’s clubs,
and Terry accepted it. No one can understand
how bitter this was to Terry. To work for ,
a political organisation was to him great _/
degradation. He did it for my sake, for the
thirty-five dollars a week, so that I could
be free to live as I wanted. I did not realise
at the time how much his sensitive nature
suffered, and I took poor advantage of the
freedom his money and character gave me.
What an intolerable burden I must have been
to him, and yet he never even intimated a
desire to leave me!

“JT had an opportunity now to satisfy
my desire for pleasure. ‘Terry put no
obstacles in my way. Yet the cup already
tasted bitter. I tried to deny to myself that this

[117]
|

An Anarchist Woman

life of pleasure was an illusion, and so I
plunged into the most reckless debaucheries:
I really would be ashamed to tell you of the
things I did. I had affairs with all sorts of
men, many of whom I did not know whether
I liked or hated—seeking always excitement,
oblivion. I frequented cafés where the women
and men of the town were to be found, and
made many acquaintances. Two or three of
them proposed marriage to me. They no
doubt wanted to ‘save’ me, and thought I
was a prostitute. I did not care to disabuse
them on the subject: in fact I don’t know
whether I was what they called me or
not.

“This life lasted only two or three months,
but it seems like so many years to me. At
the end of that time Terry’s work was over,
and we left down town and roomed with a
respectable radical family. My health had
broken down. I weighed only a hundred
pounds, although three months earlier I had
weighed one hundred and forty. My beauti-
ful, healthy body had wasted away. Ah! how
proud I used to be of this body of mine! how
I used to glory in the vigorous, shapely limbs,
the well-moulded breasts and throat. But all

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this passed away before my youth had passed
away.”

Marie here pathetically omits to state the
immediate cause of her ill health—a long and
terrible experience in the hospital, the result
of her excesses, during which time Terry was
the only one to care for her, from which place
she came broken in health, thin and pale, with
large, dark, sad eyes, looking as she did when
I first met her.

[119]
CHAPTER VIII
The Rogues’ Gallery

M Y terrible experiences during these
months,” continued Marie, “had at
least the advantage of bringing me nearer to
him who was and is the inspirer of what-
ever is worthy or good inme. It helped me to
appreciate him, and surely everything I suf-
fered, everything I may still suffer, is not too
much to pay for that. He has made for me
an ideal, and, without that, life is but a sorry,
sorry thing. During those wild months I, of
course, thought little of those things, those
wonderful new things which I had heard of
from him, but now, when we were living
quietly with our anarchist friends, and the sur-
roundings were in harmony with the mood for
thought, my interest awakened. I read a
great deal and listened attentively to the talk
of the people around me, and slowly my ideas
became more and more clear.
“Tt took a long time for me to learn, to
really understand what the others were inter-

[ 120 J
The Rogues’ Gallery

ested in. I did not dare to ask Terry too many
questions, especially there, where everybody
admired him and looked up to him so. A
new shyness came over me when I began to
see him in the light of a philosopher and a
poet. He seemed so far above me and I felt
myself so small and unworthy. But it was not
long before I really began to feel a strong in-
terest in all that was said, in all these social
theories, in these ideas about the proletaire,
about art and literature; and I began to read
books in a far different spirit from what I
used—TI began to see in them truth about life,
and to love this truth, whatever it was. And
I loved the freedom of the talk, and, above all,
I loved the feeling that from the highest point
of view I was not an outcast, and that the
people who seemed to me the best did not so
regard me. It helped to give me the self-
respect which every human being needs, I
think.

“T thought for a long time that I was very
lucky indeed to get admitted into this atmos-
phere. And, indeed, I know I was lucky, but
there came a time when, for a while, I was
very unhappy, not in the society of the radi-
cals—I always loved that—but among these

[ 121 ]
An Anarchist Woman

particular people, because they could not,
after all, rid themselves of some conservative
prejudices. After a while I began to see that
even those enlightened people really had con-
tempt for what I had been, or for my igno-
rance, perhaps for both.

“This family, with whom we were staying,
was supposed to have broad and liberal ideas,
and its members prided themselves on the fact
that they really put their theories into prac-
tice. Their home was run on a sort of com-
munistic basis, and the men and women who
lived there were not tied to each other by any
legal bonds, for they believed in freedom of
love. They never made much noise about
their ideas, or rather their practice, and were
what you might call refined or cultured an-
archists.

“Terry and I had nothing in a worldly
way, and we lived there on ‘charity,’ so to
speak, though that word was, of course, never
used. We did, however, what work there was
to be done in the household, trying in this
way to give some compensation in return for
a bed to sleep on and the simple food neces-
sary to keep our bodies alive.

“Now, after a while, I began to feel

{ 122 ]
The Rogues’ Gallery

crushed, oppressed in this home, among these
cold, cold, refined people, although they were
anarchists. They could not help showing me
their contempt: they made me feel inferior.
They never said one word that indicated such
a feeling, but I could feel it by their attitude,
by the attitude even of the little child in the
house. They looked upon me much in the
same way as my former mistress used, when I
was the servant in the house, except that they
were bound by their theories to give me a
nominal respect and to try charitably to im-
prove my mind and make of me a philosophi-
cal anarchist.

“Tt was painful to me to see these people,
who were so humane, who could not bear to
see the lowly oppressed, who could not bear
to have injustice done, to see these people pass
me by in insulting silence, look at me with
cold, unsympathetic eyes! How it hurt me, not
to receive the word of encouragement from
the kind look of people I looked up to! So I
crawled into my shell and did not go about
much with the others. I think I was forgotten
by nearly everybody for days at a time. Terry
shared the room with me, and brought me
food, as I grew more and more unable to eat

[ 123 ]

/

/
An Anarchist Woman

with the cold superior ones. He brought me
tobacco, too, and here it was, sitting all day
alone, that I began the cigarette habit: if it
had not been for that, I think I should have
gone mad.

“‘T never ceased to love Terry, but I had a
bitter feeling against him, too. He was always
kind and good to me, but he spent most of his
time with his intellectual friends, and I began
to feel that even he was being ‘ charitable’ to
me. So after much misery and despair, I ac-
cepted a proposal of marriage from a friend
of my wild days and fled with him to St.
Louis. He took me to the home of his sisters
and parents, where I lived in peace and quiet
for three weeks, recovered some of my health
and strength, and was able to review my past
and think of my future; and reflect on my
coming marriage.

“The people I was with now were kind and
sympathetic. They did not know about my
past life—only my prospective husband knew
—he, of course, knew all. The others thought
I was a poor shop-girl, tired and overworked.
They were refined people, fairly well-to-do,

' rather bourgeois, but with good hearts, and
so innocent that they believed everything their

[ 124 ]
The Rogues’ Gallery

son told them, and received me as a daughter
and sister.

“Perhaps my nature is perverse, I don’t
know; but as soon as I got a little rest and
peace, I began to think of what I had left and
especially of Terry. It was not only my love
for him that called, but what my life with him
had been and would be if I returned—a life
that was not a common-place life, a life of in-
telligence and freedom. Already I was bored —
by the quiet goodness of the people I was Ye
with, and I wanted ‘something doing’!-—-— >

“T saw Terry again as I had seen him first,
with the glamour of ardent love, the love that
overleaps all barriers and, if only for an in-
stant, stands face to face with love, unhesitat-
ing, tumultuous, and triumphant. The mem-
ory of even one perfect moment can never | ,
leave us, even if life be ever so dark and ‘()"
harsh and bitter, there will always be that .”
single ray of light to illumine the darkness,
and keep our steps from utter and complete
stumbling.

“T thought of Terry day and night, and
grew so melancholy that my new found
friends were alarmed and suggested hasten-
ing the marriage, in order to let me go South

[ 125 ]

Vv
An Anarchist Woman

with my husband. This alarmed me terribly
and I begged that no such step should be
taken. With much inward trembling, I pro-
posed that the marriage should be postponed
and that I return to Chicago. They would
not listen to this, and I could see in their hon-
est faces the deepest amazement and a kind
of suspicion. So I took refuge in tears,
pleading ill-health and offering no more sug-
gestions.

“That same day I wrote Terry a long letter,
in which I told him that I still loved him,
could not forget him, but had taken this step
in desperation because I could no longer en-
dure living among these people in Chicago,
his friends, but not mine; that here in St.
Louis I had found a certain measure of peace
and quiet which had lately been disturbed by
the realisation that soon I must decide to take
a step which would perhaps separate us two
irrevocably, that I longed more than words
could tell to see him, to look into his face. I
could never go back, I wrote, to that life I
had been living, because what I had learned
from him of what life is and what makes it
worth living, had made that thing impossi-
ble for me. So, I wrote, I could not go back,

[ 126 ]
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and how, without him, could I go forward?
So here I was, weak, perplexed, and I begged
him to write me, to advise me what to do.

“Very soon his reply came—the truest,
kindest reply that I could have received. He
too had suffered since I left him, and compre-
hended only too well why I had done as I
did. Our suffering would help us to gain a
more comprehensive knowledge of life and
of each other. And if I still loved him, I
should follow the inclination of my heart and
return to him. We two might start out again,
wiser and surer for what had passed. He as-
sured me of his love, but warned me not to
expect too much from him, that our material
comforts would be few, for he was as poor as
I, and however much he might wish to pro-
vide better, he knew that, for one reason or
another, he could not. But if I would be con-
tent to share his crust and his love, much hap-
piness and joy might be in store for us. He
finished his letter with a quotation from
Browning’s ‘ Lost Leader’:

‘Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a ribbon to tie in his coat.’

“My hesitation disappeared at once, al-
[ 127 ]
An Anarchist Woman

though it hurt me greatly to carry out my
resolution to return to Chicago. It cost me
many a pang to shock and hurt the dear good
people, to seem so ungrateful for all their
love and kindness. But it had to be. I could
not do otherwise. I returned to Chicago two
days after receiving the letter, and my lover
and I met and clasped hands and gazed into
one another’s eyes. We were reunited,
or rather united truly, for the first
time, with better understanding on both
sides.

“Since that day, now six years ago, we have
travelled the rough road together, assisting
one another as best we could, often stumbling
and misunderstanding and hurting one an-
other, for we continually tried to get deeper
and deeper into real knowledge, real life, and
it is hard to reconcile all things. Generally
to gain much, one must compromise, but
Terry and I did not wish to compromise.
His and mine has been a difficult and danger-
ous relation, but an interesting one. Very soon
after my return to Chicago, I felt much more
at ease, no longer a stumbling-block in his
way; and I gained confidence, strength, and
knowledge. I met many people of the true

{ 128 ]
The Rogues’ Gallery

communistic spirit, and by social intercourse
with them developed in every way. I con-
tinued to read good books and attended lec-
tures on the social problems of the day. So
after a time I became what is called an anar-
chist, just as Terry was.

“The reasons my books and companions
brought forward for the justification of anar-
chism were like meat and drink to me. I was
filled with enthusiasm for the ideas of a free-
dom which I now think is perhaps impossible
in our society. But I thought that the ‘ down-
trodden,’ the ‘working classes,’ held the fate
of the world in their hands, if they could but
realise it. As time passed, my enthusiasm
waned, for I began to see many difficulties in

the way of this beautiful idealism. At times, A

I even doubted if the ‘mob’ were worthy of ,
liberty at all. Such thoughts, however, |
passed away whenever I saw the crowds of
workers streaming from the factories and
stores, and looked upon their loutish, brutal |
faces, wherein there was never a gleam of 5
pride, of the joy of creation, of intelligent /
effort. Then I would think, surely, surely, (
humankind is not meant to be thus. Why,
even the little birds, the tiny little ants, what
[ 129 ]
Soa d
a An Anarchist Woman

z “intelligence they display in their work; little
« ¢ kittens and dogs playing in the streets, what
a unrestrained joy is theirs! Work ought to
» </ bea pleasure and a blessing: and it would be
so if we could only choose our labour, if we
could create, do those things for which we are
fitted, voluntarily, because of the need within
us, for the outward expression of our life, our
hope and joy. So, work would cease to be
the curse it is to-day.

“And surely if we were free men and
women, we would find our place in the scheme
of things, surely each one of us would seek
a « the place suited to his individual nature, and
ars ous so perhaps at last everything would be a part
ojo of the harmonious whole, ''
cal “When I think of ‘things as they are and as
they might be, I grow dizzy and sick at heart,
that mankind can be so blind, so hopelessly
ignorant, so unspeakably cruel, so weak and
cowardly. I am only a novice, I know, and
there is so much for me to know, to learn, to
strive for—much that I, and hundreds and
thousands of others, will never reach, for we
are burdened with heavy chains which we
cannot break. Yet, there must be somewhere
on this big earth, some little place fitted for

[ 130 ]
The Rogues’ Gallery

me, some small corner where I must be of
some value to myself.

“To you, no doubt, my sufferings and strug-
gles will seem petty and my ideas crude and
commonplace; but, if so, the pity is all the
greater. After the agony I went through,
freedom seemed to me the noblest thing in the
world, and I thought it the solution of every-
thing. Since then my ideas, perhaps, have
become somewhat less ‘crude,’ but I have
never for a moment lost faith in the thought
that freedom is the most essential, the most
necessary condition for us, if we are to endure
life.”

It is certainly what Marie calls “crude”
to talk of liberty without careful definition.
Absolute freedom is inconceivable. But I
am not interested in presenting an argument:
I am interested in the description of a state
of mind, of a section of society, of a certain
emotional view of things. The value, how-
ever, of these general ideas is undoubted, in
the spiritual improvement and moral-comfort
of thousands of people. I think that Marie
and Terry and the other characters that will
appear in this book are decidedly better off
for the ideas they hold: that about these ideas,

[131 ]
' a} of le

An Anarchist Woman

Poe A, \ uf
AGS 7
Kw

‘Nd

or rather ideals, perhaps, they have grouped
a society in which they are not outcasts, in
which their lives seem from some points of
view justified, And even in my opinion,
though I live in different circumstances, and
see greater difficulties in the way of the reali-
sation of any social ideal than they do, yet I
feel that their way of looking at things is use-
ful to the larger society of men, ultimately.
‘And, I, like other people, have deep respect
for a consistent and courageous life, based
upon a principle or principles which I may
not hold myself.

The next scene in the life of Marie and
Terry took place in what they called “The
Rogues’ Gallery.” This was during the time
that Terry held a position in the Prudential
Insurance Company, whose employ he left,
as we have seen, in order to go to Pittsburg,
to find the flaw in the tannery process, at his
brother Jim’s request. He hired three little
rooms, and up to the time he went to Pitts-
burg, he welcomed to his home everybody
who was “against” things. Later on, he be-
came more particular in his associates—that is
to say, he demanded of them something more
than mere disreputability, to use the conven-

[ 132]
The Rogues’ Gallery

tional word. But at that time he loved every-
thing that the world hated or cast out. That
was his principle of action, his norm of judg-
ment. Seeking the truth with undivided pas-
sion, he rid himself at a later time, at least
partially, of this prejudice, and became quite
able to “ pass up,” as he calls it, that is reject,
a human being even though he might be a
thief, a practical anarchist, a prostitute, or a
souteneur. But at the time of the existence of
the Rogues’ Gallery he loved everything re-
jected by society, without making too nice a
use of his natural taste.

There, in those three little slum rooms,
gathered a strange society—a society held to-
gether on the basis of its utter rejection of the
larger society of men. To be an acceptable
member of this society, the individual must
in some way be a social rebel—either practi-
cally or theoretically, or both. When Terry
saw in some being rejected by society a spark
of thought or of feeling, he was excited and
happy. It was obvious to him, as to all per-
sons who think and have practical contact
with many different kinds of people, that there
are in life no heroes and no villains; it was ob-
vious that in the lowest thief or prostitute

[133]
S € pre

ot

An Anarchist Woman

there was that possibility of light and spir-
itual_ grace, which all true souls desire.
Terry’s function was to make them conscious
of this; to organise, so to speak, the outcasts
upon a philosophic and esthetic basis and so
save them to themselves, at least.

This was his great experiment with Marie,
about which a large part of this book is to be
concerned. But this interest, this effort,
extended itself to many other individuals, and
whenever Terry could feel himself in contact
with what he felt was essentially human, and,
at the same time, to his sense beautiful, he was
filled, as I have said, with that deep excite-
ment of pleasure, which was both intellectual
and moral. JI remember, one day, he said to
me: “ How often, during the lifetime of the
Rogues’ Gallery, did I saunter down State
Street with the pleasing knowledge that I
would find some ‘low’ person, girl or man,
whom I knew I could get at, who would strip
himself or herself bare to me in a spiritual

&

ots

*™ sense, and would be revealed disinterestedly,

would have no axe to grind and no con-

temptible small ends to gain, and no trades-

man’s commercial morality and no grafting

conventionality, no moral cant based on self-
[ 134]
The Rogues’ Gallery

interest—some being so near the ‘ limit’ that
he was intellectually and morally fearless and
did not need to pose, from whom some truth
could be derived, whose sincerity and power
of straight-seeing was not warped and con-
cealed by any bourgeois ambitions, by any
respectability.”

From time to time Terry would take one
of these beings home with him—to his
Rogues’ Gallery and to Marie and to the
other intimates, mainly more or less self-
conscious anarchists, all or nearly all derelicts
of the labouring class. There they could
stay as long as they esthetically fitted,
could share the communal cigarette, beds,
beer, and food. And Terry and Marie and
their friends would talk and read aloud—
Terry the teacher, giving transcendental light
into the nature of the good, the beautiful,
and the true. Many an outcast here came
first to a pleasing sense that from some points
of view he was not altogether bad, nay,
that he had unexpectedly good points. Many
of them to some philosophic intensity; con-
versation became a joy, strangely unknown
hitherto. The educational character of this
meeting place was marked, but, as I have

[135]
‘

An Anarchist Woman

said, Terry’s indiscriminating passion for the
outcasts of the proletaire limited the
intellectual development of his little society.
At a later time, a much more developed
society grew around Terry and Marie, as we
shall see, when we get to the Anarchist
salon, or the intellectual drawing room of
the Anarchist Proletaire.

Terry’s main effort was, at this time, and
for years afterwards, naturally directed
toward Marie’s spiritual education. Hith-
erto Marie has revealed herself to the reader
as a rather commonplace, very physical,
rather lazy, and quite egoistic person, one of
many, with no distinguished characteristics.
But she was unusually endowed in some ways.
Eminently plastic, up to a certain point she
rapidly assumed forms suggested by Terry’s
spiritual touch. She derived from him her
interest in all high things, in philosophy, art
and literature, but there always remained an
interesting distinction in the way she reacted
to her education. Terry remained always the
rather transcendental philosopher, with a
predominant ethical sense. Marie, as she

_ developed, showed a deeper and subtler feel-
ing for expression and a surer sensing of
[ 136 ]
The Rogues’ Gallery

human character, a juster psychology. Her
nature is essentially less beautiful, by far, than
that of Terry, but more real, in a way, more
robust, and so constituted that in a long spirit-
ual conflict she would wear out the finer
qualities of her lover. But this is anticipat-
ing, except in so far as it is true that from the
start Marie’s psychological vividness showed
itself, often, of course, with base and physical
concomitants. In this connection I will quote
a letter which well illustrates this side of her
character, and which also shows a contrast to
some of her loftier but more conventional and
less true qualities. She had been attending an
anarchists’ ball and she wrote:

“‘T danced a great deal and felt very happy,
without the aid of any stimulant either. I did
not have any feeling of irritation or even
indifference toward anybody, not even
toward Rose. I am fascinated by Rose, and I
sometimes think I hate her. I always like to
be near her when there is no one else around.
She reveals herself to me then; in fact quite
throws off the mask which all women wear.
In order to encourage her to do this, I appar-
ently throw down my own mask. Oh, how I
gloat over her then, when she shows me a side

[137]
An Anarchist Woman

of her life and betrays secret thoughts and
feelings to me half unconsciously! Sometimes
I succeed in having her do this when there is
a third person present, and the look of hatred
which passes across her face when she per-
ceives she has made a mistake, is a most inter-
esting thing to see. But she immediately
comes to my side and we kiss each other and
call each other ‘angel girls’ and ‘darlings.’
Thus we play with each other, and it is a
stand-off which is cleverest. She is quite
puzzled sometimes by my frankness about
some things, for instance, about her looks. I
notice she compliments me on my _ looks
whenever I am decidedly off colour, when I
wear a green ribbon, or a dowdy dress, or big
shoes. But I am honest with her in these
things, and I like to see her look well. The
game is more interesting then.

“Well, at this ball, I wanted to dance with
a certain man, but I did not wish to ask him
myself. So I requested Rose to do so, and she
consented, and I was soon whirling around in
his arms. I had felt curious about him for
a long ‘time: I did not know just what the
state of my feeling toward him was. I did
not know whether I liked or disliked him, but

[ 138 ]
The Rogues’ Gallery

I had often experienced a sort of thrilling
sensation when he happened to pass by or
touch me, or even when he mentioned my
name, which had occurred only once since I
knew him. ‘Good evening, Marie,’ was all
he said. But the name and the way he said
it seemed new, and it kept recurring
to me at unexpected times and always
troubled me. When I fancy I hear that name
in his voice I feel sad and lonely, and my
heart aches. I see him often, mostly at our
Sunday evening lectures. We are very distant,
and I am often rude to him, not answering
when he speaks to me.

“So when I danced with him the other
night, I was agreeably surprised to find that
I did not experience any unusual sensation at
all. And I was relieved, too, for I had a sort
of instinctive feeling that he was not worthy
of any strong interest. After the dance was
over, we went down-stairs together and he
kissed me. You know, the radicals all kiss
one another freely and it does not mean any-
thing special, as a rule: often it is done with-
out any feeling at all, just a common habit.
But this time I was astonished to find that the
moment he touched me I had the same thrill-

[ 139 ]
An Anarchist Woman

ing sensation, only more intense, as when I
heard him speak my name. I resisted how-
ever, and just then I heard Rose’s voice ring
out exultantly, ‘Oh, if you knew how crazy
Marie is about you, how she raved when she
first met you and so on.’ You can imagine
how I felt then. I managed to get away and
drank and smoked and danced all the evening
and never looked at him again. When we all
went away Rose and I kissed each other and
called each other ‘ darling girl.’

“In some moods I would like to be a big,
beautiful, heartless woman like one or two I
know. In such moods, how I would make
men suffer! I was talking about this to little
Sadie the other day, and she assured me
solemnly that she would do that when she
was thirty, but not merely to make men suffer,
but to develop them.”

As Terry continued to read aloud and talk
in his Rogues’ Gallery, Marie grew to reflect
more and more the results of the reading of
good things, and of the thinking and talking
about these things. It shows how some tem-
peraments are able to connect literature and
philosophy with life, and thereby see their
real meaning, quite independently of any

[ 140 ]
The Rogues’ Gallery

merely conventional culture or education.
One of the greatest prejudices of our time
(and of all times) is the belief that intellect-
ual culture, which is merely the perception
in detail of how life and thought is expressed
in form, is peculiarly dependent upon
academic or conventional education. And
yet, of course, somewhere or other, the
nature capable of understanding form must
come in contact with it, before the meaning
of the whole thing is incorporated into its
daily habit. Terry was Marie’s point of
contact with form, in its deep relation to life.
Marie felt this and loved him and was grate-
ful, to the depths of her nature, so different
from his, so animal, so unideal, in com-
parison! She wrote:

“Terry gave me a new way to express
myself, and that, after all, is the only thing
worth living for. And he gave me this new
way without trying to make me give up any
other way of self expression, my sensuality, for
example. This sensuality I have sometimes
regretted, but not directly through Terry’s
influence, except that he has shown me the
beauty of something else. He is a winged
thing in comparison with me, but he is so

[141]
An Anarchist Woman

wonderfully tolerant that he can see beauty
in even the baser part of my nature. Why
should I regret what I am, anyway? I
believe that the only purity that means any-
thing is that which results from working one’s
nature out harmoniously, not suppressing
it. Terry must be a wonderful man, to have
been able to encourage me in many new
directions, and to take away the maiming
sting of regret for what I inevitably was and
could not help being.

“T do not think an ordinary person could
have made me see the beauty of anarchism.
I know that the anarchistic ideas are rather
shocking, even at their best, and of course
they naturally appeal most to the man with
the hoe, inciting him to rebel, while the man
behind the idea is usually endowed with so
much sensitiveness that he shrinks from the
rebellion part of the programme himself; he
is not a man of action, only a man of ideas.
It is shameful, some think, to disturb the bliss-
ful ignorance of the man with the hoe, for
when the gleam of intelligence shines in his
eye and he is aroused to the knowledge of his
degrading position, he is likely to rebel in
the most healthy but brutal manner, so much

[142]
The Rogues’ Gallery

so that the esthetic reformer shrinks back
from the consequences of the propagation of
his own ideas. Of course, the brutality of the.
proletariat is not nearly so subtle as that of
the aristocracy, and it takes some cleverness to
discover that the latter is brutality at all. It
requires time and patience to drive into the
thick heads of the workers that they are
downtrodden, and that their oppressors are
worthless parasites. When they finally do
awaken to this idea and rebel, how terribly
shocked the world is because these brutes
have not the cleverness or delicacy to be more
subtle in their brutalities.

“Tn your last letter you wrote of the crude-
ness of most propagandists of anarchism,
naming Anatole France as one of the rare
anarchists who express themselves otherwise
than crudely. He rarely or never, you
say, ever mentions the word ‘anarchism,’
although much of his writing is calculated
to destroy belief in the value of organised
society as it now exists. Don’t you think you
are perhaps prejudiced too much against
certain words because of their associations?
I know that many words are objectionable to
refined, cultured people because they have

[ 143 ]
An Anarchist Woman

been so long associated with the coarse and
brutal mob, the working class, as the
socialists would say. But you must remember
that anarchism is intended to appeal to this
‘mob’ especially; that its doctrines might not
be needed by refined people who ought to have
enough sensibility not to enjoy ‘freedom’
unless it is shared by the coarse and brutal
workers. Believe me, there is nothing so
degrading as poverty. It makes the slave
more slavish and the brute more brutal. It
acts like a goad, spurring people on to do
things which make them seem to themselves
and others lower and lower, until they are
truly no longer human beings but animals.

“Therefore it is that the propaganda of
anarchism is generally crude. It is true that
much good literature is permeated with the
ideals of anarchism, for instance, Shelley,
Whitman, Thoreau, and Emerson. Such
reading is excellent as a means of humanising
and making anarchists of refined people, but
how could you appeal to the rebellious
workers with such books as these? For
instance, my father, do you think he could
read Ibsen or any of the others? Indeed not;
but let him go to a meeting where he can

[144]
The Rogues’ Gallery

hear Emma Goldman speak, or let him read
Jean Grave, or Bakunin, or some other writer
of ‘crude’ pamplets, and he might become
interested, he might be able to understand.
But since it seems that truly refined people
cannot enjoy the pleasures of freedom with-
out being, at any rate at times, worried
because of the condition of the ‘mass,’ what
is to be done? This objectionable crudity
must remain until there is a demand for some-
thing more subtle on the part of the workers
for whom is intended all propaganda. The
rich and cultured presumably have brains
which they can use to solve the problems for
themselves or to digest the things written by
Anatole France and others. But how do you
suppose that I, for instance, could a few
years ago have relished Anatole France?
Wouldn’t you think it idiotic for anyone
to have given me such books, at that time,
with any expectation of my appreciating
their refined and evanescent anarchism?”

It must have been a strange sight that of
Terry sitting on his dilapidated bed in the
Rogues’ Gallery, with his eternal cigarette
in his mouth, talking to Marie and perhaps to
some prostitute or pickpocket! We begin

[145]
An Anarchist Woman

already to see the result on Marie’s education:
that will appear complex and manifold, but
it is likely that on many a _ half-formed
creature who afterward passed out of Terry’s
life, his words yet made an impression which
perhaps in some later darkness revived an
idea which explained and justified his mis-
erable existence.

‘ a J
es ba law

[ 146]
CHAPTER IX
The Salon

ip Rogues’ Gallery went the way of
all good things: it ceased to exist when
the creative spirit was gone. Terry went to
Pittsburg, as we have seen, to find the flaw
in the tanning process, and while he was
away Marie attempted to conduct the
academy of anarchism. But she was too
much interested in what is called “life” to
make a sustained mental or moral effort with-
out the inspiring presence of a man whose
central passionate ideas never changed. The
personal jealousies which Terry’s philosophic
attitude and idealism tended to dissipate
became, during his absence, too. strong for
the bond uniting the “rogues,” and when
Terry returned he found that his little colony
had dispersed and that Marie, unable any
longer to pay the rent, was living with her
old friend Katie.
This was, to our idealist, a deep disappoint-
ment. On the heels of his final break in
147]
An Anarchist Woman

Pittsburg with society came this sign of
woman’s weakness. Terry might easily have
expected it, but one of the limitations of an
idealist is an insufficient knowledge of
realities. To men of his temperament there
is always a distinct shock envolved in com-
ing face to face with an actuality. Truth is
the element of the idealist, but an abstract
truth into which concrete realities seldom fit.
Terry did not, or tried not to, mind, at this
time, this continued sexual freedom, or
rather vagaries, of Marie’s life; for that
fitted into his scheme of personal freedom:
he zealously strove to respect the private
inclinations of every human being. But the
least sign, in any of his acquaintances, of a
compromise with the integrity of the soul,
of any essential weakness, met with no toler-
ance from him. “ He passed him up,” on the
spot, with a scornful wafture of his hand.
That Marie had yielded to the stress of cir-
cumstances, had been unable to hold out in
the Rogues’ Gallery, galled the relatively
uncompromising, exigent idealist. If she
had resorted to temporary prostitution to
hold the society together he would have
admired her. But, instead, she weakly
[ 148 ]
‘The Salon

sought, like any merely conservative woman,
the shelter of Katie’s roof. The first seed
of the essential discord which finally resulted,
at a much later time, in their relations was
planted thus in this deep irritation of
Terry’s soul; it did not, however, affect ser-
iously his love for Marie as a person or his\,, i...
interest in her as a social experiment. But it
tended to make him feel more lonely and to
render him more hopeless of any realisation
of the ideal, as he saw it.

When Terry returned, without a job, and
with no intention of trying for one, and found
Marie living with Katie, he had a long talk
with the two women. Katie was still with her
husband, Nick, but she was willing to quit
him in order to live with and take care of,
her darling Marie. She proposed to Marie
and Terry to hire some rooms and all live
together. She would work as cook in a res-
taurant and thus support the three of them.

To this eager desire of Katie’s Terry
refused to consent; but he also refused to
work. What was to be done? He was too
proud willingly to live on Katie, and he was
principled against labour. Katie wanted the
luxury of her proposed arrangement. She

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An Anarchist Woman

quarrelled with Terry, but he interested her.
‘Already she began to look on these two as
her superior cultivated ones, aristocrats, with
whom it was a joy to live and for whom it
was a pleasure to work. To work for them,
especially for Marie, she would drop her old
Nick, good dull man, in a moment.

An event which happened just at the right
moment to decide things, finally brought
about the union of the three. One night
Terry was drinking in a saloon, talking
philosophy, and quoting literature. Some
rapid lines from Swinburne had just left his
lips when an elderly man, who had been list-
ening to Terry’s talk approached him and
said: “You are the man I’m looking for,
won’t you have a drinker”

As he spoke, he flashed a fifty dollar bill
over the bar and repeatedly treated the
crowd, all in Terry’s honour.

“Before we separated that night,” said
Terry, telling me the story, “I learned that
the old guy had fifty thousand dollars and
that he would soon go down and out, for he
had all sorts of bad diseases. He knew it
himself, but he was an old sport and he
wanted his fling before he died. He liked

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me and wanted me to be bar-tender in a saloon
he owned. He lived above the saloon
and wanted a housekeeper to take care of the
rooms. So I told Kate here was her chance.
The next day Marie, Katie, and I moved
into the rooms, where the old man lived,
too, and I began my work as a bar-tender.

“TY did not regard this job as work: it was
really graft, for I had decided that my old
friend, not long for this world, did not need
all of his money and that I might as well turn
part of it toward Katie, to help maintain a
common house for us all. So, every night,
after the day’s work, I turned the roll that I
received behind the bar over to Katie, who
tucked it away in the bank. I don’t know
whether the old guy knew about it or not, if
he did, he did not care. He died after two
or three months, but Katie had increased her
bank account by three or four hundred
dollars.”

Terry is strenuous about this story. He is
evidently anxious lest it be thought that he
later became a mere parasite on Katie. He
prides himself on having taught her to steal
from an unkind world, but he does not like
the idea that she has slaved for him without

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any help in return. Katie did not prove to
be a good pupil. She was not naturally
“wise,” in the slang sense, but gained what
she gained by hard labour. Even while she
was housekeeper for the old guy she felt she
earned all the money she tucked away.

“ I worked hard for the old man” she said,
“and I only got about one hundred and
thirty dollars for all my work. I thought I
made that much.”

There is a slight difference in the amount
received, in Terry’s account and in Katie’s,
but it is clear that it was not very much. It
is interesting and characteristic that Terry
wants it to appear to have been “graft,”
while Katie looks upon the money as honest
wages, received in an unconventional way.

Nick was definitely deserted, and the new
“salon” formed, with Terry and Marie as
the bright particular stars and Katie as the
happy means of living, if not in luxury at
least in independence. They lived on her
eight or nine dollars a week with the com-
fortable feeling that there were several hun-
dred dollars tucked away in the bank, the re-
sult of Katie’s savings and Terry’s ideas.

The salon was of a more select and higher

[152]
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order intellectually than had been the
Rogues’ Gallery. The people who frequented
the three little slummy rooms on the West
Side where Terry, Marie, and Katie lived
were mainly anarchists in theory, and occa-
sionally one or another of them was so in
practice. They mainly consisted of rebellious
labourers who had educated themselves in the
philosophy of anarchism.* They had ideas
about politics and government and the
relation between the sexes. They were indeed
all “free lovers,” and quite naturally so; the
rebellious temperament instinctively takes as
its object of attack the strongest convention in
society. Anarchism in Europe is mainly
political; in America it is mainly sexual; for
the reason that there is less freedom of
expression about sex in America than in
Europe: so there is a stronger protest here
against the conventions in this field—as the
yoke is more severely felt. While I was in
Italy and France I met a number of anar-
chists who on the sex side were not ostenta-
tiously rebellious. They were like the

*®See “The Spirit of Labour,” Chapter 4, called “An Anar-
chist Salon,” for a description of some of the principal members
of this society —H. H.

[ 153]
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free sort of conservative people everywhere.
But in political ideas they were more logical,
sophisticated, and deeply revolutionary than
is the case with the American anarchists, who,
on the other hand both in their lives and
their opinions, are extreme rebels against sex
conventions. It is only another instance of
how unreason in one extreme tends to bring
about unreason in the other. Our prudish-
ness, hypocrisy and stupid conventionality in
all sex matters is responsible for the unbal-
anced license of many a protesting spirit.

So there was many an “orgie” in the
salon—sexual and alcoholic: and many wild
words were spoken and many wild things
done. But these same extreme people were
gentle and senstive, too, and emotionally
interested in ideas. They went to lectures
on all sorts of social subjects, they read
good books of literature and crude books
on politicsythey grouped together and enjoyed
to a certain extent their communistic ideas.
They published their anarchistic newspapers
and they welcomed into their ranks people
who otherwise could have attained to no con-
solatory philosophy—who would have had no
society andnohope. And they did not do it for

[154]
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the sake of charity—hollow word!—but from
a feeling of fellowship and love. You, reader,
who may think ill of thieves and prostitutes—
too ill of them, perhaps: if you can come to
see that social differences are of slight value
in comparison with the great primal things
and the universal qualities of human nature,
you will perhaps be better if not more “ vir-
tuous”’ than before, and may be kinder, less
self-righteous, and do far more good, no mat-
ter how “charitable” you are now inclined
to be. You have never been able to arouse the
real interest of the proletariat, for the simple
reason that you have never been really inter-
ested in them. But you do arouse their hatred
and their contempt. They ought not, of
course, to hate and despise anything, espe-
cially anything that means as well as you do.
But they, though they are anarchists, are hu-
man, all too human, sometimes, like the rest
of us. Here are some of the ideas of the
salon about you, about us, let me say, as voiced
by Terry and Marie. To begin with, Terry:
about our “culture” he writes:

“There is not much doubt about the sap-
ping influence of culture. It seems that nar-
rowness of range means intensity of emotion,

[ass |
An Anarchist Woman

This is seen in the savage, the child, and un-
cultivated men as well as other animals. I
might even go farther and say we see it in
such titans as Balzac and Wagner, who seek
to compress all the arts into their own par-
- ticular art. The mind that finds many outlets
generally overflows in dissipation of energy
' instead of digging a deep single channel of
. its own. And yet to focus our feelings to one
point may be a dangerous accomplishment.
For instance, the fulminating fire of Swin-
burne’s radium rhymes, while harmless to
himself, may become dangerous through me
or some other ‘conductor.’ Unfortunately,
the inability to foretell the ultimate effect of
any given idea produces that form of inhibi-
tion called conservatism, and to this vice peo-
ple of so-called culture are especially prone.
It takes recklessness to be a social experiment-
alist or really to get in touch with humanity.
Our careful humanitarians, our charitable
ones, never do, for they stick to their conserva-
tism. How we do fashion our own fetters,
from chains to corsets, and from gods to gov-
ernments. Oh, how I wish I were a fine lean
satirist!—with a great black-snake whip of
sarcasm to scourge the smug and genial ones,
the self-righteous, charitable, and respectable
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ones! How I would lay the lash on corpulent
content and fat faith with folds in its belly,
chin and hands*; those who try to beat their
breast-bone through layers of fat! Oh, this
rotund reverence of morality! ‘Meagre
minds,’ mutters George Moore, and my gorge
rises in stuttering rage to get action on them.
Verily such morality as your ordinary con-
servative person professes has an organic
basis: it has its seat in those vestiges of mus-
cles that would still wag our abortive tails,
and often do wag our abortive tongues.

“To arouse such fat ones to any onward .
flight it may take the tremendous impact of ©
a revolution. It may take many upheavals .
of the seismic soul of man before the hob-
goblins of authority are finally laid in the
valley.

How many free spirits have been caught and
hampered in the quagmire of conservatism.
Yet they have the homing instinct of all
winged things: they return to the soul and seek
to throw off the fat and heavy flesh of social
stupidity. Many great free spirits there have
been who possess this orientation of the race

* This is worthy of some of the mythological-Christian paint-
ings of Mantegna, where the vices are being scourged by the
indignant virtues.—H. H.

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and have brought us tidings of the promised
land. How many thundering spirits have
commanded us to march by the tongued and
livid lightning of their prophetic souls, but
how few of us have done so! Why, to me, this
world is a halting hell of hitching-posts and
of truculent troughs for belching swineherds.
The universe has no goal that we know of
unless Eternity be the aim; let us then have
the modesty of the Cosmos, and no other
modesty, and be content to know our course,
and be sure to run it.

“T have tried for freedom, indeed, every-
where, but I find the ‘good ones’ always in
my way. How well I know the cost of my
attempt! My heavy heart and my parched
and choking throat, they know! I may indeed
beat my breast alone in the darkness in a silent_

_prayer for freedom and hear no response from
the haunting hollows of the night. Such hun-
gry freedom I had and have; and I could
share it only with the outcasts of the world:
the fat and rotund charitable ones would
none of it. This freedom is possessed only by
him who is afflicted over much with himself
because he has been crazed by others and
made mad by his escape from them. I sup-

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pose I am mad, for to believe myself per-
fectly sane in a greatly mad world is surely
a subtle species of lunacy. And yet I am com-
pelled to act towards others as if they were
more sane than I. To feel as if one were
eternally in a court-room trial, with lean
lunatics for lawyers and fat philistines for
judges, this is life.

‘““T am only one of the human victims who
studies his own malady because he likes uni-
versal history. The world has thrown me
back upon myself and made me at times what
is called mad. After being down-hearted for
some time, I grow superstitious and imagine
that some strange and fatal spell is hanging
over us all. Even my own acts and thoughts
take on the futility of nightmare, and Nir-
vana is very welcome, if I could be sure of it,
but I had rather stay what I am than start
life all over again in some other shape, with
a possible creeping recollection of my former
existence. I have at times startled intimations
that I lived in vain in some former unhappy
time; so I shall try to postpone the eternal
recurrence as best I may.”

Thus Terry tries not only to reject the laws
of “ fat” society, but at times he strives against

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An Anarchist Woman

what he imagines to be the deep laws of the
universe: he tries to stem the tide of fate, and
this in the name of Truth! It shows how far
remote from reality is the truth of the ideal-
ist; and yet such an attitude is often forced
upon a sensitive spirit by rough contact with
imperfect society. Although Terry is the
most perfect specimen of the anarchists I have
known, yet they all have more or less the
quality of idealism so marked in him.

Marie’s letters teem with the spirit of re-
volt, which of course was the atmosphere of
the salon. With her it is always less ideal,
more personal, more egotistic than with Terry.
In one of her letters she told “how she was
led to try to get a job again, in order to buy
some pretty things.” A few days’ search, how-
ever, disgusted her and brought her back com-
pletely to the mood of the salon, and led her
deeply to appreciate Hedda Gabler, and to
condemn American morality and the “ good”
people. Of Hedda she wrote:

“Her character always did appeal to me,
but last night I was in the mood especially to
understand and sympathise with Hedda, to be
Hedda, in fact. For a few hours I was as

brave and wonderful in thought and feeling
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as she. It was the reaction from my stupid
days in hunting a job. Her disgust with
everything, her search for something new and
different, the fascination she felt for saying
and doing dangerous and reckless things—
this I could understand so thoroughly! I was
in a very reckless and discontented mood, but
I was able to get away from myself and be-
come Hedda for awhile; and this made me
think of what a wonderful thing it is, what a
power Ibsen has, to produce such emotions
by merely stringing a few words together.
Why, the very name Hedda, Hedda Gabler!
When Eilert says it, what does it not convey!
Terry and I had a long talk about it, and
about literature in general, so the result was
that I became calm, quiet, and reflective—as
I love to be, but which I can be only very
seldom. I have an almost continuous craving
for something new and strange, like Hedda.
But somehow reading and thinking about her
calmed me. I can find new emotions in books,
and this satisfies me for a time, but they are
never vital enough to last me long. It is only
sterile emotions we derive from literature, and
so I turn again restlessly to life.

“But when I turn to life I find for the
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‘ :

An Anarchist Woman

most part people who are unwilling to give
themselves up to life, who will not follow out
their moods, or have none. When I am no
longer capable of abandoning myself, why
continue? Most people seem to me to be
dried up. They look as if they never felt

- ‘anything, so expressionless, so automatic are
“they, as if they had been wound up to walk

and talk, and eat and sleep in precisely the
same way for a certain number of years. This
seems to be the American type. I suppose
you have read of the Caruso affair—how he
kissed a woman in Central Park, or wanted
to, and the howl it made? The way they all
jumped on him, in the name of morality!
And you remember what happened to Gorky,
when he was here? Why, these American
stiffs, what do they mean by morality? Since
they are much too cold-blooded for immor-
tality, what do they know about it? This
country is composed of pie-eating, ice-water
drinking, sour-faced business people. If one
with emotions comes to this country, he is of
course immoral. If there were no foreigners
here, this country would resemble the North
Pole.

“T’m glad I am not an American in blood,

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for then I would not be as interesting to my-
self as I am now. Sometimes I stand before
my mirror and look at myself for a long, long
time; it always surprises me that I look so
commonplace. Surely, something of what I
have in me ought to show in my face. But I
know it’s there, anyway. I know I’m alto-
gether different from anyone else, I know it
with a kind of fierce joy; not better, of course,”
but different.

“For instance, this regularity and system
they talk about! You wrote me to be more
regular and the like of that, if I wanted to
sleep better. You, too, are a typical Ameri-
can! Just imagine me drinking milk to make
me sleep or grow fat! The thought of such a
thing makes me shudder. Your remark about
amorous sport being a soporific if performed
regularly and without excitement made me
double up with laughter. But I am quite
sure that the performance of such a “duty”
would not induce sleep. I am only moved to
such things by new lovers, and then I desire
not sleep but wakefulness. And then, too,
usually such desires come to me at noon, not
at night, and who ever heard of sleeping at

noon!
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An Anarchist Woman

“As for the other physical exercises that
you recommend, I do walk along muddy, pro-
saic streets and work in our household until
I grow weary and ask the gods what sins I
have committed. My beloved cigarettes,
which are as dear to me as sleep itself, my
solace when sleep flies, my comfort, you would
take these away from me! What would I do
without them? I am without them sometimes,
when Terry takes some of my tobacco, and
then I am angry at him! The only plan I
have is to have enough tobacco. Otherwise,
I have nothing arranged, no plan. You think
there is something fine in having logical ar-
rangements for all things. I have never felt
that way. I am only a poor creature of an
hour, of a moment, and have never had plans.
I would love to be where you are now, in
Paris, that home of the planless, the free and
joyous and emotional people.”

What most people think is good, is worth
while, is in good taste, the salon rejected;
partly, of course, in the spirit of mere rejec-
tion, of revolt, but based nevertheless on a
higher ideal of human love than obtains in
our society. ‘These anarchists are not histo-
rians or practical people and they are not as

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much interested in what society must be as in
what society ought to be; and because they
see that society is not what it ought to be, be-
cause they as unfortunate members of the
labouring class feel that the origin of our
society is the root of injustice, they rebel
totally against that society, rejecting the good
with the evil. They passionately believe that
the real and radical evil in our social world
is partly kept there by our very justice, by
our very morality, our very religion—kept
there not so much by what is called evil in
our society as by what is called good. They see
that much large kindness is prevented by the
morality which is expressed in the idea of pri-
vate property, that much large virtue is denied
by the institution of marriage, that psycho-
logical truth and Christian kindness at once
are not considered by the social court, which
looks only to the law—to the complex, histori-
cal law, so often meaningless and unjust to
human feeling, so often based upon special
“interests”? and ancient prejudices.

Their situation, as proletarian interpreters
of the working class, enables them to see what-
ever is true in this view with peculiar vivid-
ness. For, of course, it is to their interest to

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An Anarchist Woman

see this truth; for truth is only an impas-
sioned statement of our fundamental needs.

The salon was composed of the poor and
the criminal, and what kept it together was
the human desire to form a society, the norms
of judgment of which should give value to
the individual members—the deep need of
justification.

There were fakirs in the salon, unkind
people, unjust people, vicious people; there
were mere “climbers,” persons who saw their
only chance for recognition and livelihood in
the espousal of anarchistic ideas. But there
were also kind people, relatively just people,
and moderate ones, honest and strenuous with
themselves. There were none perfect, as
there are none perfect in any society. We
shall see how Terry became disgusted finally
with the anarchists themselves, preferring
even insanity and probable death to them.

And Marie’s letters are full of satire of her
companions, of the perception of their weak-
nesses and inconsistences. She never em-
braces or rejects them so completely as Terry
does, for she sees them more clearly; therefore
she sees them more humorously, understands
them better. Her letters teem with “ psy-

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chological gossip,” so to speak, in which some
of her companions seem portrayed with rela-
tive truth. One she wrote me, while I was
seeing something in London, of an anarchist
named Nicoll, who was a friend of William
Morris and still edits Morris’s old paper, is
full of both appreciation and satire of a num-
ber of “ radicals”:

“An old friend of Nicoll’s used to talk to
me by the hour about him. He, the friend,
an ordinary, rather stupid fellow, once helped
poor Nicoll, got a room for him and gave him
money, after he was released from prison. He
felt proud to think that a man like Nicoll
would accept hospitality ‘from a poor bloke
like me,’ as he put it. His friendship with
Nicoll has been the great event of his life.
Whenever anything occurs in the radical
movement which recalls ever so slightly the
affair of which Nicoll was the scapegoat, his
old friend will say, in his funny Jewish Cock-
ney, ‘That’s always the wey, like Nicoll’s
kise, for example.’ Then he launches forth
into eloquent streams of denunciation, for he
does not regard Nicoll as at all insane, but on
the contrary, ‘the finest man ever downed’

by aristocrats like Turner and Kropotkin.
[ 167 ]
An Anarchist Woman

“This affair has made our friend pessimis-
tic about anarchism, at times, and inclined to
join the socialist party. His life is made mis-
erable by the ceaseless debate of his mind and
soul over which of these two philosophies is
the best one for the race. He, suspiciously, is
always looking for another case like Nicoll’s,
and is doubtful about all movements, not only
anarchism and socialism, but all which preach
liberty, justice, and the like, such as Theos-
ophy, Single Tax, Sun Worshippers, Spirit
Fruiters, Holy Rollers, Upton Sinclair’s
Helicot Colony, and Parker Sercombe’s
Spencer-Whitman Centre. All these he has
tested and found more or less wanting. Life
grows daily more melancholy for him, as he
continues, on account of ‘Nicoll’s Kise,’ to
probe beneath the surface of all the cults and
movements which profess boundless love for
humanity, truth, justice and freedom.

“P. R., whom you have also met in Lon-
don, has got himself into trouble by making
inflammatory speeches in Germany. When
they talked of arresting him, he immediately
claimed American citizenship. But if he ever
turned up in America again they would clap
him in jail so quick it would make his head

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swim. He, together with McQueen, was ar-
rested here some years ago for helping start
the New Jersey riots, but he skipped his
bonds, to the great disgust of the bondsmen,
who were comrades in the movement. The
movement in the whole United States, Can-
ada, Europe, and Asia was divided into fac-
tions over this affair, and very nearly went to
pieces. But it was ridiculous to arrest him in
the first place, for he could not incite a feather
to riot. He is one of those flamboyant wind-

bags, with a terrific command of high-sound-,
ing phrases, eloquent gestures, and fine eyes—

the kind sixteen-year-old girls admire—to
think I once loved him, or thought I did! He
is a big little physical coward and prides him-
self on being the realisation of Nietzsche’s
Uebermensch.

“The movement in Chicago is about to re-
sume its usual winter activity by the opening
of the Social Science League this Sunday
evening. There are many cultured people in
this city who think the Social Science League
is too crude and vulgar to grace with their
presence, therefore it has been resolved to
establish another society of a more exclusive
order, in which may be discussed important

[ 169 ]

'd
An Anarchist Woman

questions in a more subdued, rational, and
artistic way. It is especially desired that only
the ‘artistic’ anarchist be admitted to this
new society. The crude element of anarch-
ism is to be excluded as much as possible, but
what cannot be excluded is to be subdued. If
this is impossible, it shall be expelled. All
illustrious lights will speak there. Terry has
been invited, but has refused on democratic
grounds, and sticks to that ‘bum’ society, the
S. S. League.

“One of the girls who has gone over to the
‘swells’ is Mary. She is a factory girl and
an important little person, who prides herself
on the amount of culture she possesses, and the
famous people she has met and talked with.
I introduced her once to a literary man, but
she did not know he was so, at the time, and
only nodded coldly. But when she found he
was the famous Mr. F. she was angry at
me for not putting her ‘next’ and was much
distressed, for here was another famous man
whom she had nearly talked with.

“Another girl whom I know has done a
wonderful thing with a certain man. He is
a great, strong German, who guzzles beer and
bullies the other fellow in his arguments

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about anarchism. When I first knew him,
several years ago, he was married to a nice
non-resistant sort of a girl, whom he treated
awfully bad—without intending to. For he
is really generous and good-hearted, but is
firmly imbued with the idea, which he thought
was the beginning of anarchism, that one must
be firm and have one’s own way and do all
that one wants to do, without allowing any
scruple of conscience or morals or delicacy to
interfere; that to be a man and an anarchist
one must never allow a petticoat to come be-
tween you and your desire. So he did what
he wanted, regardless of anybody. He was a
sort of brutal Overman; one could not help
admiring the kind of barbaric splendour there
was about him. And his poor wife idol-
ised him and would stand everything from
him.

“ Now he is here with another girl. Talk
about a change! He has turned from a lion to
a mouse. She is a little bit of a thing, only
nineteen, rather silly and not very attractive.
She is pretty in an outward way, but her feat-
ures are unlit by any glimmer of feeling
or thought, or even good nature—a slothful,
empty sort of prettiness. She makes him walk

L171]
An Anarchist Woman

a chalk-line, and it is contemptible and ridicu-
lous and pitiful to see that big man cringe
before this poor, pretty, empty little thing.
Once in a while he tears himself away, and a
glimmer of his old self returns; for an hour
or two he plays his old role again, but if she
finds out about it, it is very unpleasant for
him. It is strange how weak women can sub-
due at times these big, husky creatures. But
the more they succeed, the more dissatisfied
they grow, until at last they feel contempt for
the man they have subdued. The girl in this
case feels that way about this big, powerful
man. If he would assert himself, she would
love him, as she did when she saw how he bul-
lied his wife and all others. But at bottom we
women are pleased, for it is a triumph for our
sex, though we feel a little jealous beause not
one of us could have been the lion-tamer, in-
' stead of this weak little creature. Terry is wild
about it, and tries to lead the enslaved Her-
cules into evil ways and keep him out at night,
but all these things have lost their charm for
the big man, who now would rather stay at
home with the little girl. She, however, finds
things very tedious, particularly in the day
time, when her big man is at the factory, for
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she has nothing to do. So she passes her time
at Esther’s house.

“T would go crazy were I in Esther’s place.
Poor Esther, she doesn’t know what to do,
either, for she cannot be always ill. She takes
pleasure in being an invalid, but she can’t
use this plea for sympathy all the time, people
get tired of it. But Esther is fortunate in hav-
ing somebody to whom she can tell all her
aches and pains and their history. She has
found a unique occupation, in scrubbing. She
starts Monday mornings and finishes Saturday
afternoons, and then on Monday starts again.
I was with her a week, and that’s the way she
spent the days. Perhaps she is like Mary
Maclain and finds a peculiar inspiration in this
fascinating task. If you were a woman I
would write more about Esther’s scrubbing,
which is very wonderful, but you proba-
bly would not understand. Jay, her lover,
comes home from work every evening, and,
after eating the chaste evening meal of rice
and beans, lights his corncob pipe, settles him-
self comfortably in his chair and listens care-
fully to the description of the aches and pains
which have afflicted Esther that day. These
pains continue in spite of all the beautiful

[173]
An Anarchist Woman

scrubbing. He suggests different remedies
until his pipe is finished, then he calmly re-
tires to his library and reviews a book and
reads several pamphlets, writes an article for
“The Demonstrator’ or ‘The Appeal to Rea-
son’ or some other radical paper and attends
to his voluminous correspondence with the
leading radicals of the day. Then he retires
for the night, also Esther, after the farewell
scrub of the dishes, table, and the rest, and the
kids, too, go to roost. When I was there, I
also went to bed, though it was only about
half past eight.

“About half past five in the morning a
most infernal alarm clock emits a most hellish
noise. Jay and Esther tumble from their
couch, light the lamp, and resume their occu-
pations. After a very chaste breakfast Esther
continues her scrubbing and Jay finishes
his correspondence and puts in the rest of the
time until seven o’clock, when his work in
the factory begins, in studying the new lan-
guage, Esperanto. Oh, I spent a most charm-
ing and delightful week there; I could hardly
tear myself away.”

One of Marie’s amorous episodes led her
to Detroit, with a “ fake” anarchist, of whom

C174]
The Salon

there are many. After a week or two of dis-
sipation and disillusionment, Marie returned,
very ill, to the “ Salon,” where Terry received
her with his usual stoicism, and acted as
trained nurse. Repentant and disgusted,
Marie wrote me from her convalescent bed:
“T am still far from well, but am much
better. My illness was caused by too much
dissipation, which I plunged into for relaxa-
tion. For some weeks previously I had got
a particularly large dose of my environment.
Terry and I live in surroundings which would
kill an ordinary person. Our little home is
not as bad in the summer time. We can have
the windows and doors open, but now in this
cold winter we must all live in one room, a
very small room, where there is a stove. The
dampness penetrates right through the walls
and the wind comes through the holes in the
window panes. Sundays are the hardest days
for me. Then Kate, queen of the kitchen, is
here, and she delights in cooking all sorts
of things on that day, so for the remaining six
days our home smells of her culinary opera-
tions—most abominable, this odour of stale
cookery! And what a mess our rooms are

in on Monday morning! You wouldn’t com-
[175 ]
An Anarchist Woman

prehend, even if I told you. I have to clean up
all this, and I wish I could fly away every
Sunday. At times I get so tired of this way of
living. I hope some day I may find a large
barn with a hay loft: I would immediately
abolish Kate and her cookery and would be
comfortable for once in my life.

“So I ran away, for a time, partly for relief,
partly because I was rather taken with a
Detroit anarchist who was visiting us. Though
he was a comrade, he was really a Philistine,
which I did not see till afterwards. I saw only
that he was young and lusty and wanted a
lark, as I did, so I went with him on an awful
tear, and returned terribly done up, as you
know.

“T have been lying here in this little room
for three weeks. I thought surely I should
die, and I was neither glad nor sorry. It was
curious, this sensation of approaching death.
All these days Terry sat opposite me at a table
reading or writing. I could see him distinctly
at times, at other times everything was misty
or completely dark, only his voice reached
me from such a long, long distance. He sat
there like an implacable fate, with calm, cold
eyes, gazing above and beyond me. Between

[ 176 ]
The Salon

two slow heart beats I felt it was almost a duty
to call him and bid him farewell, but some
strange sense of shyness held me back. [I tried
so hard to think of what I might do, and the
most grotesque and comical things suggested
themselves. At one lucid moment I had the
brilliant idea of becoming a jockey!

“Other ways of passing my life revolved
ceaselessly in my brain, and now at last perhaps
I have found it. Now that I am better I am
reading Swinburne aloud, in bed. The sound
of my voice carried along with the music of
his matchless rhythms is to me a delight and
a wonder. I have discovered that the Garden
of Proserpine should be read only when one
is in a reclining position. Then one’s voice
conveys more perfectly the weariness of all
things mortal and the sweet delight of rest.
I find I must practice breathing more deeply,
if I wish to render the voluptuous, sinuous
lines. Don’t you think this is a great ambition,
to read Swinburne well? I amso glad to find
something to do, something I love to do. Per-
haps I may escape from all by this.

“Tt is now five days since I started to write
to you, but I still lie on my back and dream
and have not found my place, and never

[177]
|

An Anarchist Woman

shall. Swinburne’s never-ceasing, monotonous
thymes have palled upon me. Even this is
sordid, and then, if so, what is the rest?-—the
daily life filled with brutish and shallow men
and women? When I can no longer endure
poetry and daily life—it is then that I rush
into brutal dissipation, from which I awake
sick in mind and body, without hope or desire
for anything but sleep: and then, once more,
the Garden of Proserpine reveals itself to me,
or some other thing of beauty. It is an eternal
round.

“T often think that the only way for me to
be in harmony with the scheme of things
would be to go down into the gutter. Some

_ years ago during my brief period of—pros-
| ,titution, I suppose—I felt a strange impor-

«| :
| tance. It was death to me, but something real,

bY

ay
t {

\|too. I was fulfilling a need of society, a for

\|rible need, but a need. And then, too, all my
‘men friends often go to these houses, All the
nice, intellectual men are to be met there—
men from all ranks of life—men a girl like
me could never meet in any other way. Dur-
ing that brief time, at moments between a
sleep and a drink, I used to have this fancy,
which sometimes makes me shudder now, as
[178]
The Salon

I think of it, and yet somehow seems such a
fine satisfying protest—a feeling that some
day I would be seen waddling about the streets
of Chicago, known to all the denizens of the
under world as Drunken Mary! I saw my-
self fat and repulsive, begging nickels from
the passers-by and perhaps strangled at the
end by some passing hobo for the few nickels
in my stocking. And am I essentially worse
than you, or my lady, or anyone whom Society
protects and honours? To me poet and pimp,
politician, reformer, thief, aristocrat, pros-
titute are one. Caste and class distinctions
are too subtle for my poor brain and too out-
rageous for my heart, which still tries to beat
with and for humanity.”

Terry refers only in a line or two, charac-
teristically, to this adventure and illness of
Marie.

“She is seriously ill, the result of a mad ad-
venture. As I exist for others when they are
in pain, I am her trained nurse. She is now
recovering from the drugs, the debauching,
and the raving madness of sleepless nights.
I will give you an account sometime of a
strange piece of magic charlatanism, practiced
under the guise of beautiful art]!

[179 ]
An Anarchist Woman

“T think her growing recovery is largely
due to the inability to secure a doctor to
christen her disease. I feel rather worn with
domestic drudgery, cooking, laundering,
wrestling with disease without and demons
within. Still, as a trained nurse who can
go sleepless for three weeks, I do not look upon
myself as a failure.”

Marie’s health improved slowly, due in
part to the unsanitary conditions of her home.
She wrote:

“The roof of this miserable shack leaks
all the time. The other day the owner came
around in his automobile. I was speechless.
It made me mad to think of that hound, riding
in hiscar which we had paid for. Oh, the mis-
erable people who live in these two houses:
old, decrepit women who earn their living
by washing clothes for others. It would make
your blood boil to see them. And then to
see that fat dog in his auto, accepting money
from them and not ever giving them a whole
roof in return. When I saw him I wanted
to say so much. I could only choke. Oh,
when you hear of the brutality of the mob,
don’t believe it. The mob may indeed, under

the impulse of the moment, burn and destroy;
[ 180 ]
The Salon

but think of the cold brutality of a judge
sitting on his bench and calmly condemning
some poor wretch to be killed, and this with
no emotion. How can this be? The revolu-
tionists in France were the kindest beings, in
comparison. ‘They had personal injuries to
avenge, and all they did was to strike off an
enemy’s head and that was the end. There was
even a chance of being saved, if the doomed
one could find the right expression, some little
sentence that would affect the brutal (?) peo-
ple. But this could not happen before a
judge!

“The trouble with the poor is, they have
not enough imagination. They are not refined
in their cruelties. They could never invent
the Bull Pen, but would only quickly destroy.
It is raining to-day, and I have been moving
about trying to find a dry spot where I can
continue writing without having a large splash
come down on my nose. But I guess Ill have
to give it up. Oh, that cursed landlord! I'd
like to do something to him, not so much for
myself as for those poor old things, they are
all rheumatic and stiff, but continue to live
here because, poor souls, they think the rent

is low. Ye gods, the place is not fit for dogs
[ 181 ]
An Anarchist Woman

to live in, and yet he charges all the way from
five dollars up for these filthy, worm-eaten,
rotten holes. And yet the old decrepit inhab-
itants of this rich man’s house unbend their
stiff knees in profound salaams whenever he
appears.”

But in these leaky rooms of Kate’s there
was often much jollity and gaiety, when the
“Salon” had its sessions, and proletarians of
the pale cast of thought sat and smoked their
cigarettes, drank their beer, kissed their girls,
and talked of philosophy and literature and
social evil and possible regeneration. Then
they were always happy, whatever the subject
of their talk. Marie wrote me to my villa in
Italy:

“You write of your beautiful gardens and
seem quite happy. We too are well and happy
in our little old joint; you are the only one
missing to make our circle complete. But
perhaps sometime you can be with us, with
a can on the table and good talk going round,
and then I’m sure you will not miss your Ital-
ian garden. Emma Goldman and Berkman
have been visiting Chicago, and we had some
jolly good times while they were here. She is

a good fellow, when she is alone with a few
[ 182]
The Salon

choice friends. Then she lets herself out. The
other day we gave a social for these two cele-
brated ones. Positively, no police, reporters,
or strangers were admitted. Next day there
was a hue and cry in all the papers, dark con-
spiracy, and so on! But all we did was to
have a great time: everybody was drunk before
morning, and everybody felt kindly toward
the whole world, and would not have cursed
even the greatest ‘exploiter.’ We finished the
evening or rather the morning by an orgy of
kissing. It was quite interesting and innocent.
Smith has at last begun to return my affection.
I think he likes me a little now. At least, he
calls here frequently, and he told me once he
would like to tear me limb from limb! This
remark made me shudder, not unpleasantly.
It must be good to be torn in that way by such
a nice man.

“The rose-leaves you sent from Italy re-
tained some of their sweet smell. The rose
is my favourite flower, and I like to imagine
that perhaps some day my dust will be soil for
roses. Last summer I found a poor little
stillborn thing which had been hastily thrown
aside, near a place where Terry and I were
camping. Some poor little ‘fleur de mal’

[ 183 ]
An Anarchist Woman

which I covered from sight, in the sand, and
marked the place with some stones and
flowers. The next year I found some wild
white daisies growing there. This made a
deep impression on me and strengthened my
hope that I, too, might become soil for roses,
flowers of love.

“Henry is a rose, too, in his way. He is
getting more picturesque every day. At the
Emma Goldman social he was ornamented
with a new straw hat, which had a very high
crown and narrow brim with little black rib-
bons for the side. Also, an enormous tie, the
ends of which fluttered gaily and coquettishly
in the wind. His curling black locks nearly
reached his shoulders, and he has vowed never
again to cut his hair, as a protest against the
conventions of society. I left the social with
him, and as we walked down the street in the
morning he was a target for all eyes. He was
talking philosophy and love to me, but this
changed to fury. He flung his arms about,
and shouted to the crowd: ‘Oh, you monkeys,
sheep, dogs,’ and several other kinds of quad-
rupeds and birds. ‘Henry is a peculiar man,
but he is as sincere as anybody living and is a
friend of that wonderful man, Kropotkin.

[ 184]
The Salon

When Kropotkin was in Chicago some years
ago a reception was given him at Hull House.
Poor Henry eagerly hastened there to see his
friend—dressed in unbecoming and informal
attire. He had not seen Kropotkin for years,
and so anxious was he to meet him again that
he forgot his raggedness. But the dear, sym-
pathetic settlement workers were decidedly
polite in showing Henry the door. But, at
the psychological moment, Kropotkin ap-
peared, threw his arms around Henry, kissed
him, and carried on like an emigrant who
runs across an exile.”

[£185]
CHAPTER X
More of the Salon

I HAVE been imagining you in Paris,” wrote

‘Marie, “having a delightful, bohemian
time. My ideas of Paris are all derived from
reading Balzac, who has certainly created the
most delightful, gay and mysterious, sad,
mystic, sordid, everything one could wish in a
city of dreams and realities.

“When Terry brought me ‘ Evelyn Innes,’
by George Moore, the other day, I dug into it
with zeal and delight, and was surprised and
pleased with his subtle psychology, during the
first part of the story; but psychology can be
carried to the point where it becomes incom-
prehensible, stupefying and monotonous. I
finally grew indescribably weary of the prob-
lems of Evelyn’s soul, but I kept on to the
end, and then sank back on my pillow ex-
hausted. I think I shall stop reading for a
while, lest I have literary indigestion. Tl
try to be satisfied for the time with Swin-
burne and Shelley. Our anarchistic poet lec-

[ 186 ]
More of the Salon

tured on Shelley, the Poet of Revolution, the
other night, and I was disappointed. He did
not do justice to Shelley either as a revolu-
tionary poet or as a poet of beauty. I think
Shelley should be spoken of with a delicate
passion, which our anarchist poet lacks. He
tried hard to speak with fervour, but there
is no fire in him, and what is a poet with-
out fire? Perhaps it was as well, for what’s
the use in casting pearls before swiner For
the critics in the audience arose and con-
demned Shelley because he was a socialist, or
because he was not one. Some of these critics
seized upon the word libidinous. Oh! there
was their clue! The lecturer arose like an
outraged moralist to repudiate the scandalous
charge of libidinousness. I was so disgusted
I vowed I would never go to another meeting.

“T have indeed been going to so many
‘humanity lectures,’ and clubs, such as the
Shelley Club, where the divine anarchist B—
misinterprets the great bard every week to his
flock of female admirers, and had been read-
ing so much Swinburne and other sublime
things that recently I have had a reaction,
and there is nothing now at the Salon except
Nietzsche. He is a relief, although I feel

[187 J
An Anarchist Woman

that if I were to keep on with him I should
go mad. When I feel my brain begin to turn,
I start scrubbing or some other stupid thing.
“Though Nietzsche says some very bitter
things about women, who have no place what-
ever in his scheme of things, except perhaps
for the relaxation of the warriors, yet there
is something dignified in his very denuncia-
tion. His attitude toward our sex is so dif-
ferent from that of Schopenhauer, and many
other philosophers. They usually take the
‘rag and a bone and a hank of hair’ attitude,
and are disgusting. But Nietzsche warns men
that women are dangerous, and danger, in
Nietzsche’s philosophy, is a sublime thing.
Also, we must become the mothers of his Over-
men.
“Terry, too, is much interested just now in
Nietzsche; quite naturally, for Terry is one of
those ‘men of resolute indolence’ who will
not work without delight in his labour. He
talks a great deal just now of a plan to seek
some cave and there try to become an ‘ Over-
man.’ I pointed out to him that that was dif-
ficult, for to become an Overman he must of
course ‘ keep holy his highest thought,’ without
being disturbed by the struggle for existence,
[ 188 J
More of the Salon

and that, like Zarathustra, he must have an
eagle and a serpent to minister to his wants.
And I suggested that I might be his eagle,
for Zarathustra says that woman is still either
a cat or a bird or at best a cow. I prefer to
believe that I am a bird, and as such could
minister to my sweet Overman. But Terry
wouldn’t have it so, and replied that of course
I was a bird, in a way, but he would rather
have me as a pussy, or as a combination of
cat, bird, and cow. I thought that too cruel,
so now I am determined to be none of them,
but to become an Overwoman, and so be a
fitting relaxation for my warrior, my Over-
man. "Tis but a step from the sublime to the
ridiculous, and I think, in this letter, I have
made that step.”

Marie’s moods are many, and in her next
letter she wrote in quite a different vein:

“T almost wept when reading your letter
about the baby. Perhaps it was because of the
line, ‘A little daughter was born to me.’
It recalled to me this Christmas time many
years ago when I wasa little child and I heard
the story of the little Jesus. ‘And unto us a
child was born.’ How those words ring in
my ears! So vividly come back to me the pity

[ 189 ]
An Anarchist Woman

I felt when I heard the story of the poor little
infant born to be crucified. It always made
me cry—out of pity, the pity of it all! And
I wonder if we are not all, all of us, born to
be crucified.

“But I suppose I must congratulate you on
assuming the responsibility of fatherhood for
the third time. You might long ago have stud-
ied pre-natal influences and the rights of the
unborn. I hope you have not neglected these
sacred duties. It surprised me that you wished
for a girl, for not long ago you expressed the
opinion that women were soulless creatures
without memory! Suppose your daughter
should not be an exception, how would you
feel then? . . . You have been very ac-
tive. As for me, I fear my only activity will
be that of a dreamer. I differ from the dream-
ing class only in one respect and that is, in
making confidences, which dreamers never
do. They shrivel up into themselves. They
usually create their own sorrows, which have
no remedy except the joys they also invent.
They are natural only when alone, and talk
well only to themselves.”

In the same letter she plunges into the gos-
sip of the Salon:

[ 190 ]
More of the Salon

“T don’t blame Scott for his carelessness.
The poor fellow has been suffering terribly
because of his wife, who has left him and gone
off with a new love to a new home. Scott
has been quite heroic about it, but he suffers.
You know how in our radical society men and
women try to deny that they are jealous, try
to give freedom to each other. But whatever
our ideas may be, we cannot control our fun-
damental instincts, and poor Scott is now a
wounded thing, I can assure you. But he
speaks beautifully of his wife—even packed
up her things for her and escorted her to the
new place.

“Scott came here the other night with your
friend the journalist, Fiske, who has become
quite a part of our little society. I am sorry
to say that he is quite sad, too, but for a dif-
ferent reason. The poor fellow seems to be
suffering from lack of literary inspirations.
He has a habit of asking people what shall he
write about. He asks Terry, and even me,
and in pity I am trying to write up the old
women in our tenement for him.

“T see a good deal of Thompson and his
wife Minna. Now that Thompson, who was
a famous radical, is more prosperous, he is

; [ 191 J
An Anarchist Woman

growing careful and conservative. The glory
of her husband is reflected in Minna. I don’t
call at their home so much as I did, because
I made what they call a break there the other
day. I thoughtlessly introduced myself as
Miss L to someone of his relatives or rel-
atives’ friends, after she had already introduced
me as Mrs. C——-. And Thompson informed
me next day that it was inconvenient to ex-
plain such things to conservative people, and
that I ought to be more careful in dealing with
the unenlightened ones. I suppose I ought to
think more of the reputation of my friends.”

Marie likes the Jews of the Salon, many of
them, very much, but there are some she
doesn’t, as the following shows:

“Things are rather dead in the ‘movement,’
justnow. But there is something doing among
the Jewish radicals, who, you know, are very
important in any radical movement here in
Chicago. No wonder things are lively when
the Jews have such a leader as Mr. Kohen,

 

_ whom one might believe to be the long wanted

Messiah, destined to lead his race into the

_promised land, which is evidently Chicago.

There was a hot time about three weeks ago
in the Masonic Temple meeting when this
[ 192 ]
More of the Salon

modern prophet demonstrated to us who were
not Jews that they (he and his friends) were
the chosen people who would not only liberate
themselves but also us from the yoke of cap-
italist oppression; and contrary to all previous
rules, they would do this without any consid-
eration of moneys; all that Mr. Kohen expect-
ed in return was due appreciation. I sup-
pose I ought to be grateful to Mr. Kohen, but
somehow I am not. I ought, too, to be grateful
to our Jewish Madonna, Esther, but there
again I am not. Poor girl! she is really the
Madonna of the Chicago movement. All the
sorrows and troubles of the Salon rest upon
her poor shoulders, and she silently suffers,
sacrifices and redeems. Then there is little
Sara, another chosen one. It is she who is
chosen to make men miserable for the good
of their souls. She has been very pensive
since the great poet B left, for now she
has no one to worry about. I suggested to
her that she might worry about Terry, if she
liked, and she said she would try, with a
weary little sigh. It was she who one day
explained to me at great length that all love
except sensual love was of a transient charac-
ter. If, she said, ‘man swears he loves you,
| [ 193 ]

 
An Anarchist Woman

but does not show any physical interest in
you, you can bet that his passion is of that in-
tangible sort that has the radiant tints but
also the evanescence of dew!

“T am going to a ball next Sunday night.
It’s on the Jewish holiday in memory of the
time when poor Moses led the Jews from
Egypt and they had to eat unleavened bread.
All the orthodox Jews will spend the day
praying in the synagogue, without tasting
food or drink. They make up for it the next
day, though, you bet. The ball is given every
year by the radical Jews, usually right in the
Ghetto, and nearly always the followers of
holy Moses jump on those who no longer fol-
low, and there’s a hot time. Last year the
radical Jews, mostly anarchists, had to have
police protection! The police are good for
something, after all! What should we do
without them? We would exterminate each
other without delay!”

Perhaps Marie’s temporary ‘“grouch”
against the Jews was partly due to the irrup-
tion into her Society of three new and attrac-
tive Israelites of her own sex—an event hap-
pening about that time. In one of these new-
comers, Terry, it appears, was somewhat in-

[ 194 ]
More of the Salon

terested, and Marie has often admitted that
her philosophy of freedom is powerless to
overcome her “ fundamental emotions.” Writ-
ing of Miss B— she said: “She is a regular
little Becky Sharp, very demure and quiet,
and proper and distinguished. All the
women hate her, and the men flock about her,
for she is pretty and a free lover, of course.
She comes once or twice a week to our salon,
and then Terry is always present, and they get
along famously. She talks of ‘the realm of
physics,’ or ‘of biology,’ and I admit it bores
me, her voice is so monotonous. She takes
evident pleasure in Terry’s society. Perhaps
I am a little jealous, but it does not make me
feel any different toward him, and that is the
main thing, the only thing I really care
about.

“T must admit that I grow tired at times of
the ‘movement.’ Kate says she has cut it out
altogether, and Terry goes to the meetings
very seldom. I dutifully attend the lectures,
where they talk about the same old things in
the same old way, and also the socials and
visit the comrades once in a while. But they
do get on my nerves sometimes. I prefer to
stay at home, in the inner circle of the salon,

[195 ]
An Anarchist Woman

reading and sucking at my cigarette when I
have one. I scrub the floor once in a while,
just because of sheer weariness from not doing
anything.

“Terry has been writing an article on ‘the
general strike,’ but did not finish it. He is
like me in lacking energy enough to carry out
any plan or purpose unless great pressure is
brought to bear upon him either from within
or without. I am sure that if he continued

‘,to feel strongly about the general strike he
: ‘would go on to finish it. But he has a great
distrust, really, of the ‘labour’ movement and
of labour leaders. He believes that all social
improvement must come from the workers,
but how many difficulties there are! One of
the greatest is the lack of good leaders. I
myself have not much hope for the workers
as long as they remain sheep who are lost
without leaders, are dependent and led either
by honest men who know not clearly how,
where, or why, or by intelligent men, whose
intelligence usually takes the form of trickery
and self-interest. The intelligent honest ones
seem not to be cut out to be leaders, or suc-
cessful in any way. Sheep are led or driven
most easily by those who can make the most

[ 196 ]
More of the Salon

noise, and they follow as readily over the
precipice as over the road. The slightest
thing serves to frighten and scatter them in all
directions, in outward confusion and helpless-
ness, unless the burly insistent watchers are for
ever at their heels. Leaders of such a herd
must often be unscrupulous to have any suc-
cess, must use their intelligence for all sorts
of devices, often cruel and unjust, to keep
their flocks from wandering: any means justi-
fies the end, which is the good of the cause.
“Perhaps it is a good sign that people from
the higher walks of life are beginning to take
notice of the workingman’s problem, and
maybe the ideal leader will come from above,
but even so I doubt if that will help much. I
have a feeling that all movements dependent
on leaders must necessarily fail. Of course,
1 know that the people of the ‘higher life’
fear the stupidity and brutality of the mass of
workers, and argue that leaders are necessary
to guide and restrain them. This is only
partly true; there is hardly any doubt about
the stupidity of the mob, but they are not at
all so brutal. True, during times of strike
they will throw stones and slug strike-break-
ers, but they are not nearly as brutal as the
[197 ]
An Anarchist Woman

‘scabs,’ who are incited, aided, and protected
by the employers and police, and who lack
the emotional exaltation which often inspires
the workers to this violence.

“During the teamsters’ strike I witnessed a
scene where the strikers hustled the scabs,
overturned several huge wagons loaded with
beef, in the centre of one of the poorest dis-
tricts of Chicago, where the people were suf-
fering from want of meat, but the wretches
did not even have sense enough to help them-
selves from this plentiful store which was left
on the street guarded only by one or two po-
licemen. And there would have been no
danger of arrest, for the policemen could
easily have been swept aside by the rest of the
mob. It made me mad. I felt like shouting
at them, ‘you fools, why don’t you help your-
selves?’ How differently a hungry bunch of
kids would have acted!”

Terry, in his very different way, wrote on
the same subject:

“T never knew a sincere, not to say honest,
labour leader, from business agent up. Poor
proletaire! forever crucified between two
sets of thieves—one rioting on his rights, the
other carousing on his wrongs. Labour

[ 198 J
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plods while plunder plays, thus runs the
world away. But if he should take it into
his thick head to be his own walking delegate
some day!”

This strange master of the “salon,” this
poetic interpreter of the philosophy of the
man who has nothing, has, in spite of his
pessimisms, a profound mystic hope. He
wrote:

“That toiling humanity—the labour move-
ment—to me is a thing so vast, that whatever
other movements try to exclude themselves
from it, they must be swallowed up init. All
other things are but the shadows cast behind
or before the ever-marching phalanx of the
unconquerable, the imperishable proletaire.
This is the hope which sends its thrill through
us when nothing else can. At the bottom of
my heart I know I am living but for one
thing, and my life has been nothing but a
preparation for this. Of and for myself I
have accomplished nothing: for to be ever
ready and alert is not accomplishment.
5 I see a profound hope in the pro-
letaire, for to him is granted that intense, wist-
ful awareness of his common lot and life with
his fellows. His very crowding in factories

[ 199 ]
An Anarchist Woman

and tenements, salons, unions, and brothels,
brings it home to him. Yes, this very lack of
space must remorselessly rub it in, even by
dumb, physical close contact. The friction
resulting from ten living in one room must
make one of them phosphorescent—and cap-
able of giving light to humanity. The tene-
ment houses are harmless boxes of lucifers as
long as none is ignited. The inhabitants are
wofully benighted, but they possess wonder-
fully the quality of brotherhood, of oneness,
hence arises their wonderful psychology and
their esthetics, so full and overflowing with
pathos, so piercing, it carries one to that bor-
- derland where comic and tragic make mar-
| riage.

“This strange crowding in our conscious-
ness of things that do not seem to come from
us and yet are of us—this clamouring con-
sciousness is what drives me to despair and
makes me feel I have not the form or shadow
of things, though I may have the substance.
Yet I am determined to strain my self-con-
sciousness even to the breaking point; for
though I know madness lies that way, there
stands my Ideal, beckoning. I must grasp

this great common thing which comes from
[ 200 ]
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all of us, from us crowded proletarians, and
yet is not in any one of us. Together we en-
joy and suffer more than any one of us alone.
There is, I believe, something deeper than the
deepest woe: our racial consciousness is
there and we must find it. At moments of
great insight we are suddenly made aware of
this, the mysterious unity of the Race, but it
is flashed and gone and we must await another
crisis. It is only in moments of sublime sor-
row that the depths of the racial consciousness
‘is heaved up to us. Joy cannot do this, for joy
is narrow and wants us to do away with sor-
row; but sorrow never wants us to do away
with joy. Keats always beheld joy in an ex-
ternal attitude of farewell and this is pro-
foundly and perfectly mystical and real: joy
is swallowed up in something deeper, away
down in the common racial consciousness.
We must all strive to be men beyond essential
harm; else, standing blindly before the mean-
ing and destiny of the race, we should go mad.
Most of us try to think, intellectuals; fear to
abandon ourselves to alarming states of feel-
ing where reason is crowded to the wall. And
yet I feel that by abandoning ourselves com-

pletely to mere feeling lies our only hope to
[ 201 ]
An Anarchist Woman

find the logic of the race that no individual
reason can master.

“Let me tell you of something that recently
happened to me which shows how strong this
race feeling is, as opposed to merely individ-
ual or family feeling. I heard that my
mother was dying. I had become reconciled
long ago, had seen many things more clearly;
for if joy is of the heart, sorrow is of the soul,
by which we see. I wonder if woman has a
‘lake’ in her heart. I used to think my
mother had, and when I called to see her once
more, the old love-longing caught me by the
throat. My presence seemed to help her
some, but, though moved, I had passed beyond
the family boundary-line, and was engaged in
stripping myself of everything not belonging
to the soul. If I wish to be something more

‘than myself, I must be prepared to lose all,

even myself. And what is my family and my

_ mother?”

Terry does not like to use the word “reli-
gion.” But he certainly belongs to the type
of the religious man. One of the most
marked characteristics of the religious tem-
perament is this abandonment of personal and
family ties, this indifference and often hostil-

[ 202 ]
More of the Salon

ity to social law, “this emotional devotion to
something intangible.” All the anarchists and

social rebels I have known have, more or less, >
the religious temperament, although a large “

part of their activity is employed in scoffing
at and reviling religion—as they think the
God of theology has been largely responsible
for the organisation of social and political in-
justice. But the deeply religious spirits have
often been hostile to theology, as well as to all
other complicated forms of society. Here
are some religious words:

“There must be some_meaning,” wrote
Terry, “for all this ancient agony. Oh, that
I might expand my written words into an
Epic of the Slums, into an Iliad of the Prole-
taire! If an oyster can turn its pain into a
pearl, then, verily, when we have suffered

enough, something must arise out of our tor- .

ture—else the world has no meaning. On
this theory, all my pangs are still to come. I
too will arise out of my sacrificial self and
look back on my former bondage in amaze,
even as I now look down on the dizzy slums
where I am and yet am not! It cannot be
that I came up out of the depths for nothing.
If I could pierce my heart and write red lines,
[ 203 ]

 
An Anarchist Woman

I might perhaps tell the truth. But only a
High Silence meets me, and I do not under-
stand. In letting myself down to the bottom-
less, I discovered I could not stand it long
enough. I am dumbly dissatisfied. I feel
like a diver who has nigh strangled himself to
bring up a handful of seaweed, and so feels
he must down again—and again—until he at-
tains somewhere the holy meaning of Life.”

Terry feels that somehow deep in his life
he has been crucified, that society has nailed
him to the cross:

“T-was alone on the cross and with blood-
shot, beseeching eyes beheld the world ob-
jectively. Yet I was aware of a harmony be-
yond me, though not in me or around me.”

It is this “harmony beyond,” this religious
sense of “something far more deeply inter-
fused” which, ever conscious in the idealist’s
mind, makes the concrete vision of everyday
fact so ugly, leads to anarchism of feeling pro-
found and constant.

But in this world, which as a whole the
heart rejects—“my heart,” said Terry, “is the
last analysis of all things”—the idealist sees
things of beauty which constitute for him the
elements of perfection, elements which in

[ 204 ]
More of the Salon

some future state he dreams may be fully real-
ised in a social whole.

“TI saw a fine thing from the window to-
day,” Terry wrote, “a thing of sheer delight,
the complete _transfiguration of a human be-
ing. An Italian street labourer came into
the yard and sprawled on the grass to eat his
own lunch. He was bandy-legged from be-
ing coaxed to stand alone too soon. But he
had a most wonderful face; all the mobility
which toil had banished from his form must
have sought refuge in his eyes and his caress-
ing countenance. Catching sight of some
children playing ‘ house,’ he jumped up and in
a most charming way offered them all of his
cakes and went back to his luncheon. The
children instinctively brought him back some
of the cakes, which he not only refused, but
offered them the rest of his food. They gath-
ered in a semicircle while he spoke to them.
There came something in his face and attitude
which I have seen many ‘cultured’ people
vainly attempt. He absolutely was one of
them; the children stood spell-bound, dazed
at the sudden transformation of a man into a
child. The The imagination 1 that can become one
with its object is a high form of unconscious

[ 205 ]
An Anarchist Woman

art-and rests upon-the heart and the mass -feel-
ing of the race. The ancient. folk-lore and
ballads must have arisen from some such
fusion as this. How unfair, at least unwise, it
is to judge the individual action of the ptole-
taire, when he is made for action in the mass.’

This “vague | philosophy and transcenden-

ctal ethics pass naturally enough, at times, into

the feeling of violent revolution, where bomb-
throwing, if not advocated, is emotionally
sympathetic.

“Just now,” wrote Terry, “there is strong
predisposition among the ‘reds’ to resort to
‘Russian methods. It needs only the occasion,
which must be waited for, and cannot be
created. When the ‘error’ is great enough,
the ‘Terror’ will surely rise to the occasion.
Were it not for my faith in this, I should be
glad to see Humanity lapse back to whence it
came.”

In the idealist there is a growing impa-
tience with the world; in his attempt to react
even against Nature and some of the necessary

/ qualities of men there is such inevitable fail-

' ure that no moral revolutionist or anarchist

can indefinitely endure the struggle. He is

destroyed by his fundamental opposition to
[ 206 ]
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the world which he seeks to destroy. There-
fore, impatiently, weakly, he sometimes
breaks out—with a bomb—even against his
philosophy and his temperament.

He is led into contradictions. One of
them touches upon his feeling of “class con-
sciousness.” Terry at times, as a transcend-
ental moralist, rises above this feeling, but his
special instinct as a “labour” man often asserts
itself against and in contradiction to his pas-
sion for the oneness of the race. In my in-
timate association with him I sometimes saw
that, much as he liked me, he felt that I was
of another “class.” In the work which re-
sulted in my book, The Spirit of Labour, I
frequently came in discouraging contact with
this “class” distrust of me—in him and in
others. Marie alone seemed free of it, in her
relation to me, and yet she wrote:

“T think we have a peculiar sympathy for
each other, and yet I realise that in some
subtle way there is not that perfect under-
standing there ought to be. Just think of
what extremes we two come from—how dif-
ferent our social environment! I know you
understand as nearly as is possible for one of
your class, and yet I doubt if you can really

{207 ]

\
\

/
if .
An Anarchist Woman

sympathise with the ideas of anarchism which
springs naturally from only one class—the la-
bour class. Do you not hesitate sometimes
and doubt that all men are worthy of the
better things of life, the coalheaver as well as
the banker and artist? Even I hesitate some-
times, when I see the coarseness and ignorance
of these poor plodders of earth, and when I
think of all the really great things that slavery
has accomplished. But who knows how
much greater things might be, if done freely
by free men? When I remember that these
poor plodders have never had a chance, I re-
lent and feel so sorry and so hopeless. How
often Terry and I have walked along the
boulevards, admiring the beautiful homes of
the rich. Oh, it used to make me wild! I
felt that I belonged to humanity, and yet I
could only enter these beautiful homes as a
servant, an object of contempt—an object of
contempt supposed, moreover, to have morals,
and religion, too!”

Of “class consciousness,’ Terry wrote:
“Class feeling has always been a deep prob-
lem to me: it emanates from profound depths.
This reflection concerns you. Many of your
‘labour’ friends here seem to regret that there

[ 208 ]

”
‘More of the Salon

were many things they could not tell you; not
that they had any conscious lack of faith in
you as an individual; indeed, they had great
faith in you as a person. Their distrust of
you was a class distrust; they dreaded to be-
tray the interests of their class. They felt a
fundamental antagonism, not to you as an in-
dividual, but to you as a member of your
class. From their Social Sinai they enun-
ciate the eleventh commandment, ‘Thou shalt
not be a Scab!’, and the other ten command-
ments do not seem to them so important. But
you, they think, cannot feel this command-
ment as they do, so passionately, so fully. To
them, it is the keynote of solidarity; to you,
partly at least, a principle of division, of sepa-
ration.

“No wonder our class—the thinkers among
them—rejects the morality of your class—
property morality, and the rest meant only to
make property morality as strong as a law of
God. I made at one time the fatal mistake
of the many simple labourers who are organi-
cally honest. I spent most of my best life in
seeking a solution of our hard lot from those
above me. After a loss of many feathers and
some brave plumage, but no down, I must in

[ 209 ]

‘ f
y
An Anarchist Woman

all humility beat my way back to the tradi-
tional lost ideals of our organically incorpo-
rated class. . . . Perhaps the most con-
scienceless class who seek to solve the insoluble
is the ‘cultured’ class. But most of them
seem to me like artistic undertakers officiating
at the ‘wake’ of Life. With their platitudes,
their prudery, and their chastity, they make
for death. These languid ones desire to
have life served up to them in many courses.
Greed lies at the bottom of their being, and so
they preach content to the masses, though for
the workers they have nothing in their shal-
low souls but contempt. Thiscultured leisure
class has had the time and cunning to perpe-
trate one great and tragic trick. They have
made social falsehoods so complicated that
they themselves neither understand nor wish
to understand. . . . Why is it that in all
the great authors I detect an air of condescen-
sion, marking their contempt for those who
make and keep them what they are? With
what fine contempt the ‘rube’ is surveyed by
the faker who has plucked him! Must I
put these classic souls of art in the same cate-
gory? The art for art’s sake people—these

*' make me sick. It is at best an argumentative

[ 210 ]
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confusion springing from the fact that in the
perfect work of art there is such a fusion of
form and substance as to resist dissociation
and defy analysis. Perhaps this fact accounts
for Tolstoi’s contempt for some of the clas-
sic art. It seems to me that most classic art
is one of two things: either it smacks of smug
content and over-fed geniality or it is perme-
ated with a profound pessimism. The phil-
osophers are worse than the artists; they are
the ringleaders of the betrayers of humanity.
Art at least makes the atonement of beauty for
its mistakes, but this cannot be said of phil-
osophy.

“Herbert Spencer, for instance, who repre-

sents the high-water mark of a philosophy
that will not hold water, pours out the vials
of his bottled-up wrath on the poor unfortu-
nates of London who are compelled ‘to make
a living’ by tips in opening the carriage doors
or holding the horses of the wealthy. He
had nothing but loathing for the pregnant girl
who tries to break her ‘fall’ by taking advan-
tage of the ‘poor laws.’ For the working-
man, who sincerely tries, at least, to settle the
‘affairs of State’ in the pot-house over a mug
of ale, Spencer had nothing but contempt;
[ 211]

ened
An Anarchist Woman

but to the parliamentary people who settle the
same ‘affairs’ over champagne and prostitutes,
he played the lick-spittle. . . . The re-
cantation of his ‘Social Statics’ is the worst
case of intellectual cowardice on record.
; He went down with final contempt
for the workers who served him, gave him his
daily bread, made his ink, pen, and paper and
bound the twenty volumes of his philosophy
of falsehood! May his ‘ works’ rest in obliv-
ion! ‘

“In dismissing Spencer, it is worthy of note
that the very thing which made him pause in
the righting of social wrongs is the thing
which will cause the Revolution, namely, the
complicated nature of social falsehoods. In
recanting his published truth on the land
question, he admitted that, although the legal
title to land was obtained by murder and dis-
possession of original occupants, the matter
was now too complicated to be dealt with. If
this be so, if justice cannot be done because of
the difficulties in the way, then all hail to the
simplicity and elemental justice of a Red
Revolution! 3

“Yes, sometimes I feel like the crudest of
the revolutionists, although I call myself a

[ 212 ]
More of the Salon

philosophical anarchist. Sometimes the jails
seem to yearn for my reception, and I ques-
tion my right to be at large. Nothing but a
decreasing cowardice leaves me at liberty.
And if I could not do more for my soul be-
hind the bars than I have done in front of
them, then I am fit only for durance vile. I,
who have out-fasted the very flies till they fled
my room, dread but one thing in the life of a
prison—that I should have no time for reflec-
tion and repose! but out of a born anarchist
it would make of me a compulsory Socialist,
condemned to work for the State—a veritable
dungeon of disgrace.

“Tt is not so much that I love life, though
as a rule the poor, who are so close to life,
worship it in a way that puts all other things
to scorn. I know nothing that reaches far-
ther up or deeper down than this. It is only
in the gutter that life is truly worshipped.
And that is why I search for my last faith
there—in the gutter, whence all faith really
springs.

“And yet to have faith even in the gutter is
an act of deep imagination. In the rotting
rooms beneath me lives a worker with a fam-
ily of six girls and one boy. Capitalism has

if 213 ]
An Anarchist Woman

crucified his carcass for fifty years and now
‘laid him off.’ He has been looking for work
for the last month. I watch the insanity in
his restless, aimless movements, and I feel
desperate enough to try to get him a job. Un-
fortunately, he does not drink; so his pipe,
ever in his mouth, is the only obstacle between
him and the mad-house, or the poor-house.
Every morning at six o’clock, his sandwich
dinner concealed in his pocket, he makes a
brave show of walking away briskly in his
hopeless search for work; for there are too
many younger men. His assumed activity is
only put on till he turns the first corner, for
he tries to conceal his lameness and decrepi-
tude, especially from his wife, who strains her
gaze after him. Just before starting off he
takes the superfluous precaution to put some
shoe-blacking on his hair which shows white
about the temples. He comes back after a
six hours’ search, about noon, his neglected
dinner still in his pocket. He has tramped
ten or twelve miles with no open shop for
him. He does not blame anyone, but re-
gards it all as an accident that has happened
to him in some unfortunate way. He broods
over this till I can see it in his eyes; but I
[ 214 ]
‘More of the Salon

don’t dare say anything to him. He is too
old, and I might only make his trouble worse.
If I were a sculptor I would put him before
the world in a material almost as hard and
I hope more enduring than itself. His arms
never hang down by his side, but seem to be
set in the position required by his last job,
shovelling. It reminds me of the time, thirty
years ago, when I was laid off, and the mad-
ness first got in and crouched behind my
eyes. ‘
“Yes, I suppose I am mad. It is true that
if I cannot have the intellectual red that her-
alds the approach of Dawn, then I want the
red light of Terror that ushers in the Night.
My feelings have been clamouring for many
years against my cowardly better judgment.
I believe some day they will break loose and
throw me, as from a catapult, even up against
the stone wall of atrocity we call Society.”
Thus the idealist becomes frenzied at times
at the incredible difficulties in the way of a
total revolt against society, even against na-
ture. We shall see how the absolute nature of
his anarchism led Terry further and further
along the path of rejection, “‘ passing up” one
thing after another, even letting anarchism as
[215 ]
An Anarchist Woman

a social enthusiasm go by the board and mak-
ing his continued relation with a human be-
ing, even with Marie, a practical impossi-
bility.

[ 216]
CHAPTER XI
The End of the Salon

ERRY’S love for Marie was partly due,

as we have seen, to his passion for social
propaganda: that she represented the “social
limit” was a strong charm to him. She,
woman-like, always insisted on the personal
relation, and for a long time his interest in
her personality as such, combined with his
social enthusiasm, was strong enough to keep
the bond intact. When, however, his social
enthusiasm paled, and his merely individual-
istic anarchism became stronger, his interest
in Marie weakened. The times grew more
frequent with him when he doubted the social
side of anarchism itself—when this social
propaganda seemed as hollow and as unlovely
as society itself; and when he saw the weak-
nesses and vanities of his associates, how far
they were from realising any ideal. Then,
more and more, he was thrown back upon
himself, for as his hope in the new society
weakened, his hope in Marie as an embodi-
ment of it weakened also.

[217]
An Anarchist Woman

Marie’s sex interests, always freely and
boldly expressed, played, at first, no part in
the growing irritability of their relations.
Marie’s occasional “affairs” with other men,
sometimes taking her away from the salon for
a time, were taken by Terry in silence. Even
when he came face to face with the fact of
Marie’s absence of restraint in this respect,
lack of delicacy and feeling for him, he did
not complain. To do so was against his prin-
ciples of personal freedom; and the fling in
the face of society envolved in Marie’s con-
duct pleased him rather than otherwise; also
there was in him a subtle feeling of superior-
ity over other men, in the fact that he was
without physiological jealousy, or if not, that
he could at least control it.

Even Marie’s jealousy of him, whenever he
was in the society of another woman, he took
with a patient shrug. ‘Terry’s interest in
other women was not a passionate one: in it
was always an element of the pale cast of
thought, and Marie had no real cause for jeal-
ousy. But Terry tolerantly took it as a femi-
nine weakness and tried to shield Marie from
this unreasonable unhappiness. On her ac-

count he gave up many a desire to talk inti-
[ 218 ]
The End of the Salon

mately with some female comrade. But
Marie had no such tolerance for him. Not
only was she quite free with other men and to
the limit, but she often went into a real tan-
trum of jealousy. One day she followed
Terry all over town, fearing that he had an
appointment with a _ well-known radical
woman. Marie often acknowledged to me
her inconsistency. “But, you know,” she
would say, “our principles and ideas do not
count much when our fundamental emotions
are concerned.”

This was a true remark of Marie’s, and I
have often had occasion to perceive the great
degree of it throughout the radical world.
Men and women often try in that society to
be tolerant; they give one another free rein
sometimes for years, but generally in the end,
the resistance of one or the other weakens;
human nature or prejudice, whichever it is,
asserts itself, and tragedy results. This I
had occasion to see over and over again: how
nature triumphed over the most resolute
idealism and brought about in the end either
ugly passion or pathetic unhappiness.

As Terry began to doubt his deepest hope, .
as he began to turn away from the ideas about

[ 219 ]
An Anarchist Woman

which his salon was formed, he saw and felt
more clearly the limitations of Marie’s per-
sonal character; and her acts began to hurt
him. Perhaps he began to lose faith in both
—Marie and the Salon—at the same time.

“T am afraid,” he wrote, ‘that the days of
the salon are numbered. I am of the opinion
that most of our latter-day radicals are on a
| par with our latter-day Christians. They
have grown weary, or wary, of their original
purpose. They seem to think Liberty a beau-
tiful goddess who will never come: they wil-
lingly believe in her as long as there is no
danger of or in her ‘coming.’ How franti-
cally most of the radicals signal back the
‘waiting’ reply: the track is not clear for the
coming of Liberty!—and they do not want to
have it cleared!

“You will be surprised to know that I have
dropped the radicals, with the exception of
Thomson, and I fear he too must walk the
plank and go by the board. I am becoming
quite implacable toward these intelligent
people, and the salon will soon be void of my
presence. The spirit of it has gone already
and cannot be revived. That is why I left
my mother’s home—because the spirit of

[ 220 ]
The End of the Salon

home had gone—and why I must leave the
salon. I cannot submit to being a discordant
spirit; therefore I must be a wandering one.

“So I must leave Katie and Marie. If I
could make a living I would work for it, as
I did when I thought so. But I shall never
work—or toil rather—for sheer subsistence
except behind the bars. I am driven to be a
parasite, for honest living there is none. The
time is up, and I must leave. Several years
ago I ruined whatever robustness I had by
tending bar so that Katie might knock down
some three hundred dollars. At one meal a
day and a place to try to sleep, I think that
she and I are about even; she also thinks so,
though she never says so, to me. She is will-
ing and able to take care of Marie, for she
has five hundred dollars in the bank and a
great love for the girl.”

Terry, sometimes terribly frank, is  ex-
tremely reticent about Marie; and the ac-
count of their misunderstanding comes main-
ly from her letters:

“T have had such a bad misunderstanding
with Terry, or he with me, I don’t know
which it iss My God, but women can be
brutal, though! You ought to read Jack

[ 221 ]
An Anarchist Woman

London’s ‘The Call of the Wild.’ You
might substitute women for dogs. Some
years ago I was a feast for the dogs (women),
and now I see much of this same fierce bru-
tality in myself, and poor Terry is feeling it.
I have been away with a man, and Terry
somehow feels it much more keenly than ever
before.

“And yet I love Terry: surely if I ever
knew what love means, I love him and have
loved him always. Though I am the most
brutal person on earth, I am so without in-
tention, without knowing it even, at times.
And I am so tired that sometimes I have no
feeling for anything, not even for Terry, and
he does not understand that. I feel out of
harmony with every one just now. It is
hardly indifference, rather a _ terrible
weariness. Perhaps my recent reading of
Nietzsche has helped to give me a feeling of
weary hopelessness. And then, too, the spirit
of our salon is gone; I don’t know exactly
why. Even Terry has changed very much in
his feelings and ideas. He is not much in-
terested in the things he used to be absorbed
in. He is more cynical, especially of social
science, and yet he seems to me to be making

[ 222 ]
The End of the Salon

a very science of looking at things unscientifi-
cally. He seems to be holding his emotions
in check, is less impulsive than ever, and is
losing much of that delicacy of feeling and
expression which was so admirable in him.

“T too am growing cynical, and I hate to
do so. I should like to accept people at
their apparent value and not always look for
motives, as I am getting more and more to
do. I should like to approach everything
and everybody with a perfectly open heart,
as a child does, but I find that I no longer do
that, that I am always prejudiced. I am sure
that this is due to Terry’s influence, for he
more and more excludes everything: nothing
is good enough for him. He passes up one
person after another and he has no joy in life.
His personality is so much stronger than
mine that I am like a little thin shadow,
weaker than water, and he can always bring
me around to see his way of looking at people
and things.”

This note in Marie—protest against
Terry’s tendency to cut out the simple joy of
life—grew very strong at a later time; now,
however, it was only suggested, and played no
important part.

[ 223 ]
An Anarchist Woman

Indeed, the idea of his leaving her was to
her an intolerable thought; and yet there is
many a letter which suggests the approaching
dissolution of the salon and of their relation.
They were both, at times, terribly tired
of life: with no strenuous occupation, the
word of Nietzsche and of world pessi-
mism, of excessive individuality, tortured
their nerves and made everything seem of
no avail.

Work takes one away from life, is a buffer
between sensitive nerves and intensest experi-
ence. Strong natures who for some reason are
dislocated and therefore do not work, or work
only fragmentarily, come too much in con-
tact with life and often cannot bear it; it
burns and palls at once. So it was with
Terry and Marie. Without either work or
children, they were forced into strenuous per-
sonal relations with one another and into a
feverish relation with “life.”

“T feel so depressed,” she wrote; “so many
things have happened this last year which
seemed trivial at the time, but have had big
results, while other things which seemed
events have turned out to be only incidents,
and very small ones. Thus, a careless remark

[ 224 ]
The End of the Salon

of mine resulted in a quarrel between Terry
and me which did not lessen with time, but
grew larger and larger, until now the rela-
tions of us two idyllic lovers are anything
but pleasant. And a very serious attack
of love from which I suffered last sum-
mer has passed as quickly and lightly as a
breath of wind, while another light love of
mine, which came to me last February, has
assumed large proportions simply because I
have been abused for it by Terry, whom no
one could ever displace in my heart. I was
bound to defend my lover from the attacks of
Terry, whom I had always regarded as above
such a common display of irritation in such
matters. So this other man became a sort of
ideal lover in my mind, and all because of
Terry’s opposition. This man had wooed me in
a great, glorious, godless fashion. He was a
big man in the labour world, and he flattered
me immensely, but I should never have cared
for him, if Terry’s nature had not suddenly
seemed to weaken.

“T have been so uneasy about Terry lately.
He has been talking so much about joining
the criminal class. He seems to be losing his
interest in our movement and to be looking

[ 225 ]
An Anarchist Woman

for some other way of escape, as he calls it.
He says his liberty is only a figment of; his
mind, that he has now reached the time for
which he had all along been unconsciously
preparing himself. I am, of course, used to
this kind of talk from Terry. He has been
in the depths of despondency often enough,
but nothing ever came of it except a saloon
brawl. He would usually seek Harris; they
would break a mirror or a few glasses in some
saloon, and the next day Terry would have a
headache, after which he was usually con-
tent to browse around his philosophy in that
mild and subtle way of his, for a week
or so.

“But now Harris is gone, and Terry does
not know any other person quite so strenuous
in the fine art of breaking glasses and bar-
room fixtures in general, so, finding no vent
for his accumulated despondency, he may
possibly do real things. I feel so sadly for
him and wish I could help him. The Lord
knows I would be willing to break any
amount of glassware with him, but he has not
much confidence in my aim, I guess; women
never can throw straight. In fact, he has lit-

tle confidence in me in any way lately, for he
[ 226 ]
The End of the Salon

never tells me the details of his schemes,
but only throws out dark and _ terrible
hints. .

“Truly, something may indeed happen this
time. He is so anti-social. He positively
won’t go out anywhere to meet people, won’t
go to our picnics or socials, and in manner is
very strange, distant, cola, and polite to Katie
and me. One would think he had been in-
troduced to us just five minutes before. Per-
haps he thinks that Katie and I want him to
go to work—common, vulgar work, I mean,
for Katie has lost her job and we are living in
the most economical way, for we don’t know
when another desirable job can be found.
Now, Terry really ought to know that I
shouldn’t have him work for anything in the
world. I know that Katie has not said the
least word to him, but he is so terribly sensi-
tive that perhaps he suspects what she may be
thinking.

“Katie is despondent, too, and nearly makes
me crazy talking of her life, past, present, and
future, in the most doleful way. Last night,
after talking to me for two hours about the
misery of life, she made the startling proposal
that she and I commit suicide. ‘For,’ said

[ 227 ]

~
An Anarchist Woman

she, ‘I cannot see anything ahead of me but
work, work, like a cart-horse, until I am dead.
I’d rather die now and be done with every-
thing, and you had better come with me, for
you haven’t anything, and if I went alone,
what would become of you, such a poor help-
less creature; see how thin you are, I can
almost look through your bones! Who
would take care of you?’

“After talking in this strain for what
seemed to me hours and hours, Katie went to
bed and to sleep, and then came Terry from
his solitary walk—he usually goes for a walk
if there are any indications that Katie will do
any talking—and entertained me by care-
lessly, carefully hinting at one of his dark,
mysterious plots. Then he, too, went to bed,
and I, too, had forty winks and seventy thou-
sand nightmares.”

But Marie, even in this growing strain,
never failed in her love and admiration for
the strange man with whom she lived. On
the heels of the above came the following:

“Terry is one of those characters who has
not lost any of his distinct individuality. His
is a nature which will never become con-

founded or obliterated in one’s memory. The
[ 228 ]
The End of the Salon

instantaneous impression of large soul, sincer-
ity, and truthfulness he made upon me at our
first meeting has never left me. This impres-
sion must have been very strong, for generally
these impressions grow weaker, if people live
together so closely as poor people must. All
his faults, as well as perhaps his virtues, come
from the fact that he is not at all practical.
In spite of his experience, he does not know
the world, and is a dreamer of dreams. His
wild outbursts are the result, I think, of his
sedentary life. Sometimes we two remain at
our home for weeks without venturing out,
without hardly speaking to each other, and
then suddenly we burst out into the wildest
extravagances of speech!”

A few days later there was a wilder burst
than ever, and Terry left the salon. Marie
wrote:

“Tast week we all had a row, and Terry has
not been seen or heard of since. The last
words he uttered were that he should return
for his belongings in a few days. I am
dreadfully sorry about it, especially that we
could not have parted good friends. I realise
and always shall be sensible of the great good
I had from him and shall always think of him

[ 229 ]
An Anarchist Woman

with the best feeling and greatest respect.
The parting has not been a great surprise to
me, for it really has been taking place for a
long time, ever since he withdrew his confi-
dence from me, now months past, and I have
been acting with other men without his
knowledge. Nothing mattered in our rela-
tion but mutual confidence, but when that
went, it was, I suppose, only a question of
time. And, at the same time that he with-
drew spiritually from me, he seemed to lose
his interest in the movement, and grew more
and more solitary and hopeless.

“YT don’t know what Terry is doing, or
where he has gone, and I am uneasy. I
would not fancy this beautiful bohemian life
alone with Katie, and I don’t know what to
do.”

“Terry is still away,” she wrote a few days
later, “and my horizon looks bleak and lone-
ly. I want to be alone where I can collect
my thoughts, but, even when Katie is out, I
cannot think, but sit by the window staring at
the old women hanging up the clothes which
everlastingly flap on the lines tied between
the poor old gnarled willow trees. Poor old
trees, their fate has been very like that of the

[ 230 ]
The End of the Salon

old women. They bear their burden uncom-
plainingly, groan dolefully in the wind, and
shake their old palsied heads. Even the
sparrows, true hoboes of the air, disdain to
seek shelter in their twisted arms. They will
die as they have lived, withering away.

“T try to interest myself in household af-

fairs, but that is so stale and unprofitable.
Neither can I read: my thoughts wander
away and Terry intrudes himself constantly
on my mind. I may get so desperate that I
will seek a job as a possible remedy: perhaps
in that way I could get tired enough to
sleep. ;
“T have been trying to meet Terry, but he
is as elusive as any vagrant sunbeam. I feel
it would do me a world of good to have a long
heart-to-heart talk with him. If I could only
see him once a week and have him sympa-
thise with me in a brotherly fashion and hear
him say, in his old way: ‘Cheer up, Marie,
the worst is yet to come,’ I should be compar-
atively happy and satisfied.”

Several more days. passed, and with the
lapse of time Marie’s mood grew blacker.
Her next letter to me had a deep note of sor-
row and regret and remorse:

[ 231 ]
An Anarchist Woman

“Terry has been away since August thir-
teenth. He came, while I was out, for his
things. I fear it is his farewell visit; for he
has not shown the slightest disposition to
meet me and talk things over. I have tried
in every way to see him again, but he has thus
far ignored my existence. I had an idea that
we two were made for each other, but I have
been an awful fool. Last February, as you
know, I had an affair, if it may be dignified
by even that name, and just for the fun of the
thing I went with this light love to Detroit,
and came home ill, as you already know. I
returned to Terry full of love and regret and
most properly chastened by my illness and
disappointment; for other men almost always
disappoint me. But I found him positively
beastly. The way he abused that poor man
was terrible, and I had to defend him, for I
know that Terry was unjust to him. I
begged him to blame me, not the other man,
for it was all my doing, but that only made
matters worse.

“T know that some people can conceal their
obnoxious qualities and show only the sweet
and lovely side of themselves. I sometimes
like to see the reverse side of the medal, and

[ 232 ]
The End of the Salon

I expected Terry, as a student of humanity
and an anarchist, to welcome any phase of
character which might enable him to under-
stand me more completely.

“T must hesitate in attributing Terry’s atti-
tude to jealousy, for I have had some affairs
before, and he never seemed to care about
them in the least; indeed, I often felt piqued,
and thought he did not mind because he did
not care about me enough. The following two
weeks were, I can truly say, the most infernal
and awful that ever happened to me, and I
wished thousands of times that I might die,
and I did come very close to it. I cannot de-
scribe that hellish time or give you any idea
of Terry’s conduct during those weeks.
He was no longer the calm, philosophical
Terry that you know, but the most
terribly cruel thing the mind of man can
conceive.

“Now, I know these are strong words, and
I don’t know if you can imagine Terry that
way, or if you can believe me when I say it
isso. I have thought of it so many times, and
I have come to the conclusion that perhaps
while I was away, he and Harris had a great
debauch together and that Terry must have

[ 233 ]
An Anarchist Woman

taken some dope which unbalanced him for
a while.”

I do not think it needs “dope” to explain
Terry’s conduct. Marie, perhaps, could not
understand the possible cruelty of a disap-
pointed idealist. When Terry began to see
that neither the anarchists nor Marie would
ultimately fit into his scheme of things, when
his idealistic hope began to break against the
hard rocks of reality, he was capable, in his
despair, of any hard, desperate, and cruel
act.

Marie continued:

“During this awful time I did not blame
Terry, dope or no dope. I considered it all
coming to me, and even wished it would keep
on coming until it killed. But I made up my
mind right then and there that if it was fated
that I should keep in the game, there should
be no more ‘affairs’ for me. And so help me
God I have not had any from that time—six
months ago—till the day Terry left me. And
that other man’s name has not once passed my
lips in Terry’s presence, and when it was men-
tioned by others when he and I were there, I
grew dizzy and sick.

“In time, these dreadful things were thought

[ 234 ]
The End of the Salon

of as little as might be, and Terry and I be-
came excellent, though platonic friends, a
novel and fascinating relation, wherein sex
had no part. Night after night have we sat
around this table, discussing books and peo-
ple, trying to penetrate the mystery of things
strange and new to us. I should rather say
that he talked, and I was his eager listener.
Often, after tossing restlessly on our pillows,
when no sleep would come ‘to weight our
eyelids down,’ the rest of the night would be
spent in reciting poetry, the inevitable cigar-
ette in one hand, the other gesticulating in
the most fanciful and fervid manner. He
would recite in passionate whispers—so as
not to awaken Katie—for hours at a time,
poems from Shakespeare to Shelley, and Ver-
laine to Whitman, poems tender and sweet,
bitter and ironical and revolutionary, just as
the mood suited him. His feeling for poetry
and nature seemed to grow as his hope for
human society grew less.

“So our relations were ideally platonic—
the kind you read about in books. Neverthe-
Jess, some of the old bitterness remained in
Terry’s heart, for at times he became de-
pressed and melancholy and so sensitive about

[235 ]
An Anarchist Woman

the least little thing that I was nervous and
in hot water all the time for fear I might
inadvertently say or do something to hurt him
or make him angry. I admit I am not as
placid as I look, and Katie, too, is very in-
flammable, so you can understand how tense
the atmosphere was at times.

“Not very long ago, at the breakfast table
one Sunday morning, I urged Terry to come
to a meeting of the ‘ radicals,’ adding that he
was becoming a regular hermit and that it
would do him good to have more social
pleasure. He turned on me savagely, called
me a hypocrite, and a contemptible one at
that, and made a few more remarks of the
kind. After a few days of strained polite-
ness on both sides I made bold to ask him for
some explanation—and I have got it coming
yet!

“These are just the facts. I don’t go into
all the little details of our many little vulgar
rows, about the most trivial things. I am
sure, if Terry writes you about this, that his
innate delicacy would never permit him to go
into these sordid details, too many of which I
have perhaps told you. But I am made of
rougher stuff than he. I am never quite as

[ 236 ]
The End of the Salon

unreasonable as he can be at times, but I am
commoner.”

Terry did, indeed, express himself in a
much more laconic way about the quarrel,
than Marie. On the day he left, August
thirteenth, he wrote me the following
note:

“The premonition in my last letter is ful-
filled: the salon knows me no more.”

A later talk I had with both Katie and
Terry throws light upon the precipitating
cause of Terry’s departure on the thirteenth
of August. It was due to Terry’s sensitive-
ness about his money relationship to Katie.
On that morning Terry was asleep on the
couch, when Katie got up, made breakfast,
and she and Marie asked Terry to join them.

“Not me,” said he.

“JT think you have been eating on me long
enough,” rejoined Katie. It’s time you got
out.”

Katie had never allowed herself a remark
of this kind before. But she had not found
another job and the three had been on edge
for some time.

The remark brought about the climax so
long preparing.

[ 237]
An Anarchist Woman

“T’ll go,” he replied, “as soon as I have
finished this cigarette.”

“In the wordy war that followed,” said
Terry, ‘‘we all three went the limit in throw-
ing things up to each other. I told Katie
that if it had not been for me and Marie she
would not have had anybody to steal for;
that I was eating on her stealings and mine,
too. And then I left.” .

Although, as we shall see, this was not the
end of the relation between Terry and Marie,
it was in reality the sordid end of the ideal-
istic Salon.

[ 238 ]
CHAPTER XII
Marie’s Attempt

W HILE Marie was trying to find some
trace of Terry, the latter was wander-
ing about the country.

“‘T have been tramping about the country,”
he wrote me, “living most of the time in the
parks. This life, where you ‘travel by hand,’
crowds out consecutive meditation, but I like |
it because I can go away at the first shadow
of uneasiness betrayed on either side. My
existence now is so responsive and irresponsible
that it comes very close to my heart. I am
living a life of contrasts: one week I spent
with a rare friend who has many good books
and admires me for the thing for which
all others condemn me. Strange, is it not,
that the one thing which redeems me in his
far-seeing eyes is what places me beyond re-
demption in the minds of others. I have
spent some sleepless nights in his fine home,
kept awake by the seductions of social life
tugging at my heart-strings. So one night I

[ 239 ]
An Anarchist Woman

stole away from this seduction and slept with
some drunken hoboes in the tall soft grass,
where I could have no doubt about being
welcome. I might as well doubt the grass as
those pals, who without question hailed me
as an equal. I, having the only swell ‘front,’
tackled a mansion, and the Irish servant-girl,
to whom I told the truth, gave me a whole
hand-out in a basket, enough for all of us.
My brother hoboes swore I should be the
travelling agent of the gang. But a copper
gave me the ‘hot foot,’ while I was ‘ pounding
my ear’ in the woods with the other ’boes,
so I straightened and hiked to the stock yards,
where I feel more at home with the
Hibernians.

“Never have I seen Life more triumphant
and rampant, more brimming over with hope
and defiant of all conditions, hygienic and
otherwise. I am rooming with an Irish
family whose floor space is limited, so we all
have shake-downs, and in the morning can
clear the decks for action with no bedsteads
in the way. I am very ‘crummy,’ badly flea-
bitten, overrun with bed bugs, somewhat fly-
blown, but, redemption of it all, I am free
and always drunk. Still, I am really getting

[ 240 ]
Marie’s Attempt

tired of playing the knock-about comedian
and shall soon ‘hit the road.’

“T am willing to do anything for Marie
I can, except to love her as I once did, but
never shall again. Even spirits die, and the
spirit of the salon is so dead that it is beyond
resurrection.”

Marie, however, would not believe that the
spirit of the salon, or at any rate, as much of
that spirit as depended on the relation be-
tween her and Terry, was dead; she was more
concious than Terry of the ups and downs of
the human nerves and heart and the ever-
present possibility of change, and she went
to work in a wilful attempt to get back her
lover. Her next letter was a triumphant one:

“T am avery happy girl to-day, and I must
write to tell you so before the mood vanishes,
for I have learned that good moods are very
fleeting. . . . The cause of my happiness is,
of course, that I have at last met Terry and
we have had a long, delightful talk together,
and I hope our misunderstanding is all cleared
up. Only, now I am afraid I shall begin to
pine and fret because we cannot be together
always, though reason and philosophy and
logic all tell me that the new relation be-

[24r ]
: An Anarchist Woman

tween us two is the very best, noblest, most
ideal—or at least they try to tell me so. It
very nearly approaches the anarchistic stand-
ard, too.

“There is something fascinating in this new
state of affairs. It is just like falling in love
all over again: the clandestine meetings, with
the one little tremulous caress at parting—
which is all we are bold enough to exchange
—thrill me; it is the mysterious charm of the
first love-affair! It makes my blood sing and
dance. I lie awake the whole night thinking
of our meetings and trying to bring them
vividly back to me.

“And, do you know, what makes me
supremely glad is the feeling that Terry is
going to love me again, that I am going to
win him back. He thinks that love is an en-
slaving thing and harmful to the soul, but my
dear lovely idealist and dreamer has loved
me once and he must love me again. I am so
in love with love and almost as fanatical
about it as the ecstatic artist is about art: love
for love’s sake, art for art’s sake. I never did
—and hope I never shall—get over that feel-
ing of awe at the mystery and beauty and
elusiveness of that great force in life—love.

[ 242 ]
Marie’s Attempt

And I have always felt so sorry for people,
sincere people, who told me honestly that
they have felt that wonder-in-spring sensa-
tion only once in all their lives. It made me
think that I had at least one thing to be very
thankful for, that I was different from them,
that I could experience the divine flame, and
experience it continually. If you knew how
often I have fallen in love with Terry!
“Poor Terry, I feel so sorry for him, too;
he has no place to stay, though he could stay
indefinitely at three or four houses that I
know of, where his friends would feel only
too glad to have him. But he says he does
not want again to attach himself to any person,
place, or cause, because the time would come
when he should have to break away, and then
he should have to experience death again. So
he intends to move about whenever and
wherever the whim suits. But I am sure this
life will not satisfy Terry for long, for there
is really very much of the hermit inhim... .
“T am going to see him again in a few days,
so I have the pleasantest things to dream of.
If I am to win Terry back, I must be ex-
tremely careful: one false move would be
likely to queer the whole thing. Oh, I am
[ 243 ]
An Anarchist Woman

tremendously happy, for I am sure I shall
win my dear Terry back again!”

The next letter, written about a month later,
has a note of discouragement, and also a slight
suggestion of an effort to steel herself against
possible developments in the future:

“When I go among the comrades and
friends, I must keep such careful watch over
myself. I don’t want to show them how I
feel about our separation. The movement
had the strongest conviction that I was so
wrapped up in Terry—I was always so fran-
tically jealous of him, you know—that I would
surely die, or go crazy, if I were ever sep-
arated from him. So they are all guessing
at present, and don’t know just what to think
of me. Apparently I am just the same, in
fact some better, for I laugh and talk more,
much more than IJ ever did.

“Terry and I have met several times since
I wrote you, and I am almost discouraged,
and think at times it would be better for me
not to see him at all. I have to be so careful,
and it is awfully hard to control my impulses
to tell him what I feel! But I dare not do
that or he would never see me again, and I
hardly think I could stand that. He is so

[ 244 ]
Marie’s Attempt

very cold and friendly; of course, he does kiss
me when we meet and at parting, but in such
an indifferent way, and if I allow my lips to
linger or cling to his for just the least part of
a second, you ought to see how abruptly, al-
most roughly, he turns away. And I must not
even notice it, and it hurts terribly. I don’t
understand how anyone can be so dreadfully
cold. It makes me thrill all over when I see
him bend his head toward me for the cus-
tomary kiss, and I close my eyes so that I may
enjoy more intensely that blissful eternity
which I expect, and alas! only one short, per-
functory little peck, and it is all over—before
my eyes are hardly closed.

“However, hope has not entirely left me.
After being so intimate with Terry for seven
years I ought surely to know something of
his moods and disposition; and I do hope and
expect that he will in time grow weary of
roaming about and living the way he does
now and that he will begin to yearn for
feminine influences and caprices and tyrannies,
and I hope, for mine in particular! ...

“TY should be much happier if I did not
care for him so much, and I hope that in
time I may have only a strong friendly in-

[ 245 ]
An Anarchist Woman

terest in him. At times I envy him: he is so
care-free, without the slightest responsibility
toward anything or anybody; he can break
from old associations and habits so easily and
light-heartedly. I never could have done
that...

“T am awfully absent-minded these days;
you would laugh at some of the funny things
I do. I ride on the cars miles past my street,
and wander about and forget where I am
going. Sometimes I think of things and then
forget I was thinking.”

In another six weeks’ time came still
more gloomy news:

“Our meetings are as uncertain, unpre-
meditated, and unarranged as his wanderings
about the city are. It happened that I was
all alone for the whole of last week, eight
precious days of freedom, especially from
Katie and her woes. I love her, as you know,
but she does get on my nerves, at times. So
I wrote Terry, asking him to come and visit
with me for several days. It must have been
my Jonah day, for the letter reached him, and
he came and stayed here with me for the
whole seven days. During this time we talked
a great deal of our life together and of our

[ 246 ]
Marie’s Attempt

life since we have not been together, and with
his most calm and philosophical air he spoke
of our circumstances, past and present. It
seemed so pleasant and homelike, so much
like the old days, to have dear Terry here
with me, and I felt such lazy content to see
and hear him, that at times I awoke with a
start, for I could not keep myself from the
idea that our separation was only a horrid
dream.

‘“‘So, when he said things that ought to have
hurt me dreadfully, I positively couldn’t feel
hurt. Somehow, the sound of his voice was so
pleasing that I missed the sting of some of
his pessimistic reflections about our love; it
seemed to me that he spoke of others, surely
not of our two selves! But now, since he has
gone, and I have been forced to think of the
things he said, many of the easily accepted
but only half understood reflections on our
love have come back to me with all their
sting. And I must now believe that I have
passed out from Terry’s life utterly, and that
there is no return, nor hope of return. The
most I could possibly hope for is an in-
different friendship, for so he has willed it,
or perhaps fate, rather, has so willed it.

[ 247 ]
An Anarchist Woman

‘Dead love can never return,’ he said. And I
am now only one of the people he knows! It
is so terrible that I must avoid the blow, must
seek an independence of my own.

“And I had such high hopes, such dreams
of pillowing his dear head on my bosom, and,
alas! he would consider that intolerable.
‘And, upon reflection, his head would, in fact,
rest very uneasily on my scrawny breast!

“So I am trying to resign myself and to
readjust what is left of my life. It seems
pitiful, though, that my life has been so com-
monplace all through. Not one single ex-
ception, not one thing that ever happened to
me, or that I ever did, has been different from
the experiences of all the world. My life
with Terry, which I surely expected would
be different, would be an exception to the
commonplace love affairs of all people, has
now ended the same way as everyone else’s

“Well, I have had seven years of life, that
is perhaps a little more than some people have,
and I ought to be satisfied with that. The
biggest chapter of my life is over and done
and closed for ever and I will try not to look
back or think of it too much. And I shall
tell you the same as if I were making some

[ 248 ]
Marie’s Attempt

solemn vow, that I will not try any more to
regain the love I have lost.”

This resolution of Marie’s seemed to have
helped her considerably, for her later letters
are not quite so exclusively concerned with
the unhappy aspect of her relations with
Terry. The strong vitality of mind and tem-
perament which enabled this factory girl and
prostitute to adjust herself to a relatively in-
tellectual and distinguished existence still
stood her in good stead, and enabled her to
meet the present deeply tragic situation step
by step and not go under: her youth and
vitality and her love of life triumphed, as we
shall see, over even this terrible rupture; the
consolatory philosophy of anarchism, which
had educated her, largely fell away, with the
love of the man who had created it for her.
But the work of the social propagandist has
been done on Marie: the woman is a )
thoroughly self-conscious individual, as cap- (
able of leading her life as only are very few ©
really distinguished personalities. Her next
letter shows again a more general interest,
though still largely concerned with Terry:

“The other night Terry spoke for the
Social Science League on ‘The Lesson of the

[ 249 ]
An Anarchist Woman

Haymarket’—referring, as you know, to the
hanging of the anarchists in 1886. The Sat-
urday Evening Post had quite a lengthy
notice about it the day before the lecture, and
nearly all the morning papers spoke of it the
day after. The lecture hall was well filled
with people who do not usually attend the
S. S. League. And I think these people, who
were not radical, were much shocked and dis-
appointed, for Terry was not a bit gentle and
well-mannered, nor as philosophical as he
nearly always is. I thought his lecture good,
though there was something forced about it.
Perhaps because he no longer has so much
faith was the cause of his greater violence.
It was as if he was trying to remember what
he had once felt; and that made the expres-
sion rougher than if it had been more spon-
taneous. I really do not believe that he is,
at bottom, at all violent. But he tried to be so
in thislecture. He advocated assassination and
regicide and other most violent and blood-
curdling things. His voice and manner,
however, in saying these terrible things were
not at all convincing. When replying to the
critics, he was most violent, and was hissed
and shamed, over half of the audience leay-
[ 250 ]
Marie’s Attempt

ing the hall, very angry and indignant. I
thought, for a while, that a regular free fist-
fight would follow, and it very nearly did,
but Terry had a few friends with him, among
them a German hen-pecked anarchist I must
write you about, and your friend Jimmy, both
of whom were ready to stand by Terry.

“Needless to say, Terry was gloriously
drunk, and utterly reckless, and after the
meeting was over quite a bunch of us became
as drunk as he, though not quite so gloriously.
He was quite helpless toward the small hours,
when our party broke up, and I took Terry
home with me, as Katie was not there, and on
the way I had the pleasure of acting as a
referee when he and a stranger, who Terry
fancied had insulted him, did really have a
fist-fight; I gathered up their hats and neck-
ties and kept out of the way, ready to call
assistance if need be, which fortunately was
not necessary, for they only rolled around in
the dirt a little, and Terry only had his chin
smashed slightly by the fall.

“Drunk as he was, he did not strike the
other man, though being stronger he could
have pounded the life out of him; he only
tripped him up and rolled him on the ground.

[251 ]
An Anarchist Woman

Terry is certainly instinctively and naturally
gentle and chivalrous, and I loved him as
much as ever as I took him home and put him
to bed.

“T am beginning to think I am a genius
in taking care of drunken men, for I have
managed in some way to take home and care
for quite a number of them, for instance,
Harris, who is the most unmanageable and
perverse creature when drunk. I had an ex-
perience takinc him home which I would not
dare write you; and I can hardly realise to
this day how I even succeeded in half carry-
ing and half dragging him to our home from
away down town. He certainly was the limit.

“On Monday the papers were all shrieking
for Terry’s head—wanted him deported or
persecuted or prosecuted. But Terry has a
good many friends and too much of a reputa-
tion as a philosopher; and his friends and his
reputation prevented his becoming a martyr.
Two friends, both newspaper men, managed
to eliminate the most objectionable parts of
Terry’s terroristic utterances from their re-
spective papers, and Terry’s sister, the lawyer,
one sergeant of police, and the ferocious but
humane Tim Quinn did the rest. For the

[ 252 ]
Marie’s Attempt

present, therefore, Terry’s desire to be ac-
quainted with the inside of a prison, or other-
wise to suffer for the cause which he still
half-heartedly believes in, is frustrated.

“To me the most important aspect of the
lecture was that he prepared it in our home.
So, for another week, we enjoyed one an-
other’s company; and after the lecture he not
only went home with me, as I have said, but
he has remained ever since. I am trying not
to build up any more hopes on this, because I
know that Terry has been in a particularly
reckless mood, and does not care much where
he is. I am sorry that he could not find a
better outlet for his mood than lecturing for
the Social Science League, but that perhaps
is a better and more harmless way than getting
in with the criminals, as he has wanted to do
so often of late. You may be sure, however,
that his talk on the platform will not be for-
gotten, and should anything happen, in any
way like the McKinley affair, for instance, I
am sure things would be made very unpleas-
ant for him. So I hope nothing will happen.

“Terry is really harmless. He expends all
of his energy in desiring and thinking and
talking, and has nothing left over for action.

[ 253 ]
An Anarchist Woman

Whenever he had any scheme in mind I did
not like, I used to encourage him to talk about
it, knowing that he thus would be satisfied,
without acting. He lives almost altogether
in the head and in the imagination, and is
really a teacher, in his own peculiar way,
rather than an actor or practical man. That
is why he takes offence at what seems to me
such little things: they are not little to him,
in his scheme of things, which is not the
scheme of the world, and, alas! not even
mine, I fear. He is so terribly alone, and
growing more so, and I feel so awfully sorry
for him.

“Especially since our rupture I have been
compelled to be so careful not to hurt his
feelings or trespass on his ideas of right and
wrong; for he imagines he can feel what I am
thinking and feeling, even if no words are
said. He says words only conceal thought
and do not express it. At times I feel so op-
pressed and depressed that I should ex-
perience the keenest ecstasy if I could hurt
him in some physical way, use my muscles
on him until I were exhausted. In imagina-
tion I sometimes know the fierce delight and
exaltation of my flesh and spirit in hurt-

[ 254 ]
Marie’s Attempt

ing this man whom I love, in hurting
him morally and physically—and I feel the
lightness of my heart as the accumulated
burden of my repression rolls away in the
wildest, freest sensations.

“Of course, I have only felt this way at
times; and at those times I know I was very
passionate and unreasonable. I had regular
fits of jealousy and anger, but at other times
I had a boundless pity for him, there was
something so pathetic about his gestures and his
voice when he told me he knows just how I
feel about him, that I could have cried out
with the ache of my heart. It was so terrible
to see how he suffered in his heroic attempt
to suffice unto himself, to defy the world. He
tries to think and feel deeper and higher than
anyone else, but this is a terrible, terrible
strain. It is all fearfully sad, and sometimes
I wish I had never known him.”

About his speech, Terry wrote:

“T am one of the by-products that do not
pay just now, until some process comes along
and sets the seal of its approval on me. Just
now I am deemed worse than useless, and
since my speech on ‘The Lesson of the Hay-
market Riot’ the authorities are looking for

[ 255 ]
An Anarchist Woman

a law that will deport me. This will suit me,
as I will swear that I am a citizen of no man’s
land. What I really need is not deportation,
but solitary confinement, for the sake of my
meditations. For even with my scant compan-
ionship I feel as if I were a circus animal.
I still clutch convulsively to the idea that
thought is the only reality and all expression
of it merely a grading down of what was most
high. If I am shut up I must cease talking
and may think about real things, that is, ideal
things. That would help me to put up with
the world, which cannot put up with me un-
less J am in cold storage. There is a mental
peace which passeth all understanding, and
perhaps I might find that peace in prison. I
have been insidiously poisoning my own mind
for some time, and unless I can stop this I had
better cease from talking, which does not seem
to purge me of my unconscious pose, and retire
to solitude behind the prison bars. There, un-
disturbed, I can meditate and often remember
peacefully the beautiful things I have known
in literature and nature. Beauty is like rain
to the desert, it is rare, but it vanishes only
from the surface of things, and deep down who
knows what secret springs it feeds? As my
[ 256 ]
Marie’s Attempt

sands run out, the remembrance of the brief
beauty I have known will break over me like
the pleasant noise of far-off Niagara waters
on the stony desert of my life.

“T once thought that I could help the ae

to organise its own freedom. But now I see \"4'

] |

that we are all the mob, that all human beings
are alike, and that all I or anyone can do is to
save his own soul, to win his own freedom, and

perhaps to teach others to do the same, not so i”

much through social propaganda as by dig-
ging down to a deeper personal culture.
Though I sometimes think that just now the
prison would help me, yet I also long at times
to talk to the crowd. I wish to tell the smug
ones that we waste our lives in holding on to
things that in our hearts we hold contempt-
ible. I wish to tell the mob just why there
are thirty thousand steady men out of work
in this city: to do this I may take to the curb-
stone.”

After his speech Terry returned to the home
of Katie and Marie, as has been described by
Marie, but on no basis of permanence. He
thus speaks of it:

“You may think that I, too, have ‘cashed
in’ my ideals; for I am back at the Salon—

[ 257]

i

£

‘
An Anarchist Woman

for how long nobody knows—by special proxy
request of Katie. I will spare myself and you
any moralising on my relapse.”

Katie, explaining Terry’s return, said:
“When he went away, Marie was sad all the
time. She could not eat nor sleep and was
looking for her lover every day. After weeks
had passed I said to her: ‘When you see Terry
at the Social Science League, bring him home.’
‘Do you mean it, Katie?’ asked Marie, her
eyes sparkling. She did so, and Terry went
quietly into his room, and the next morning
I made coffee as usual and Terry came out,
and it was all right; it might have been all
right for good, if this damned Nietzsche bus-
iness had not come up.” But that is antici-
pating.

It was after Terry’s return that the famous
miner Haywood, just after his acquittal from
the charge of murder in connection with the
Idaho labour troubles, visited Chicago, and
spent most of his time at the Salon with Terry
and Marie and several of their friends. The
Salon was temporarily revived, like the flash
in the pan, under Haywood’s stimulating in-
fluence. Terry wrote of him:

“Haywood has the stern pioneer pride of

[ 258 ]
Marie’s Attempt
the West. There is a mighty simplicity about

him. He is Walt Whitman’s works bound in -

and of instinctive psychic force, and is the big
blond beast of Nietzsche. He knows just what
he is doing and why, and has a great influence
on the crowd: the mob went wild at his mere
presence, and after his brief speech he came
absolutely to be one of them. The swaying mass
becomes, at his touch, in close contact with
their instinctive leader. He is too much in
touch with the people to agree with narrow
trades-union policies. At a secret meeting in
this city with Mitchell and Gompers he hinted
that the Western Federation of Miners would
amalgamate with the American Federation
of Labour on the ground of no trade agree-
ments and the open shop, and warned them
that no man and no organisation was strong
enough to stand in the way of this develop-
ment. The Socialist party made him a big
offer, but he replied that the Labour move-
ment was big enough for him.”

Of Haywood, Marie wrote: “ He is a giant
in size, but as gentle as the most delicate
woman. He has only one eye, but that a very
good one which does not miss things. He has

[ 259 ]

é

flesh and blood. He is a man of few words,

/
An Anarchist Woman

been made into a regular hero by the people
here, but he is the most modest man I have
ever met. He is sincere and unassuming, so
calm, with no heroic bluster about him. His
voice is quiet and gentle. We had a blow-out
for him, and all those present were very dis-
creet. We all forgot our years and our troubles
and we showed him a good time. I hardly
think that even you, with all your democracy,
could have stood for all the things that hap-
pened. Haywood is a big, good-natured boy,
but quite sentimental, too. I think he liked
me pretty well. I am sure he could have won
many much more attractive girls than I, but
somehow he took to me right from the start.
I was introduced to him along with a whole
bunch of girls, all good-lookers, too, but I sat
back quietly and was the only one who did
not say nice things to the hero.”

[ 260 }
CHAPTER XIII
Marie’s Failure

“popes Terry was back in what was
formerly the Salon, and though the old
spirit seemed at times to be still alive, yet it
was more in appearance than in reality. It is
difficult to regain an emotional atmosphere
once lost; and it is especially difficult to live
by the gospel of freedom, when once the elo-
quence of that gospel is no longer deeply felt.
Then there is nothing left to take its place—
no prosaic sense of duty, no steady habit, no
enduring interest in work. As these two human
beings drifted further and further apart from.
their common love and their common interest,
the idealistic man became more self-centred, ”
more unsocial, more fiercely individual, and |
the emotional and sensual woman became more
self-indulgent, more hostile to any ahilcenphy r
—anarchism such as Terry’s, with its blight- ’
ing idealism—which limited her simple joy in”
life and in mere existence.
So their quarrels became more brutal, more
[ 261 ]
An Anarchist Woman

abrupt. Both intensely nervous, both highly
individualised, their characters conflicted
with the intensity of two real and opposing
forces. A tragic aspect of it all was that it
was due to Terry’s teaching that Marie at-
tained to the highly individualised character
which was destined to rebel against the finally
sterilising influence of her master. Even
physical violence became part of their life,
and words that were worse than blows. The
strong bond which still lingered held them
for a time together, notwithstanding what was
becoming the brutality of their relations. One
day Marie called Terry to his coffee and he
refused. A quarrel followed, in the course of
which she hit Terry on the head with a pitcher,
and the resulting blood was smeared over them
both. When calm came again she said to him:

“Terry, how can we live together?”

““Ain’t we living together? Doesn’t this
prove it?” he replied, grimly.

And this man would use violence in return
—and this was the delicate idealist, the ideal-
ist whose love for Marie had at one time been
part and parcel of his high dreams for hu-
manity and perfection, a part of his propa-
ganda, a part of his hope: during which period

[ 262 ]
Marie’s Failure

he had been scrupulous not to use force of
any kind, spiritual or physical, on the girl
whom he doubly loved—the girl whom he
held in his arms every night for years with a
passionate tenderness due to his feeling of her
physical fragility and her social unhappiness,
rather than to any other instinct.

‘““Marie,” he said, “did not fully under-
stand the character of my love for her. She
loved me intellectually and sensually, but not
with the soul. She wanted my ideas, and.
sex, and more sex, but not the invisible reality,
the harmony of our spirits. From the day
in her and in all things seemed to go. She felt
that I had withdrawn something from her,
and it made her harder. She began cruelly
to fling the amours that I had tolerated as
long as I hoped for the spiritual best in my
face. It was a kind of revenge on her part.”

Practical troubles, too, lent their disturb-
ing element to the little remaining harmony
of the three.

“We shall probably be forced to leave our
rooms in a short time,” wrote Marie. “Our
landlord has asked us to leave, without giving
any other reasons than that he wanted a

[ 263 ]
An Anarchist Woman

smaller family in these most desirable rooms!
Terry is indignant, for we have been quiet
and orderly, and Katie has always paid the
rent in advance. We shall certainly stay until
the police come and carry us out and our
household goods with us.

“Tt is true that we have had unusual dif-
ficulty in paying the rent and in getting enough
to eat and smoke; and this has not added to
our good-nature. You have no doubt read
about the ‘money stringency’ in this country.
Times are indeed very hard, thousands of men
are out of a job, and the so-called criminals
are very much in evidence. For a long time
Katie could not find work to do and could not
get any of her money from the bank, so that
things looked very ‘bohemian’ around here
for a while. She could not get anything to
do in her own line, and finally had to go out
to ‘service.’ But this she could not stand more
than a week, for Katie has fine qualities and
is used to a certain amount of freedom, so she
couldn’t stand the slavishness of the servant
life, though she had good wages and nice
things to eat, which Katie likes very much.

“When Katie started in on this venture she
had the proverbial thirty cents, which she di-

[ 264 ]
Marie’s Failure

vided up with me—Terry had not returned
from his wanderings at that time—and I reck-
lessly squandered ten cents of this going to and
returning from the Social Science League.
In a day or two there was nothing edible in our
house but salt, so I squandered my remaining
nickel for bread. I made that loaf last me
nearly four days: I ate only when I was raven-
ously hungry, so that it would taste good, for
I hate rye bread. I slept a good deal of the
time. I suffered terribly, though, when my
tobacco gave out, and I spent most of my time
and energy hunting old stumps, and I found
several very good ones in the unswept corners
and under the beds. I even picked some out
of the ashcan. These I carefully collected,
picked out the tobacco and rolled it in fresh
papers, as carefully as any professional hobo.”

When Katie was temporarily hard up, that
naturally put Terry and Marie “on the bum.”
But they remained “true blue” and did not
go to work, Marie being willing to put up
with all sorts of discomfort rather than try
for a job. She continued:

“Tt is a strange thing that nobody came to
our house during these six days. But on the
sixth day, Terry came, and then I had a good

[ 265 ]
An Anarchist Woman

square meal, and he even left me carfare and
some of the horrible stuff he calls tobacco.
Two more days elapsed before Katie returned.
Until then I lived on that square meal. I had
ten cents from Terry, but I was sick of rye
bread. On the day that Katie returned, in
fact only a few hours before, I was foolish
enough to visit an anarchist friend, Marna.
I was awfully lonely and thought a little
change would do me good. So I went to
Marna, but got there a little too late for sup-
per. I must admit I was hungry. I hinted to
Marna that I was, said I’d been in town all
day, and things like that, but she did not
catch on and I was stubborn and wouldn’t
ask. Stephen was there, and for a moment
I thought I might eat. He had not had his
supper, and he said that if Marna was not too
tired to cook, he would go and buy a steak.
I tell you, the thought of that steak was aw-
fully nice and I had to put my handkerchief
to my mouth to keep the water from flowing
over. I offered to cook it for him, but he
passed itup. I made one more desperate bluff
and asked him if he would get some beer for
us! And I reached for my purse, and for one
wild moment I thought sure he had called my
[ 266 }
Marie’s Failure

bluff and would really take my only nickel, my
carfare home. I nearly fell over with sus-
pense, but in the nick of time he went out, re-
fusing my money. And I even taunted him,
asked him if he thought it was tainted!
‘““When the beer came, I drank most of it.
Beer is a great filler, but of course it went
straight to my head and feet—that is, my
head got light and my feet heavy. But I man-
aged to navigate to the street car and so on
home, where I found Katie, a cheerful fire
and a delicious smell of cookery and coffee.
“Now, I must make you a confession. Dur-
ing these six days I had some thoughts of
working, the only thing I could think of being
a job as a waitress. But when a vision of ham
and pert females and more impertinent males
came to me my courage oozed away, and I did
not even try. I don’t think I’ ever work

again. Did you ever read Yeats’ story‘ Where ~

There is Nothing?’

“T love Marna, as you know, but when
she talks to me about ‘work,’ ‘health,’ and
the like, I feel like becoming even more soli-
tary than Iam. She says I am not ambitious!
Ye gods, I think I am ever so much more
ambitious than she! I am more ambitious to

[ 267 ]

4
,)

An Anarchist Woman

live in these little squalid rooms than in the
mansions of the rich. My kind of happiness—
I mean ideally—is not Marna’s kind; and I
am sure now that if I ever find it, it will be in
the slums. Here I can sit and muse, undis-
turbed by the ambition of the world. Blake
comes to me as an indulgent father to his tired
and fretful child and sings to me his sunflower
song. If I were in a castle I don’t think even
Blake could soothe my restless spirit.

“But, unfortunately, even in the slums one
needs to eat. Without warning I tumble from
my air castles because some horrible monster
gnaws at me, and will not let me be, however
much I try to ignore him. That mean, sneak-
ing thing is hunger. And because I am only
mortal, and because the will to live is stronger
than I, I must eat my bread. I often cry when
I think of this contemptible weakness. I have
often tried to overcome this annoying health-
iness of my body. How can people be gour-
mands? Even Shelley and Keats had to eat.
What a repulsive word ‘eat’ is! I would
I could eat my heart and drink my tears. The
world is what it is because we must eat. See
the whole universe eating and eating itself,
over and over! If it were not for this fearful

[ 268 }
Marie’s Failure

necessity, Terry and I should not, perhaps,
have failed in our high attempt!

“<The chief thing,’ said Oscar Wilde, ‘ that . qQ

makes life a failure, from the artistic point ‘
of view, is the thing which lends to life its~
sordid security.’

“But alas! to this sordid security, or to the
care for it, we are driven by our need of bread.
If Terry and Katie and I had never had this
need, we might have become angels of virtue
and insight. But on account of this we never
could really attain freedom; that embittered
our souls and turned us at times viciously
against each other.”

Terry’s growing jealousy, which seemed to
surprise Marie, was a sign of the weakening
of his philosophy, as far as it was social and
not purely individual. It may seem strange
that after his real love for her appeared to
pass, his jealousy increased; but this was due
to several causes: if his social interest in her—
his propagandist interest—had continued, her
sexual license would have continued to feed
his passion for social protest. But when Marie
had ceased to interest him as a “case,” or a

“type,” or a “victim,” the only bond remain- *

ing must be that of the pure individual soul
[ 269 ]

}
An Anarchist Woman

or of the body. Terry’s lack of sensuality—
his predominating spiritual and mental char-

acter—precluded any strong tie of the physi-
cal kind. So there remained, as a possible tie,
"| only a close spiritual relation between two
individuals, a soul bond—and this Marie’s
character and conduct tended to prevent.
Terry, if they were to be together, saw that
the deeper personal relation must exist, now
that there was no other—and so he was jealous
of any conduct which showed in Marie a lack
of sensibility for the deeper spiritual life;
hence the physiological jealousy, which he
had not felt, or had controlled at one time,
showed itself. No doubt his increasing nerv-
ousness was an added reason—nervousness
due to the long strain, physical and mental,
which his life and social experiment had in-
volved.

During these last weeks Marie had another
lover, and was especially careless in not con-
cealing any of its manifestations. She, too, on
her side, was subject to greater and greater
strain. ‘Terry’s growing loneliness and auster-
ity, his melancholy and unsociability, his neg-
ative philosophy, all this tended more and
more to inhibit her natural young joy in life

[ 270 ]
Marte’s Failure

and to give it violent expression. The philos-
ophy of anarchism had increased her natural
leaning to the free expression of her moods
and passions, and now, with weakened nervous
resources, she hardly cared to make any effort
to restrain what she called her temperament.

“Yes, he became my lover,” she wrote, “and
we disappeared for a few days. Did you ever
read George Moore’s Leaves From My Lost
Life? In it is a story called ‘The Lovers of
Orelay.’ My lover and I spent our few days
together in much the same way as did the
lovers in the story. We had our nice secluded
cool rooms and beautiful flowers. I threw
my petticoats over the chairs and scattered
ribbons and things on the dressing table just
like the girl in the story. And we had nice
things to drink and good cigarettes, and had
all our breakfasts and suppers served in our
rooms. The little adventure turned out better
than such things usually do; nothing awkward
happened to mar our pleasure in any way, and
I’m glad it happened—and is over and done
with.

“You may think me a very light-headed
and heartless and altogether frivolous person
from my actions. But I felt so humiliated

[271]
An Anarchist Woman

and so sorry and so desperate about Terry that
I was ready to embrace any excitement, just
to forget that our great relation had gone.
This time it was to get away from myself, not
in the old physically joyous mood—and to get
away from Terry’s poisonous philosophy of
life.

“This lover of mine was so joyous, so
healthy, so vigorous, so full of life! He was
very different from Terry, and I really needed
him as a kind of tonic. And yet, of course,
I did not care for him deeply at all. In fact,
I want never again to have a deep relation to
anybody, if this between Terry and me
must go.

“This profound failure has made me reck-
less; Terry is sensitive now, and knows from
my manner and face and the way I express
myself just how I am feeling toward any other
man. The other day an old lover of mine
turned up in Chicago, and this brought about
a scene with Terry.

“To explain this episode I must go back
several years. I once knew a Swiss boy, a
typical Tyrolean. The day I met him in Chi-
cago he had just arrived from his native land,
and seemed so forlorn and lonely and miser-

[ 272]
Marie’s Failure

able that my heart went right out tohim. He
was such a big, handsome child, too, about
twenty years old. He could not understand a
word of English, and no one talked to him,
but me, who, as you know, had parents who
spoke German. He was delighted and told
me his whole life story, how he became eman-
cipated and one of the Comrades. His eyes
sparkled so and his cute little blond curls
jumped all over his head with the enthusiasm
and joy of having found some one to talk to,
that I was quite content to sit and watch and
listen. And he thought me the most sympa-
thetic person in the world.

“Fad I only known the result of my im-
pulse to say a few words to a lonely boy! For
he did fall in love with me, and in such sturdy
mountaineer fashion that I very nearly had
nervous prostration—and he too—in trying to
get away from his strenuous wooing. For he
started out to win me in the same style
that he would have used toward one of the
cow-girls in his native Alps. He waylaid me
and followed me around everywhere, just
camped on my trail; wanted to carry me away
to some place out West, where there were
mountains. The more I discouraged him, the

[ 273 ]
fog

dn Anarchist Woman

more lovesick and forlorn he becarne, until
finally he became the laughing-stock of the
‘movement,’ and I was chaffed about it un-
mercifully. He knew I had a lover, but that
was no obstacle; and he told me several times
with fine enthusiasm that he would not object
to sharing his love with another man! He
had read something about free love, and
thought he should like to be an Overman and
superior to petty jealousies.

“Strange to say, my curly-headed Swiss
lover did not ‘insult’ me, as they call it, though
I naturally enough supposed that he wanted
to, but didn’t have enough courage. But I
was wrong, as I discovered later, when I
grossly insulted him! Perhaps a girl is loved
only once in a life-time in just that way, per-

“haps not at all, and I often think I made a mis-
take in being so cruel to my boy lover. I

might in time have learned to love him in
the right way, but I couldn’t at that time, per-
haps because I was so much occupied with
Terry, my own lover, and with the movement,
which was new to me and very charming, for
I had just discovered it.

“At times I had an immense pity for the
poor boy and would have done anything to

[274]
Marie’s Failure

help him feel better. I had not the slightest
physical feeling for him, but I should have
been quite willing to indulge him, if he had
asked me. That was part of our philosophy
and my kindness. But he did not ask me,
though he often had the opportunity. He was
quite content to be with me and kiss my hands,
and beg me to love him a little. When he saw
I did not like to have him kiss me so much, he
would grow so sad and forlorn and tiresome.
One day he was at the Salon with others and
annoyed me by hanging about me all the time,
until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I called
him into another room and told him bluntly
that I would indulge him, if that would help
him, only he must for heaven’s sake leave me
alone!

‘Now, this was a most indelicate thing for
me to do, and I blush as I write of it, but I
was so desperate and possibly a little under
the influence of whiskey—a most convenient
and universal excuse—and had tried all other
means of ridding myself of this annoyance,
even to slapping his face and forbidding him
to come to the house! When I slapped him,
he simply kissed the hand that smote him, and
when I forbade him to return to the house, he

[275 ]
An Anarchist Woman

followed me about the streets. If I told you
all the silly and ridiculous things the youth
did or all the mean, brutal things I did to cure
him, you would scarcely believe me.

“Now when I made that abrupt proposal
to him, he blushed to the tip of his ears, and
then grew very angry, and called me an ani-
mal and a beast and said he had loved me be-
cause he thought I was different from that;
that he did not want that kind of love from me.
After a while his vehemence and anger turned
to tears, and he kissed my hands and sobbed
out his intention of going away. I was repent-
ant and very sweet and kind to him while he
stayed, but soon he did go West and I did not
see him again till a few weeks ago, when, one
Saturday night, I found him waiting for me at
our rooms. I was astonished and not too glad
to see him, especially now that Terry is so
sensitive. :

“When Terry came home, he looked sus-
piciously at me and at the poor Swiss, but
though I was quite innocent, I could not turn
the poor fellow away, after he had come so
far toseeme. But I did not feel at all friendly
to him, and I did not speak to him the next
day, especially as Terry went away for sev-

[ 276 ]
Marie’s Failure

eral days, to give me a chance, as he put it, to
enjoy my love. Then I told the Swiss with heat
that I never wanted to see him again, and he
went away for good.”

Marie, however, seemed about this time
to have lost any sensibility about Terry’s emo-
tion that she may have possessed. Perhaps it
was because, as I have said, she felt that the
relation of mutual confidence was really
broken and nothing very much mattered. Any-
way, she went so far in her carelessness that
Terry could not help coming in disagreeable
contact with what was growing painful to
him, though he would be far from admit-
ting it.

Katie, describing these last weeks, said that
Terry grew more and more jealous and in-
clined to violence. He was very imaginative,
and saw in Marie’s eyes “something wrong,”
as Katie put it. Marie could not be expressive
to Terry after an “affair,” and Katie saw that
Terry understood the meaning of this inex-
pressiveness. Also, when Terry went away for
a day or two, without an explanation, Marie
was equally “imaginative.” Both were in-
tensely proud, both intensely interested in
their “individuality.” One day Terry went

[277]
An Anarchist Woman

away, without an explanation, and returned,
after a few days, “ pleasantly piped,” as he put
it, sat down and began to undress. It was
dark, and he had no idea that somebody else
was there. But Marie called out harshly,
“You can’t sleep here.”

“T understood,” said Terry. But Katie re-
plied, ‘“‘ That’s all right,” and she slept on the
couch.

“This kind of thing,” said Katie, “ put them
further and further apart. Terry couldn’t
help feeling the sting there was in it. Marie
had done the same before, but it was in a dif-
ferent spirit. One of the last scenes was when
H was visiting us. He and Marie were
having coffee in her room, and Terry was in
the other room. Marie and H called
Katie to come and have coffee with them.
Terry was not invited and this later brought
about a terrible quarrel.

“But,” said Katie, “it was not really jeal-
ousy, though that was part of it, that brought
about the last break. They calmed down, but
then began to read Nietzsche again, and I
think went daffy over him. Terry tried the
Overman theory on me and Marie. Ameri-
cans cannot understand German philosophy.”

[ 278 ]

 

 
Marie’s Failure

Nietzsche’s doctrine of the distinguished in-
dividual being “beyond good and evil,” a man
superior to the morality of society, his hatred
of Christian civilisation and Christian ethics,
his love of the big forcible blonde who takes
his right by his strength only, all this was
congenial to Terry’s character, and especially
so after the weakening of his social philosophy.
The aloofness of the Overman, the individual-
istic teachings of Zarathustra, appealed to the
anti-social Terry, to the man who more and
more went back to his egotistic personality,
to whom more and more the “communist”
Christian anarchists made little appeal, who
more and more became what is called an indi-
vidualist anarchist, with whom there is little
possibility of relationship, who is essentially
anti-social, whose philosophy is really that of
social destruction. This indeed is the anar-
chist who lives in the public mind—a de-~
stroyer. But what the public mind does not
see is that this destructive anarchist is the re-
sult of a lost hope in anarchistic communism, |
a lost hope of radical extension of social love, —’
in absolute solidarity.

eae

[279]
CHAPTER XIV
Marie’s Revolt

ft Bae winners fall by the wayside,” wrote

Terry, “while the losers must ever on—
hearkening to some high request, hastening
toward a nameless goal. I am loser, for my
motives are large and my actions small. In my
desire to embrace the universe I may neglect a
comrade. I can be as hard as my life and as
cruel as its finish. I have only an ideal, and
whenever anything or anybody gets in the way
of it I am ruthless in feeling. J must not
give up all that I have—what is in my imagi-
nation: I have nothing else.”

Yes, Terry is hard. He “passes up” re-
morselessly not only the individual, but all
society; but it is the hardness of the idealist,
of the man who is still religious in the sense
that he sees a beyond-world with which to
compare this world and find it totally lacking.
So, more and more he “passed up” Marie,
found her more and more lacking, more and

more human. The fact of her being a social
[ 280 ]
Marie’s Revolt

outcast no longer had its strong appeal. He
became hard and cruel to her through ideal-
ism, just as she had been hard and cruel to
him through sensuality and false philosophy.
‘But her hardness never equalled his fine scorn.

For a year or two preceding this point
in the situation I had been living in Europe,
and had met a good many men and women
who had given a larger part of their lives to
the making of a social experiment. Some of
them, discouraged, had returned to a “bour-
geois” manner of life, some even to a “bour-
geois” philosophy. Almost all of the anar-
chists I have known lost their philosophy and
enthusiasm with middle age, and experience
with the actual constitution of things, com-
bined with disillusion regarding the ideal.
Most of them had been hurt or broken by
their attempt, but they all retained a certain
something, a certain remaining dignity of
having struggled against the inevitable, and
had acquired insight into some of the deeper
things in life, though having lost some of the
childlike simplicity which is a characteristic
of the social rebel.

I saw a great deal of an old Frenchman,

who had known Bakunin, and had been astute
[ 281 ]
An Anarchist Woman

in the dangerous work of the “International”
in England and Germany. An associate of
William Morris and the other English anar-
chists who at that time called themselves so-
cialists, my friend came in contact with much
that was distinguished in mind and energy;
he afterward carried the propaganda of revo-
lutionary socialism to Germany, where he was
arrested and imprisoned for five years. He
is now a handsome, white-haired, well-pre-
served old man, with fine simple manners and
joy in simple things, love of children and of
long conversations with friends, good will and
peace. He has retained a certain mild con-
tempt for the “bourgeois,” for people who
prefer an easy time in this world to an at-
tempt, even a foolish one, for radical im-
provement. But he knows the world now,
and I fancy many of his illusions are gone.
Another of my radical friends is now only
thirty-six years old; but already he is tired
and discouraged, socially speaking. He is a
Frenchman, too, with all the easy mental
grace and intellectual culture of his race.
Soon after his student days at the Sorbonne,
the social fever of our day, which burns in the

blood of all who are sensitive, took possession
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Marie’s Revolt

of him. Like Terry, he was drawn emotion-
ally to an interest in the social outcast; like
Terry, a girl in that class interested him, and
he took up the cause of the girls, and led an
attack against the policiers des meurs, the
special police who attempt to regulate prosti-
tution in Paris. He spent all the money he
had in the attempt, lost his respectable friends,
and, after several years of fruitless effort,
hope left him. When I met him he was liv-
ing quietly, in bohemian fashion, drawing a
very small salary and devoting himself to ab-
stract philosophy, to science, and to pessimis-
tic memories of the days of his social enthusi-
asm, or what he now calls his social illusions.

One of the most pathetic social experiments
I have known was made by a young girl,
whom I also knew at Paris. She generously
determined that she would have no sex preju-
dices; and for several years she strove against
the terribly strong social feeling in that re-
gard. Not only theoretically but practically
she persisted in thinking and acting in a way
which the world calls immoral. She wanted
to show that a girl could be good and yet not
what the world calls chaste. She did not
believe that sex-relations had anything to do

[ 283 ]
An Anarchist Woman

with real morality. In one way, she has been
successful. She is as good now—better—as
when she began her experiment. She is
broader and finer and bigger; but she has suf-
fered. She has been disappointed in her
idealism, disappointed in the way men have
met her frank generosity, she has been injured
in a worldly way. Her strongest desires are
those of all good women—she deeply wants
the necessary shelter for children and social
quiet and plessure, and these essentials are
denied her because of her idealism. She half
feels this now and is tired and discouraged.
Another woman who has paid heavily for
her “social” interests is in quite a different
position. She is married to a man who is
also a social idealist. He is so emotionally
occupied with “society” that nature and life
in its more eternal and necessary aspects touch
him lightly. He hardly realises their exist-
ence. She tries to follow him in this direc-
tion; strains her woman’s nature, which is a
large one, to the uttermost. It is probable that
the loss of his child was due to this idealistic
contempt for old wisdom. Not a moment
must be lost, not a thought devoted to any-
thing but the revolution; this necessitated so-

[ 284 ]
Marie’s Revolt

cial activity, and that exclusively. Where was
the opportunity for the quiet development and
care of aninfant? The children of the “‘radi-
cals” are few, and as a rule do not grow up in
the best conditions. This certainly is a terri-
ble sacrifice entailed upon the social idealist.

Writers in France and in Europe generally
are much more interested in radical ideas of
society and politics than they are in this coun-
try. The most distinguished among them
are from the American point of view radical,
at least. There is hardly a play of note pro-
duced in France or Germany that does not in
some way trench upon modern social prob-
lems. Anatole France is a philosophical an-
archist, and so is Octave Misbeau. It is not
a disreputable thing to be so in France. An
Emma Goldman there would be an object of
respect. The prime minister of France was
generally regarded as an anarchist before he
went into office. A man of the type of Hervé
would be deemed a madman here. Even a
man as little radical as Jaurés would be con-
sidered a terrible social danger in America
and could not conceivably have the power he
exerts in France, where they have a respect

for ideas as such.
[ 285 ]
An Anarchist Woman

But, combined with this interest in social
things and this willingness to entertain the
most radical ideas, there is a note of pessimism
and disillusionment. Anatole France’s work
shows this double tendency well. He reflects
the social revolt and lack of respect for the
old society in a most subtle way, but also he
mirrors the failing hope of the social enthu-
siast. He has a deep sympathy for the social
idealist, but nearly every book suggests the
inevitable wreckage of enthusiasm on the
rocks of actuality.

When, after an absence of several years, I
returned from Europe and went again to Chi-
cago, I found Terry alone, disheartened, and
different from the Terry I had known. Soon
I saw that in him had taken place a process
not unlike that which had happened to my
friends abroad and which was reflected in
European literature. His letters and Marie’s
had already indicated, as we have seen, his
social disappointment. But I found him
more bitter even than I had expected; cut off

/} even from the anarchists, nourishing almost
¢ | insanely his individualicy, full of Nietzsche’s
\ philosophy of egotism, rejecting everything
passionately, turning from his friends, turning

[ 286 ]
Marie’s Revolt

from himself. Old society had long been
dead for him and now he had no hope for the
new!

Besides, Marie was not with him: she had
revolted and run away. I had expected to
see her in Chicago; she had written me that
she would be there, but when I arrived I
learned from Terry and Katie that she had
gone away. During the few weeks preceding
my return to Chicago, the quarrels between
the three had grown in poignancy. Terry,
unlike some of the disappointed anarchists I
have known, could not settle back into an
easy acceptance of life. With him it was all
or nothing. More and more fiercely he re-
jected all society, even, as we have seen anar-
chist society. Of course, Marie came more
and more in the way of this general anathema.
She was young and pleasure-loving, and at
last her nature could no longer stand this gen-
eral rejection, the absence of the simple pleas-
ures of life. It was not their quarrels, even
when they came to blows, that determined her
action. It was a revolt from the radical ster-
ility of Terry’s philosophy. Katie furnished
her with the necessary money, and she went
away to California. There this tired crea-

[ 287 ]
An Anarchist Woman

ture, this civilised product of the slums, this
thoughtful prostitute, this striving human be-
ing full of the desire for life and as eager for
excellence as is the moth for the star, went
into camp, and there, in the bosom of nature,
her terrible fatigue was well expressed in the
great sense of relief that resulted: a new
birth, as it were, a refreshing reaction from
slum life and overstrained mental intensity.
This new birth and this reaction from Terry’s
philosophy are well expressed in her letters to
Terry and to me. To me she wrote:

“T have not dared to write you before for
fear of your anger toward me for my abrupt
dismissal of our plans of meeting, but I could
not help it. The life instinct in me would not
be doomed, but was insistent in its demands
and made me flee from insanity and death. So
here I am, far away from civilisation, from
the madding crowd, away up in the moun-
tains, making a last effort to live the straight
free life of Nature’s children, a suckling at
the breasts of Mother Earth. And truly her
milk is passing sweet and goes to the head like
wine, for I feel intoxicated with the beauty
and joy of all things here in this new, wonder-

ful world. I did not know that such beauty
[ 288 ]
‘Marie’s Revolt

existed, and my appreciation of it is so intense
that it produces sensations of physical pain.
I live much as the birds do, or at least try to
—no thought of the morrow, or of the past,
except when I receive a letter from dear old
Katie or from Terry. Katie asks me if I have
found a job yet, and Terry has some sweet rer
flections about death or dead things. But I
recover in an amazingly short time from these
blows, climb to the mountain-top, extend my
arms to the heavens, and embrace passionately
the great, grand, throbbing stillness.

“T have been here now a whole month and
have not yet wearied of it for a moment. Each
day brings a new, wonderful experience; and
each day I feel a real part of the great won-

derful scheme of things. Indeed, I am be- |.

coming a part of nature. I have grown so
straight and tall, and so beautifully thin and

supple that I can dart in and out of the stream
without bumping myself against the rocks,
can climb steep hills, and let the winds blow
me where they will. I should not be at all
surprised to awaken some morning and find
that I had become one of the tall reeds
that sway to and fro along the banks of our

mountain stream.
[ 289 ]
An Anarchist Woman

“In one of my brief periods of returning
civilisation, just after receiving a terrible let-
ter from Terry, I had myself weighed at the
store and post-office of the town not far away
from our camp; my weight was exactly eighty
pounds! It seemed to me that I was fading
away into something wild and strange. But
I have never felt such physical and mental
well-being since I can remember. [ hardly
need to eat, but our camp cook actually forces
me to swallow something. He is a German
‘radical’ of the old school. Frightfully tired
»of the radical bunch as I am, I like this sim-
ple old man. He is like a part of Nature,
“has lived on her bosom all his life, and loves
her and no other. We have visitors at our
camp occasionally, and they bring things to
eat and drink. When they are gone, the cook
and I live on what is left and get along as best
we may. There are lots of wild fruits and
nuts growing about here and they are deli-
cious. Neither of us has any money nor care
for the morrow.

“After I arrived here, all the bitterness of
life vanished. I thought and felt very beau-
tifully of Terry, and always shall, for I have
made an ideal of him, and his grand, noble

[ 290 ]
Marie’s Revolt

head, like a blazing tiger-lily perched upon
a delicate and slender stem, will always be for
me the greatest, most wonderful recollection
of all the years. But I have no longer any
desire to be with him, yet I do love and adore
him, my own wonderful, sweet, great Terry!”

To Terry she wrote: “I am intoxicated by
all this beauty and love the very air and earth.
I feel the ecstasy of the esthetic fanatic.
Were I not disturbed by thoughts of you, I
would indeed become another Eve before the
fall, though I have strange desires and my
blood beats as in the veins of married women.
But no lovers can quench my fever. All the
tiresome males are far away and I feel new-
born and free. The air is scented with bal-
sam and bey, and a pure crystal stream flows
through this valley between two hills covered
with giant redwood trees, and rare orchids of
the most curious shape and colour toss wan-
tonly in the breeze on the tree and hilltops.
Birds and fishes and reptiles disport them-
selves in the sunshine, and giant butterflies of
the most marvellous colours flutter so bravely
among the ferns and flowers. There are no
tents here in our camp, but we are covered
with the fragrant branches of the spicy pines

[ 291 ]
An Anarchist Woman

and nutmeg trees. It is a Paradise, and I
think of you always when I am in the midst
of beauty.

‘““My trip here included an eighteen-mile
walk—in one day—think of that! I am get-
ting as thin and strong as a greyhound. I
don’t wear clothes at all, but when I do, it is
the old man’s overalls, which I put on to go
to town to get groceries or call for the mail.
At night, our old cook builds a huge fire of
redwood logs, and then his tongue loosens and
he quotes poetry by the column or talks of his
experience as a preacher, actor, village
schoolmaster, and vagabond. Without a cent
he travels all over California, as strong and
rugged as any redwood tree that grows in this
wonderful valley.

“Tt is so secluded here that no one would
suspect campers were about. The trail leads
down a steep descent. How stately it is be-
tween the huge stems of the trees, along our
beautiful creek, cool and clear as crystal, and
filled with trout and other fishes. There I
sit in the sun and allow the water to pour over
my shoulders.”

In another letter to Terry she writes:

“Our sylvan retreat has been somewhat dis-

[ 292 ]
Marie’s Revolt

turbed by the advent of Mrs. Johns, her chil-
dren and her dog. Annie is also here, but
they will not remain long, it is too quiet, too
lonely, and the nights are too mysterious and
uncanny, strange noises to disturb the slum-
bers of the timid. And besides there is noth-
ing to do, no hurry or bustle or activity. The
spirit of repose, of rest, of sweet laziness
broods over this spot, inviting us to dream
away the hours among the spicy pine trees.
And for two such active ladies it is very dull
here. Even when they go to town they return
disgusted and weary in spirit because of the
slowness of the natives, who are half Spanish,
half Mexican. Even the beautiful trail wind-
ing in and out among the mountains does not
compensate them for the dreadful slowness
of the natives. I, however, love this slow-
ness and converse amicably with the natives.
And when I am a little active I go fishing, or
climb about, or take a lesson in Spanish from
my old philosopher-cook. I am now learn-
ing a little peasant song, the refrain being,
‘Hula, tula, Palomita,’ and it does sound so
beautiful that I repeat it over and over. It
means, ‘Fly, fly, little dove!’

“The fishing I do not care for much. It is

[ 293 ]
An Anarchist Woman

exciting for a time, but soon grows a bit too
strenuous for my lazy temper. The little
stream is filled with trout; one has flies for
bait which have to be kept on the move con-
tinually. Walking and jerking the lines out
of the water continually soon makes my arms
and legs tired. I like best of all to lie in a
bed of fragrant leaves, my head in the shade
and the rest of me in the sun, the murmur of
the brook in my ears, the skies mirrored in my
eyes, fantastic dreams in my mind—in these
you are seldom absent. At night I sleep as
I have never slept—a deep, dreamless slum-
ber. I awake to a cold plunge in the stream.
Oh, it just suits me! I am tired of people,
tired of tears and laughter, of men that ‘laugh
and weep,’ and ‘of what may come hereafter,
for men that sow to reap.”

A letter from Terry came like a dart into
her solitude and for a moment disturbed her
mood—her deeply hygienic, fruitful mood.
She wrote to him:

“Your letter was a dreadful, an overwhelm-
ing shock. It aroused passions in me which
I thought were laid to rest. But, after get-
ting very drunk, I had sense enough to sleep
over it, so that this morning I am almost my

[ 294 ]
Marie’s Revolt

new self again. Last night I felt like curs-
ing you with all the wrath of the earth and
heaven. The last three weeks I have been
camping here, caught in the spell of the won-
der and beauty of nature. I have written
you the half crazy rhapsodies of a girl intoxi-
cated with the joy of life and health, Now
I do indeed think that life is beautiful and
worth the living. No, I do not worry about
you. I am as happy and care-free as the birds,
and live in and for the moment. Everything
in the past is dead. Only when your letter
came, these old things of my old self raised
their heads for a little time, but they too shall
die speedily, if I mistake not. Life is too
wonderful, too beautiful to be marred thus by
the ends of frayed and worn-out passions, by
memories or regrets of you. I have become
happy, healthy, and free, free without hard-
ness, and in my freedom and joy I have found
my love, my beautiful Terry, whom I may
love passionately, tenderly and for ever, the
dear ideal one. Is it not wonderful? I
crown myself with flowers and go forth to meet
him every day. I kneel at his feet and caress
his dear hands. For I love him dearly, this
very new Terry. Yet, my dear, if you should
[ 295 ]
An Anarchist Woman

come near me, I mean, you, my old poisonous
Terry, I would flee from you as from a pest.
I would loath myself and the sun and flowers
and all the other beautiful things of earth. I
do not think of you at all, my old Terry, but
I think of you and love and adore you, my
new, wonderful Terry, and I make myself
beautiful for you. So, my dear old Terry, I
will leave you to ‘lice and liberty,’ to your
\ ‘hard free life,’ and I will now lave myself
|} with the pure crystal waters and make myself
‘\\ clean again, and then look on the sun once
/ more and dream again of my own adorable
\ Terry.”

In this letter, Marie said, by implication, a
deep truth about social revolt. She could
never have lived her life without him, this
strange, poetic man. He awoke in this out-
cast, rather vicious girl, a keen longing for the
excellent, for the pleasures of the intelligence
and the temperament; he gave her an assured
sense of her own essential dignity and worth;
defended her against the society that rejected
her. This was a truly Christ-like thing to do,
and this she could never forget or do without.
So, in her wilderness, she holds fast to her
ideal Terry. But with this idealist she could
- [ 296 J
Marie’s Revolt

not live, practically. The growing irritation

felt by him because of his radical mal-adjust-

ment to this world rendered him step by step

more impossible to live with. Harshness, in-
justice, became forced upon him as qualities

of his acts. How could he be fair when he

had no understanding of the nature of actual-

ity? It is probable that no woman can ever

get so far away from actuality as a few rare
idealists of the male sex. Marie’s relative good

sense, her vitality and love of life, finally re- \/\-\q Ira
belled against an idealism so exquisite that it
became cruelty and almost madness. And

this is the way with the world. The world
cannot, in the end, endure the idealist, though

it has great need of him. The world can en-

dure a certain amount of irritation, a certain
amount of fundamental revolt, but when that

revolt reaches the point of absolute rejection,

the world rebels, the worm turns. Marie
represents the world and the worm.

Plato said there should be no poets in his M!

Republic. Poets are too disturbing, they fit

into no social organisation, for the truth they

see is larger and often other than the truth of
mankind’s housekeeping, of human society.

So they are against society. They are for

[ 297 ]
An Anarchist Woman

nature, both God’s nature and man’s nature,
but man’s organisation arouses their passion-
ate hostility. Therefore, said Plato, let us
have no poets in our Republic. But Plato
was a poet, and he probably knew that poets,
though inimical to the actual working of any
actual society, yet are necessary to keep alive
the deeper ideals of humankind, to arouse per-
petually the instinct for something better than
what we have, something deeply better, some-
thing radically better, not the mere improve-
ments, palliatives, of the practical man and
the conservative, bourgeois reformer.

[ 298 ]
CHAPTER XV
Terry's Finish

“Eee had given Marie life, and she had

finally used this vitality to free herself
from him and his too exigent idealism. The
result of his relation to her seems from this
point of view pathetically ironical; but it is
only a symbol of the ironical pathos of his re-
lation to society in general; he and his kind
act as a stimulant and a tonic to the society
which rejects and crushes them. The anar-
chist is in a double sense the victim of society.
He is, in the first place, generally a “labour”
victim, is generally the maimed result of our
factory system; and, in the second place, his
philosophy, needed by society, reacts against
himself and turns the world against him. So
he is a double victim, a reiterated social sac-
rifice.

When I went to Chicago this last time I
found Terry, as I have said, despondent and
disillusioned; and intensely savage in his re-
jection, not only of capitalistic society, but

[ 299 ]
An Anarchist Woman

apparently of all society. In a way, he had
left his old moorings, the “proletariat” no
longer appealed to him. This mood was not
a part of his philosophy: it was an expression
of his disappointment, of his disillusionment.
He talked about his own life and Marie’s with
an almost brutal frankness. He seemed to
take a sad pleasure in stripping the illusion of
human worth and beauty to the bare bones.
In spite of his words, in spite of his previous
letters, it seemed clear to me that Marie had
not lost her hold on him entirely, and that he
deeply felt her defection. Through her he
had failed socially and personally. Around
her much of his life, intellectual and per-
sonal, had been wound. Lingeringly he
talked of her, of her qualities; he seemed to
try to steel himself against all need of human
relation; incidentally he rejected me and
other friends, finding us wanting. Marie,
too, was not perfect, and must be “ passed up”;
but his mind rested, in spite of himself, on this
woman and his life with her. Some of the
things he said and wrote to me about this time
indicate his present mood toward me, Marie,
the anarchists, proletariat, and the world in
general.
[ 300 J
Terry’s Finish

A year or two ago he wrote me: “No one,
very close to me geographically, can ever get
much out of me. This is a family trait and
is too deep for me. So don’t be downcast if
we should ever meet again and you should
find me as stoical as some crustacean of the
past. Some such antediluvian feeling ani-
mates me to take advantage of your distance
and clamour up out of the depths.”

He did, indeed, “‘clamour up out of the
depths” very eloquently, but when I saw him
in Chicago I found that I had somehow “ lost
touch,” like the rest of the world, with him.
He felt it and wrote me:

“While you were in Italy, I sent you a letter
in which I represented myself as one clamour-
ing up out of the depths of his being to you
who might understand. Now I sincerely and
deeply regret having made this attempt with
you. In the same letter I predicted that your
return might find me back in the depths of my
being, where I belong. I regret I did not
stay there when you came along. This feel-
ing is due to no fault of yours or mine; but
points to the fact that I must become still more
exclusive and circumspect.”

Of Marie he wrote: “This attachment be-

[ 301 J
An Anarchist Woman

tween two human beings is in all circum-
stances very terrible. The bond between
Marie and myself was as strong as death, and
partly so because of our great and essential
differences. The first night we spent together
struck one of the deep things in our discord.
I was too nervous and sensitive to touch her
that night, and in the morning she bitterly re-
proached me. The first book that really
aroused her to the meaning of life was
“Mademoiselle de Maupin.’ Deeper than
this difference was her galling interference in
my affairs which never prompted me to med-
dle in hers. And her failure to appreciate
or reciprocate my respect for the integrity of
her personality is the hardest blow she can
ever give tome. I have the same fatal charge
to make against almost all men; the exceptions
are so few and doubtful that I doubt whether
I can ever gain from another that intense re-
ceptive attitude which I am willing to be-
stow. Fortunately for me, this illusion that
there are such intense perceivers re-creates it-
self out of the veriest dust and dross of hu-
manity. Like Shelley’s ‘Cloud,’ my illusion
may change, but it cannot die. Now I am in
a state of mind when I am willing to let every-
[ 302 ]
Terry’s Finish

thing go by default—everything except my
last illusion, that I can never let myself out to
anyone. To Marie—and to you—and one or
two others—I have been sorely tempted to lay
myself out—but not even the mooncan seduce
me to reveal myself. My dead and buried
self is my first and last seduction. This is
crazy, of course, but I am heartily sick of all
the ‘sense’ I know or can know. I believe,
however, that I have lived so close to the
‘truth’ that its shadow has been cast over all
my life. If, in the last analysis, all is illusion,
I shall stick to the most powerful one—my-
self. My feeling for Marie arises largely
from the fact that she is an expression of the
irreparable part of my life—of its deepest es-
sence.

“A year ago to-day, on the thirteenth of
‘August,” he wrote, “occurred my first, last,
and only breakaway from the best pal I have
ever hoped to have, Marie. Now that it has
passed, I see it in its proper proportions, just
as if it had happened to someone else, but to
one as near and dear to me as myself. I have
broken away from the Mob, too. My sym-
pathy for what is called the People has been
worn down to a mere thread that might easily

[ 303 ]
An Anarchist Woman

be broken and turn me against them. When
one has been stoned long enough, one may
easily turn into something as hard as stone it-
self. I am like the knight of old, turned
inside out. I am developing a coating of in-
ternal mail, as so many of the attacks come
from within. But worse than attacks from
within or without is the sordid security and
mental inertia of all the people about me:
they are strangling me just as surely as if they
put a rope around my neck. By day they
hurry on like ghosts about their business, and
by night they gather in the little tombs of
many rooms they call their homes.

“You may call it madness, this my cutting
off of all things. I know that I have kept off
madness a long while now. I have shrunk
from ‘business’ to social anarchy and pure be-
ings, from these again I have shrunk to books
and poetry, from these again into the solitude
of myself where only I am really at home.
Though I have lost my general bearings, I
still stand at the helm of myself. I am going
to pieces on the rocks of the world, but I still
inhabit the realm of the soul.

“When I could no longer see my ideals rise
out of my work, I quit that work; for then the

: [ 304 J
Terry’s Finish

work was no longer an expression of myself.
This is the origin of all modern problems.
A man stands to his job because of the visions
that come to him only when at work. He
sees in imagery his own possibilities arise out
of the thing on which he is at work, and easily
links himself to his fellows. Thus does the
worker make of his eternal cerebral rehear-
sals an endless chain of imaged solidarity
binding him in a maze from which he can
never think his way out. The fixed gaze of
those who try to grasp the abstract is proof of
this.

“When I could no longer see my ideals
arise out of human solidarity, I quit my fa-
natical belief in the possibility of a Utopia.
So that now I am not even an anarchist. I
am ready to pass it all up.”

When I saw Terry for the last time, and
found him in this almost crazy crisis of ex-
treme individualism, where he _ hopelessly
“passed up” everything—human society, love
and friendship, all the things his warm and
loving Irish heart really desired, I felt that
here indeed was a complete expression of the
spirit of revolt. It was so extreme that I and
no one else could follow him in it. It had

T 305 J
An Anarchist Woman

passed beyond the point where social rebel-
lion may be useful or stimulating or sugges-
tive poetically and had reached the sad ab-
surdity of all extreme attitudes. One lesson
Terry’s proud and strenuous soul has never
learned: that the deeper and simpler things
in social growth we must take on faith. We
cannot demand an ideal reason or justification
for all social organisation, for the ways that
human beings have of living together. The
elementary social forms at least must be in-
stinctively and blindly accepted. To go be-
yond in one’s rejection the anarchism of the
social communist into what is called individu-
alistic anarchism is mere egotistic madness
and has as its only value the possible poetry
of a unified personal expression. Into this it
was that Terry fell, and of course he could
find no support for it except in his own soul,
which could not bear the strain. No soul
could, for, struggle as we may, we are largely
social and cannot stand alone. Terry’s life
well shows the sympathetic source of social re-
bellion and its justification, but it also shows
the ultimate sterility of its extreme expres-
sion.

The latest word I have about Marie is that

[ 306 ]
Terry’s Finish

she is at work “keeping house for a respecta-
ble family” in San Francisco. Her experi-
ence in camping-out seems to have rendered
her normal to, for her, an extreme degree.
Going to work certainly represented as radi-
cal a reaction from Terry and his philosophy
as well could be imagined. A friend of mine
in San Francisco writes of her: “She is now
to all appearances a good, respectable girl.
She wants to live a new life, is working hard,
and is trying to break away from smoking.
Sometimes she feels the restraint severely, and
comes to our house where she knows she can
smoke and express herself. She is in better
health, and I think now is in close enough
touch with nature not to want to go back for
nourishment to ideas and the slum.”

The latest word I have from Terry shows
him faithful to the end—faithful to his char-
acter and his mood:

“There is a rumour that Marie has got a
job at general housework. This gave me the
blues—after all our life together, this the end!
I’d rather have her do general prostitution,
with the chance of having an occasional rest
in the hospital. ‘But perhaps her drudgery
will kill her enthusiasm for ‘vita nuova!’

[ 307 ]
ed

An Anarchist Woman

“T should have answered your letter had I
not been suffering from an old malady of
mine which is accompanied by such mental
depression that I could not answer the com-
munication of even a lost soul. I had to seek
surcease in my old remedy of hasheesh and
chloroform, which was a change from suffer-

_ Ing to stupidity. But I shall not swell the

cosmic chorus of woe by raising my cracked
voice against impending fate. JI am moreand

' more alone, more and more conscious of a

growing something that is keeping me apart
from all whom I can possibly avoid.”

Terry is nearing his logical end, while
Marie is still struggling for life, life given her
in the beginning by this strange man, whose
influence was then to take it away from her;
and from this, like the world, she rebelled.
“ Anarchism” she embraced as long as it en-
hanced her being; as long as this deeply emo-
tional philosophy added to the fulness of her
life, she saw its meaning and its use; when it
finally tended to sterilise her new existence,
its “pragmatic” value was nothing.

This is the test of all social theory:_How

..I1t Works Out. In Marie’s case, as in the casé~

of many proletarians, it worked out well, as
[ 308 ]
Terry’s Finish

a general civilising and consoling philosophy,
for a time, but when carried to an “idealistic”
extreme, it tended rapidly towards general
death—from which all live things react. So
it was with Marie: she left her “poisonous”
Terry and sought for another vitalising expe-
rience. Goethe said that the best govern-
ment is that which makes itself superfluous.
Terry’s spiritual influence on Marie, impor-
tant for her in the beginning as rendering her
self-respecting and mentally ambitious, had
become superfluous. But it had been of great
value to the girl. So, too, with our society.
The extreme rebellious attitude educates us—
sometimes to the point where rebellion is su-
perfluous.

THE END
“The Spirit of Labor’’
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The
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A true story of the life of a criminal
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SOEAST 21° ST?