Comrade Kropotkin Part 10

"Since the world's first wail went up from lands and seas Ears have heard not, tongues have told not things like these.

Dante, led by love's and hate's accordant spell Down the deepest and the loathiest ways of h.e.l.l, Where beyond the brook of blood the rain was fire, Where the scalps were masked with dung more deep than mire, Saw not, where filth was foulest, and the night Darkest, depths whose fiends could match the Muscovite.

Set beside this truth, his deadliest vision seems Pale and pure and painless as a virgin's dreams.

Maidens dead beneath the clasping lash, and wives Rent with deadlier pangs than death--for shame survives, Naked, mad, starved, scourged, spurned, frozen, fallen, deflowered, Souls and bodies as by fangs of beasts devoured.

Sounds that h.e.l.l would hear not, sights no thoughts could shape, Limbs that feel as flame the ravenous grasp of rape," etc.

SWINBURNE: "Russia: An Ode."

[77] "Marie Spiridonova was only twenty-one when she killed Lujenovsky; and in St. Petersburg I knew a girl, a medical student--sweet, quiet, all soul--who was barely eighteen when she said to me, simply "I shall live but a year or two--no more." In this expectancy of death there is no mawkishness, no pose. They have seen their comrades go after a few days or years of service; their fate will be the same." LeRoy Scott, "The Terrorists," in Everybody's Magazine.

Announcements

Lives of Great Altrurians

BY VICTOR ROBINSON

This is to be a series of biographies of men and women whose life-work was the liberation of humanity from bondage. Not of bishops and warriors will Victor Robinson write, but of the Great Companions whose lances struck the s.h.i.+elds of despotism. These lives are to be of no standard size and will not be written on contract-time. A great deal of inclination and a little bit of opportunity will be the determining factors.

Out of this series, two numbers have already been published:

WILLIAM G.o.dWIN AND MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT PETER KROPOTKIN

The rest of the subjects are still lodged within the cerebral cells of the author. The following are in preparation for precious print:

MAXIM GORKY WALT WHITMAN ROBERT INGERSOLL ELISEE RECLUS THOMAS PAINE FERDINAND La.s.sALLE KARL MARX VICTOR HUGO ALEXANDER HERZEN GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI HERBERT SPENCER HENRIK IBSEN THOMAS HUXLEY LEO TOLSTOY CHARLES DARWIN ERNEST HAECKEL LOUISE MICHEL EMILE ZOLA AUGUST COMTE BARUCH SPINOZA IVAN TURGENEV HARRIET MARTINEAU GIORDANO BRUNO GRANT ALLEN WENDELL PHILLIPS HENRY GEORGE HENRY Th.o.r.eAU MRS. STANTON

William G.o.dwin and Mary Wollstonecraft

BY VICTOR ROBINSON

Written in the Author's Eighteenth Year

William G.o.dwin was the father of philosophic radicalism in England. His wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, was the pioneer of the woman suffrage movement. Yet the present generation of reformers knows little about these glorious Liberals. This booklet tells briefly of G.o.dwin's early life, of his development from orthodoxy to rationalism, of his epoch-making "Political Justice," of his narrow escape from imprisonment on the charge of high treason, of his first meeting and dislike of Mary Wollstonecraft, of his later love and marriage with her, of her former marriage and attempt at suicide, of their views on the marriage relation, of the storm which Mary Wollstonecraft caused by writing "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," of her lamented death, of her talented daughter who eloped with Sh.e.l.ley, of G.o.dwin's subsequent love affairs, of his philosophy, of his old age, etc.

+_Pierre Ramus_+: in "Die Freie Generation:"

Selten wohl, da.s.s uns eine kleine Broschurenschrift in die Hande fiel, die mit ahnlicher Glut des edelsten Idealismus verfa.s.st ist, wie jene unseres amerikanischen Genossen Victor Robinson.

+_Eugene V. Debs_+, in "Appeal to Reason:"

The story of William G.o.dwin and Mary Wollstonecraft is now in pamphlet form, fresh from the gifted pen of Victor Robinson. It is a story of two great souls charmingly told by another.

+_Elbert Hubbard_+, editor of "The Philistine:"

At the Roycroft Chapel, Victor gave us a most admirable address on G.o.dwin--quite the best thing he ever did.

+_John Sherwin Crosby_+, author of "Government:" I shall prize your very graphic sketch because of its intrinsic worth.

+_William Lloyd Garrison_+, the son of the great Abolitionist:

I have read with pleasure your estimate of these brave thinkers.

What surviving qualities have truth and courage!

+_Clinton P. Farrell_+, brother-in-law and publisher of Ingersoll: Many many thanks for this beautiful booklet--a gem. May you live long and continue in the making of good books.

+_Voltairine de Cleyre_+, the most radical woman in Philadelphia:

I am glad that some one has taken up the work I began some fifteen years ago,--that of compelling the deserved recognition due to Mary Wollstonecraft from the English-speaking radical world.

+_Champe S. Andrews_+, counsel of the Medical Society of New York:

I am indebted to you for the very delightful monograph on the lives of William G.o.dwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. I value this book on account of its excellent literary and biographical value.

+_Henry J. Weeks_+, lover of our furred and feathered brothers:

As soon as I received your book, my wife read it to me from beginning to end, starting with loving interest and ending with sympathetic tears. Then I read it again myself. Then I called upon my friend Fred Heath, editor of "The Social Democratic Herald," and talked to him about my "William and Mary," and together we hied to the public library and made a search for all we could find about the lives of these interesting friends.

+_Artistically printed Ill.u.s.trated with portraits 25 cents, postpaid_+

THE ALTRURIANS

12 MT. MORRIS PARK, WEST, NEW YORK CITY

A Symposium on Humanitarians

CONDUCTED BY

VICTOR ROBINSON