A Girl Among the Anarchists

by Isabel Meredith

"Well, then, why don't you give it up, Isabel?"

"Give it up? Oh, how could I? I have never really thought of that. Oh no; the paper must come out. I have undertaken it. I must go on with it."

"And you an Anarchist! Why, I always thought you believed in the absolute freedom of the individual, and here you are saying that you must go on with a work in which you no longer feel the requisite confidence, for the mere reason that you once, under other circumstances, started it."

"You are right, Raymond, logically right, but life is not ruled by logic, whether we be Anarchists or Reactionaries. I feel that I could not give up the Tocsin, my interests centre round it; besides, I do not say that I have altered my ideas; I am still an Anarchist, I can honestly work for the Cause; I only said that I doubt. I feel depressed. Who has not had at times periods of depression and doubt?"

"Well, we shall see," replied Raymond. "I got a letter from Caroline last night which I wanted to show you. She says she will be home in another three months, as she has accepted a further engagement for the States now that her tour is nearly over. When she comes home it will be a little company for you in the house. She has friends, and she is sure to be much sought after now, as she seems fairly on the road to becoming a celebrity in the musical world."

I read the long letter, written in the brilliant style which characterised everything about Caroline. She described her triumphs in the various cities of the Argentine and Brazil, the receptions given in her honour, the life and society of these faraway countries, with a brightness and humour which brought home to me the whole atmosphere of the places and people she described. Caroline had always been fond of society, and even before leaving England had become quite a favourite in musical circles; but her quick, bright intelligence had never allowed her to be blind to much that was vulgar and ludicrous in her surroundings. I was truly glad to think that we should meet again before long. The common memories and affections of our childhood formed a solid basis for our mutual friendship, but I could not help smiling as I read the last paragraph of her long epistle: "I expect by now Isabel has had time to grow out of her enthusiasm for revolutions and economics, and will feel less drawn towards baggy-trousered democrats and unwashed philosophers than when I left. Perhaps she may even have come round to my view of life, i.e., that it is really not worth while taking things too tragically, and that it is best to take the few good things life brings us without worrying one's brains about humanity. Selfish, is it not? But I have generally noticed that it is your stern moralists and humanitarians who cause the most unhappiness in the world. Anyhow, if Isabel is less wrapped up in Socialism and Anarchy we shall be able to have a good time when I come home. I am sure to be asked out a good deal, and if the fashionable people who patronise musical celebrities are not free from their foibles and ridicules we shall anyhow be able to amuse ourselves and laugh at them up our sleeves."

So Caroline already counted on my having outgrown Anarchy and unwashed philosophy, as she phrased it, and grown into drawing-room etiquette! But she was wrong! I should go on with the Tocsin. I should still work in the Cause; I had done so till then, and what had happened since yesterday to alter my intentions? Nothing, or at least nothing of outward importance. Only, since my last interview with Armitage and my parting with Kosinski, I had begun to formulate to myself many questions which till then I had only vaguely felt. Still I repeated to myself that I should go on with the paper, that I should continue to lead the same life. Of course I should! How could I do otherwise? And even if I had changed somewhat in my ideas and my outlook on life, I certainly did not feel even remotely attracted towards the sort of society Caroline referred to. I had a vivid recollection of once accompanying her to an at home, given in a crowded drawing-room, where the heavily-gilded Louis XV. mirrors and Sevres vases and ornaments, with their scrolls and flourishes, all seemed to have developed the flowing wigs which characterised the Roi Soleil, and where the armchairs and divans were upholstered in yellow and pink satin, and decked out with ribbon bows to resemble Watteau sheep. Oh no; certainly I should not exchange the low living and high thinking of my Anarchist days for such artificiality and vulgar display. Sunday was generally a very busy day with me, almost more so than week-days, for there were meetings to be held, literature to be sold and distributed, and lectures and discussions to be attended. I was in the habit of rising rather late, as very often Saturday night was an all-night sitting at the office of the Tocsin, and Sunday morning was the only time I found it convenient to pay a little attention to the toilet. But I used generally to manage to be by twelve in some public place, and help Short and M'Dermott to start a meeting. Short, influenced by his inherent laziness, had succeeded in persuading the Italians that he was a great orator, and that they could not better forward the Cause in their new country than by carrying for him the movable platform from which he delivered his spirited harangues; so that one or two of them were generally present helping to form the nucleus of an audience, and ready to lend their valid support should any drunken loafer or top-hatted bourgeois, outraged in his feelings, attempt to disturb the proceedings. Hyde Park was generally my destination in the afternoon, and in the evening we used to repair in force to the hall of the Social Democrats, there to take part in the discussion which followed the lectures, or else some meeting in Deptford, Canning Town, or Stratford would claim my attendance. But on this particular Sunday I felt too tired and despondent to think of rushing out in my usual style.

I shut myself in my room and tried to rest, but I could not free myself from the sights and thoughts which had beset me during the night. The words of Kosinski's friend, "And this is what comes of struggling for the higher life," still haunted me; the dead woman, staring blindly into space rose before me, an image of the suffering forced on the weak by the strong. Then my thoughts reverted to Giannoli. What was he doing? I had not heard from him for over a month, and his last letter had been far from reassuring. He hinted at some desperate enterprise he was engaged on, and as I had no further news of him from any quarter I thought it not unlikely that he had been arrested, and was, even then perhaps, suffering unknown tortures in one of those dreaded Spanish prisons, where the old systems of the Inquisition still prevail, though modern hypocrisy requires that all should pass in silence and darkness, content on these conditions never to push too closely its inquiries, even though some crippled victim who may escape should rouse for a moment a spasmodic outburst of indignation in the civilised world. And even were this not his fate, it was a sad enough one in all conscience: to rush all over the world, wrecked in health, driven from place to place by his wild suspicions, the offspring of a diseased imagination; deprived of friends, for his mania of persecution drove them off; deprived of means, for he had sacrificed his all to the propaganda, and his health and mode of life did not permit of any settled occupation. I felt strangely anxious about him, and this led my thoughts back once more to Kosinski, with whom I had been brought so closely into contact through our relations with Giannoli. I should never see him again in all probability. He had told me he was going to Austria. He too belonged to the knights of death, as an Italian comrade had named a certain section of the Anarchists; and he was working out his inevitable destiny. I wondered now how I had ever allowed myself to conceive of him otherwise. I had always known it was impossible, and I felt that it was only an impulse of rebellion against fate which had led me to speak.

Finding sleep out of the question, I got up and attempted to write an article which I had promised to bring down to the Tocsin the following morning. The subject I had chosen was "The Right to Happiness," and I argued that man has a right not only to daily bread, as the Socialists maintain, but also to happiness, consisting in the fullest development and exercise of all his faculties, a condition only possible when the individual shall be perfectly free, living in a harmonious society of free men, untrammelled by artificial economic difficulties, and by superstitions inherited from the past. Some days previously we had had a discussion on the subject at the office of the Tocsin, and I had maintained my views victoriously against the pessimistic dogmatism of a German comrade. But now my arguments seemed hollow to myself, mere rhetoric, and even that of third-rate quality. Happiness! Did not the mere fact of attaining our desires deprive them of their charm? Life was an alternating of longing and regret. I pushed paper and pen aside, and began roaming aimlessly about the house. The large old-fashioned rooms impressed me as strangely silent and forlorn. I wandered up to the attic which our father had used as a laboratory, and which had always struck us children as a mysterious apartment, where he did wonderful things with strange-shaped instruments and bottles which we were told contained deadly poison. His apparatus was still ranged on the shelves, thick in dust, and the air was heavy with the pungent smell of acids. The large drawing-rooms with their heavy hangings looked shabbier and dingier than of old; I could not help noticing the neglected look of everything. I had hardly entered them during the past year, and now I vaguely wondered whether Caroline on her return would wish to have them renovated. Then I remembered how I had received there for the first time, some four years ago, my brother's Socialist friend, and I could not help smiling as I recollected my excitement on that occasion. I was indeed young in those days! I picked up a book which was lying on a table thick in dust, and sat down listlessly in the roomy arm-chair by the fireside, which had been my father's favourite seat. I began turning the pages of a volume, "The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius," and gradually I became absorbed in its contents. Here was a man who had known how to create for himself in his own soul an oasis of rest, not by practising a selfish indifference to, and isolation from, public matters—not by placing his hopes in some future paradise, the compensation of terrestrial suffering, but by rising superior to external events, and, whilst fulfilling his duty as emperor and man, not allowing himself to be flustered or perturbed by the inevitable. "Abolish opinion, you have abolished this complaint, 'Some one has harmed me.' Suppress the complaint, 'Some one has harmed me,' and the harm itself is suppressed." What wisdom in these words!

It was a long while since I had thus enjoyed a quiet read. For several months past my life had been a ceaseless round of feverish activity. Looking back, it seemed to me that I had allowed myself to be strangely preoccupied and flustered by trifles. What were these important duties which had so absorbed me as to leave me no time for thought, for study, no time to live my own life? How had I come to give such undue importance to the publication of a paper which, after all, was read by a very few, and those few for the most part already blind believers in the ideas it advocated? Yet I told myself that the Tocsin had done good work, and could yet do much. Besides, I had undertaken it, I must go on with it; life without an object would be intolerable. The slow hours passed, and when night came I felt thoroughly worn out and exhausted, and soon got to sleep.