Anna came in with hanging head, playing with the tassels of her hood. Her face was brilliant and glowing; but this glow was not one of brightness; it suggested the fearful glow of a conflagration in the midst of a dark night. On seeing her husband, Anna raised her head and smiled, as though she had just waked up. "You’re not in bed? What a wonder!" she said, letting fall her hood, and without stopping, she went on into the dressing room. "It’s late, Alexey Alexandrovitch," she said, when she had gone through the doorway. "Anna, it’s necessary for me to have a talk with you." "With me?" she said, wonderingly. She came out from behind the door of the dressing room, and looked at him. "Why, what is it? What about?" she asked, sitting down. "Well, let’s talk, if it’s so necessary. But it would be better to get to sleep." Anna said what came to her lips, and marveled, hearing herself, at her own capacity for lyin...
The events of May 4, 1886 were a major influence on the oratory of Voltairine de Cleyre. Following the execution of the Haymarket Martyrs on November 11, 1887, she gave an annual address to commemorate the date of their sacrifice. The following memorial speech was first delivered in Chicago on November 11, 1901. It was subsequently published in Free Society, a Chicago periodical, November 24, 1901. It is reprinted, along with her other Haymarket Memorial speeches, in The First Mayday: The Haymarket Speeches 1895–1910 (Cienfuegos Press, Over-the-water, Sanday, Orkney, KWI7 2BL, UK), 1980. Let me begin my address with a confession. I make it sorrowfully and with self-disgust; but in the presence of great sacrifice we learn humility, and... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
He possessed everything necessary to render him the scourge of his family. He came into the world healthy and rich-and healthy and rich he remained during the whole of his long life. No offense was ever brought home to him; he committed no fault whatever either in word or in deed. He was of stainless character. And proud in the consciousness of his character, he pressed with it every one to earth--relations, friends, acquaintances. His character was to him capital. And with this capital he dealt at usurious interest. This character gave him the right to be pitiless, and to do nothing beyond the good ordained by law. And pitiless he was, and did no good. For benevolence prescribed by law is not benevolence. He never paid the slightest regard... (From : AnarchyArchives.)
Why are cart bolsters cut and wheel naves turned not from oak, but from birch? Bolsters and naves have to be strong, and oak is not more expensive than birch. Because oak splits lengthwise, and birch does not split, but ravels out. Because, though oak is more firmly connected than birch, it is connected in such a way that it splits lengthwise, while birch does not. Why are wheels and runners bent from oak and elm, and not from birch and linden? Because, when oak and elm are steamed in a bath, they bend and do not break, while birch and linden ravel in every direction. This is again for the same reason, that is, that the particles of the wood in the oak and in the birch are differently connected.
Peter Nikolaevich Sventizky did his best to discover who had stolen his horses. He knew somebody on the estate must have helped the thieves, and began to suspect all his staff. He inquired who had slept out that night, and the gang of the working men told him Proshka had not been in the whole night. Proshka, or Prokofy Nikolaevich, was a young fellow who had just finished his military service, handsome, and skillful in all he did; Peter Nikolaevich employed him at times as coachman. The district constable was a friend of Peter Nikolaevich, as were the provincial head of the police, the marshal of the nobility, and also the rural councilor and the examining magistrate. They all came to his house on his saint’s day, drinking the cherry brandy he offered them with pleasure, and eating the nice preserved mushrooms of all kinds to accompany the liqueurs. They all sympathized with him in his trouble and tried to help him. “You always used to take the side of the peas...
“Well, I am going then to tell you my life, and my whole frightful history,—yes, frightful. And the story itself is more frightful than the outcome.” He became silent for a moment, passed his hands over his eyes, and began:— “To be understood clearly, the whole must be told from the beginning. It must be told how and why I married, and what I was before my marriage. First, I will tell you who I am. The son of a rich gentleman of the steppes, an old marshal of the nobility, I was a University pupil, a graduate of the law school. I married in my thirtieth year. But before talking to you of my marriage, I must tell you how I lived formerly, and what ideas I had of conjugal life. I led the life of so many other so-called respectable people,—that is, in debauchery. And like the majority, while leading the life of a debauche, I was convinced that I was a man of irreproachable morality. “The idea that I had of my morality...
Selected Letters of Bartolomeo Vanzetti from the Charlestown State Prison, 1921-24 July 22, 1921. Charlestown Prison MY DEAR MRS. GLENDOWER EVANS: I was just thinking what I would to do for past the long days jail: I was saying to myself: Do some work. But what? Write. A gentle motherly figure came to my mind and I rehear the voice: Why don't you write something now? It will be useful to you when you will be free. Just at that time I received your letter. Thanks to you from the bottom of my heart for your confidence in my innocence; I am so. I did not spittel a drop of blood, or steal a cent in all my life. A little knowledge of the past; a sorrowful experience of the life itself had gave to me some ideas very different from those of many o... (From : umkc.edu.)
I should be very glad to join you and your associates -- whose work I know and appreciate -- in standing up for the rights of the Literature Committee and opposing the enemies of popular education. But in the sphere in which you are working I see no way to resist them. My only consolation is that I, too, am constantly engaged in struggling against the same enemies of enlightenment, though in another manner. Concerning the special question with which you are preoccupied, I think that in place of the Literature Committee which has been prohibited, a number of other Literature Associations to pursue the same objects should be formed without consulting the Government and without asking permission from any censor. Let Government, if it likes, pr... (From : Anarchy Archives.)