The workingman, whose strength and muscles are so admired by the pale, puny off-springs of the rich, yet whose labor barely brings him enough to keep the wolf of starvation from the door, marries only to have a wife and house-keeper, who must slave from morning till night, who must make every effort to keep down expenses. Her nerves are so tired by the continual effort to make the pitiful wages of her husband support both of them that she grows irritable and no longer is successful in concealing her want of affection for her lord and master, who, alas! soon comes to the conclusion that his hopes and plans have gone astray, and so practically begins to think that marriage is a failure. THE CHAIN GROWS HEAVIER AND HEAVIER As the expenses grow... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Vronsky had not even tried to sleep all that night. He sat in his armchair, looking straight before him or scanning the people who got in and out. If he had indeed on previous occasions struck and impressed people who did not know him by his air of unhesitating composure, he seemed now more haughty and self-possessed than ever. He looked at people as if they were things. A nervous young man, a clerk in a law court, sitting opposite him, hated him for that look. The young man asked him for a light, and entered into conversation with him, and even pushed against him, to make him feel that he was not a thing, but a person. But Vronsky gazed at him exactly as he did at the lamp, and the young man made a wry face, feeling that he was losing his self-possession under the oppression of this refusal to recognize him as a person. Vronsky saw nothing and no one. He felt himself a king, not because he believed that he had made an impression on Anna—he did not yet...
The ResurrectionThe conversation with the justiciary and the pure air somewhat calmed Nekhludoff. The feeling he experienced he now ascribed to the fact that he had passed the day amid surroundings to which he was unaccustomed. "It is certainly a remarkable coincidence! I must do what is necessary to alleviate her lot, and do it quickly. Yes, I must find out here where Fanarin or Mikishin lives." Nekhludoff called to mind these two well-known lawyers. Nekhludoff returned to the court-house, took off his overcoat and walked up the stairs. In the very first corridor he met Fanarin. He stopped him and told him that he had some business with him. Fanarin knew him by sight, and also his name. He told Nekhludoff that he would be glad to do anything to please him. "I am rather tired, but, if it won't take long, I will listen to your case. Let us walk into that room." And Fanarin led Nekhludoff into a room, probably the cabinet of some judge. They seat...
When I was a little fellow, we used to study every day, and only on Sundays and holidays went out and played with our brothers. Once my father said: "The children must learn to ride. Send them to the riding-school!" I was the youngest of the brothers, and I asked: "May I, too, learn to ride?" My father said: "You will fall down." I began to beg him to let me learn, and almost cried. My father said: "All right, you may go, too. Only look out! Don't cry when you fall off. He who does not once fall down from a horse will not learn to ride." When Wednesday came, all three of us were taken to the riding-school. We entered by a large porch, and from the large porch went to a smaller one. Beyond the porch was a very large room: instead of a floor it had sand. And in this room were gentlemen and ladies and just such boys as we. That was the riding-school. The riding-school was not very light, and there was a smell of horses,...
In Petersburg in the eighteen-forties a surprising event occurred. An officer of the Cuirassier Life Guards, a handsome prince who everyone predicted would become aide-de-camp to the Emperor Nicholas I. and have a brilliant career, left the service, broke off his engagement to a beautiful maid of honor, a favorite of the Empress’s, gave his small estate to his sister, and retired to a monastery to become a monk. This event appeared extraordinary and inexplicable to those who did not know his inner motives, but for Prince Stepan Kasatsky himself it all occurred so naturally that he could not imagine how he could have acted otherwise. His father, a retired colonel of the Guards, had died when Stepan was twelve, and sorry as his mother was to part from her son, she entered him at the Military College as her deceased husband had intended. The widow herself, with her daughter, Varvara, moved to Petersburg to be near her son and have him with her for the ho...
FLEETWOOD; or, THE NEW MAN OF FEELING. by WILLIAM GODWIN. IN TWO VOLUMES. Vol. I New York: PRINTED FOR I. RILEY & Co. BOOK-SELLERS, NO. I, CITY HOTEL. 1805. CHAPTER I. I WAS the only son of my father. I was very young at the period of the death of my mother, and have retained scarcely any recollection of her. My father was so much affected by the loss of the amiable and affectionate partner of his days, that he resolved to withdraw forever from those scenes, where every object he saw was ssociated with the ideas of her kindness, her accomplishments, and her virtues: and, being habitually a lover of the sublime and romantic features of nature, he fixed upon a spot in Merionethshire, near the foot of Cader Idr...
The guests at the party had tea and cakes offered to them, and sat down after that to play whist at a number of card-tables. The partners of Eugene Mihailovich’s wife were the host himself, an officer, and an old and very stupid lady in a wig, a widow who owned a music-shop; she loved playing cards and played remarkably well. But it was Eugene Mihailovich’s wife who was the winner all the time. The best cards were continually in her hands. At her side she had a plate with grapes and a pear and was in the best of spirits. “And Eugene Mihailovich? Why is he so late?” asked the hostess, who played at another table. “Probably busy settling accounts,” said Eugene Mihailovich’s wife. “He has to pay off the tradesmen, to get in firewood.” The quarrel she had with her husband revived in her memory; she frowned, and her hands, from which she had not taken off the mittens, shook with fury against him. &ldq...
A Comedy in Four ActsLEONÍD FYÓDORITCH ZVEZDÍNTSEF. A retired Lieutenant of the Horse Guards. Owner of more than 60,000 acres of land in various provinces. A fresh-looking, bland, agreeable gentleman of 60. Believes in Spiritualism, and likes to astonish people with his wonderful stories. ANNA PÁVLOVNA ZVEZDÍNTSEVA. Wife of Leoníd. Stout; pretends to be young; quite taken up with the conventionalities of life; despises her husband, and blindly believes in her doctor. Very irritable. BETSY. Their daughter. A young woman of 20, fast, tries to be mannish, wears a pince-nez, flirts and giggles. Speaks very quickly and distinctly. VASÍLY LEONÍDITCH ZVEZDÍNTSEF. Their son, aged 25; has studied law, but has no definite occupation. Member of the Cycling Club, Jockey Club, and of the Society for Promoting the Breeding of Hounds. Enjoys perfect health, and has imperturbable self-assurance. Speaks loud...
THE popular notion about marriage and love is that they are synonymous, that they spring from the same motives, and cover the same human needs. Like most popular notions this also rests not on actual facts, but on superstition. Marriage and love have nothing in common; they are as far apart as the poles; are, in fact, antagonistic to each other. No doubt some marriages have been the result of love. Not, however, because love could assert itself only in marriage; much rather is it because few people can completely outgrow a convention. There are to-day large numbers of men and women to whom marriage is naught but a farce, but who submit to it for the sake of public opinion. At any rate, while it is true that some marriages are based on love,... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
The good stallion took the sledge along at a brisk pace over the smooth-frozen road through the village, the runners squeaking slightly as they went. ‘Look at him hanging on there! Hand me the whip, Nikita!’ shouted Vasili Andreevich, evidently enjoying the sight of his ‘heir,’ who standing on the runners was hanging on at the back of the sledge. ‘I’ll give it you! Be off to mama, you dog!’ The boy jumped down. The horse increased his amble and, suddenly changing foot, broke into a fast trot. The Crosses, the village where Vasili Andreevich lived, consisted of six houses. As soon as they had passed the blacksmith’s hut, the last in the village, they realized that the wind was much stronger than they had thought. The road could hardly be seen. The tracks left by the sledge-runners were immediately covered by snow and the road was only distinguished by the fact that it was higher than the rest of the ground. The...
A Powerful Disseminator Of Radical Thought
So long as discontent and unrest make themselves but dumbly felt within a limited social class, the powers of reaction may often succeed in suppressing such manifestations. But when the dumb unrest grows into conscious expression and becomes almost universal, it necessarily affects all phases of human thought and action, and seeks its individual and social expression in the gradual transvaluation of existing values. An adequate appreciation of the tremendous spread of the modern, conscious social unrest cannot be gained from merely propagandistic literature. Rather must we become conversant with the larger phases of human expression manifest in art, literature, and, above all, the modern drama--the strongest and most far-reaching interprete... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Night in a prison cell! A chair, a bed, a small washstand, four blank walls, ghastly in the dim light from the corridor without, a narrow window, barred and sunken in the stone, a grated door! Beyond its hideous iron latticework, within the ghastly walls, -a man! An old man, gray-haired and wrinkled, lame and suffering. There he sits, in his great loneliness, shut in front all the earth. There he walks, to and fro, within his measured space, apart from all he loves! 'There, for every night in five long years to come, he will walk alone, while the white age-flakes drop upon his head, while the last years of the winter of life gather and pass, and his body draws near the ashes. Every night, for five long years to come, he will sit alone, this... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
In order to understand the social and dynamic significance of modern dramatic art it is necessary, I believe, to ascertain the difference between the functions of art for art's sake and art as the mirror of life. Art for art's sake presupposes an attitude of aloofness on the part of the artist toward the complex struggle of life: he must rise above the ebb and tide of life. He is to be merely an artistic conjurer of beautiful forms, a creator of pure fancy. That is not the attitude of modern art, which is preeminently the reflex, the mirror of life. The artist being a part of life cannot detach himself from the events and occurrences that pass panorama-like before his eyes, impressing themselves upon his emotional and intellectual vision. The modern artist is, in the words of August Strindberg, "a lay preacher popularizing the pressing questions of his time." Not necessarily because his aim is to proselyte, but because he can best express hims...
These sketches are written in the style of Tolstoy's "Popular Stories and Legends," and give the reader various glimpses into modern village life in Russia THE FREE AGE PRESS Publisher: C. W. DANIEL 3 Amen Corner, London, E. C. THREE DAYS IN THE VILLAGE And Other Sketches No Rights Reserved THREE DAYS IN THE VILLAGE And Other Sketches Written from September 1909 to July 1910 BY LEO TOLSTOY Translated by L. and A. Maude LONDON THE FREE AGE PRESS (C. W. DANIEL) 3 AMEN CORNER, E. C. 1910 CONTENTS PAGE THREE DAYS IN THE VILLAGE— FIRST DAY—TRAMPS 7... (From : Gutenberg.org.)
With an Introduction by James J. Martin Introduction In reissuing this famous but long-neglected work for the first time in over a century, it is not intended that it furnish a pretext to leap into the complex controversy concerning "women's rights" which has become increasingly intensified in the last fifteen years. The object is rather to bring attention to an undeservedly obscured figure in American intellectual and ideological history, first of all, and to put on the contemporary record one of the overlooked phases of the struggle to achieve equality before the law, especially, for women in the USA. It has been observed that it has become progressively more difficult to write about any phase of this subject recently, as the language of ... (From : crispinsartwell.com.)
Anna Pávlovna’s drawing room was gradually filling. The highest Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged. Prince Vasíli’s daughter, the beautiful Hélène, came to take her father to the ambassador’s entertainment; she wore a ball dress and her badge as maid of honor. The youthful little Princess Bolkónskaya, known as la femme la plus séduisante de Pétersbourg, was also there. She had been married during the previous winter, and being pregnant did not go to any large gatherings, but only to small receptions. Prince Vasíli’s son, Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart, whom he introduced. The Abbé Morio and many others had also come. The most fascinating woman in Petersburg. To each new arrival Anna Pávlovna said, “You...
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. —1 Epistle St. John iii. 14. Whoso hath the world’s goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue; but in deed and truth. —iii. 17-18. Love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. —iv. 7-8. No man hath beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abideth in us. —iv. 12. God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. —iv. 16. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? —iv. 20.
We boast of the age of advancement, of science, and progress. Is it not strange, then, that we still believe in fetish worship? True, our fetishes have different form and substance, yet in their power over the human mind they are still as disastrous as were those of old. Our modern fetish is universal suffrage. Those who have not yet achieved that goal fight bloody revolutions to obtain it, and those who have enjoyed its reign bring heavy sacrifice to the altar of this omnipotent deity. Woe to the heretic who dare question that divinity! Woman, even more than man, is a fetish worshiper, and though her idols may change, she is ever on her knees, ever holding up her hands, ever blind to the fact that her god has feet of clay. Thus woman has b... (From : Anarchy Archives.)