Living My Life by Emma Goldman Volume One New York: Alfred A Knopf Inc., 1931. Chapter 20 At the height of my California activities a letter came that shattered my visions of harmonious love: Max wrote me that he and his comrade "Puck" were about to go abroad together, financed by a friend. I laughed aloud at the folly of my hopes. After the failure with Ed how could I have dreamed of love and understanding with anyone else? Love and happiness --- empty, meaningless words, vain reaching out for the unattainable. I felt robbed by life, defeated in my yearning for a beautiful relationship. I still had my ideal to live for, as I consoled myself, and the work I had set myself to do. Why expect more from life? But where get strength and inspiration to keep up the struggle? Men had been able to do the world's work without the sustaining power of love; why should not also women? Or is it that woman needs...
The inexorable master, Death, has again visited the Anarchist ranks. This time its victim was Ross Winn, one of the most earnest and able American Anarchists. Never has the power of the Ideal been demonstrated with greater force than in the life and work of this man, Ross Winn. For nothing short of a great Ideal, a burning, impelling, all absorbing ideal could make possible the task that our dead comrade so lovingly performed during a quarter of a century. Born in Texas forty-one years ago, of farmer parents, young Winn was expected to follow the path of his fathers. But the boy had other dreams, dreams extending far beyond his immediates. His were dreams of the world, of humanity, of the struggle for liberty. He was possessed by a passiona... (From : Kate Sharpley Library.)