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A GIRL AMONG THE ANARCHISTS
By Isabel Meredith
PREFACE
In spite of the fact that there are certain highly respectable
individualists of a rabid type who prefer to call themselves Anarchists,
it must be owned that it requires some courage to write about Anarchism
even with the sympathy befitting a clinical physician or the scientific
detachment of a pathologist. And yet it is certain that Anarchists are
curiously interesting, and not the less in need of observation from the
fact that apparently none of the social quacks who prescribe seriously
in leading articles has the faintest insight into them as a phenomenon,
a portent, or a disease. This book, if it is read with understanding,
will, I feel assured, do not a little to show how it comes about that
Anarchism is as truly endemic in Western Civilisations as cholera is in
India. Isabel Meredith, whom I had the pleasure of knowing when she
was a more humble member of the staff of the _Tocsin_ than the editor,
occupies, to my knowledge, a very curious and unique position in the
history of English Anarchism. There is nothing whatever in "A Girl among
the Anarchists" which is invented, the whole thing is an experience
told very simply, but I think convincingly. Nevertheless as such a human
document must seem incredible to the ordinary reader, I have no little
pleasure in saying that I know what she has written to be true. I was
myself a contributor to the paper which is here known as the _Tocsin_. I
have handled the press and have discussed details (which did not include
bombs) with the editor. I knew "Kosinski" and still have an admiration
for "Nekrovitch." And even now I do not mind avowing that I am
philosophically as much an Anarchist as the late Dr. H. G. Sutton, who
would no doubt have been astounded to learn that he belonged to the
brotherhood.
Curiously enough I have found most Anarchists of the mildest
dispositions. I have met meek Germans (there are meek Germans still
extant) who even in their wildest Anarchic indignation seemed as little
capable of hurting a living soul as of setting the Elbe on fire. For it
must be understood that the "red wing" of the Anarchists is a very small
section of the body of philosophers known as Anarchists. There is no
doubt that those of the dynamite section are practically insane. They
are "impulsives"; they were outraged and they revolted before birth.
Most of the proletariat take their thrashing lying down. There are
some who cannot do that. It is out of these who are not meek and do not
inherit even standing-room on the earth that such as "Matthieu"
comes. Perhaps it may not be out of place to suggest that a little
investigation might be better than denunciation, which is always wide
of the mark, and that, as Anarchism is created by the social system of
repression, more repression will only create more Anarchism. However, I
am perfectly aware that the next time a wild-eyed philosopher, who ought
to be under restraint in an asylum, throws a bomb, all the newspapers in
Europe will advocate measures for turning all the meeker Anarchists
into outrage-mongers. For of the Anarchists it is certainly true that
repression does not repress. Anarchism is a creed and a philosophy,
but neither as creed nor philosophy does it advocate violence. It only
justifies resistance to violence. So much, I think, will be discovered
in this book even by a leader-writer.
In conclusion I cannot do better than quote from Spinoza's _Tractatus
Politicus:_--
"In order that I might inquire better into the matter of this science
with the same freedom of mind with which we are wont to treat lines
and surfaces in mathematics, I determined not to laugh or weep over the
actions of men but simply to understand them, and to contemplate their
affections and passions such as love, hate, anger, envy, arrogance,
pity, and all other disturbances of soul not as vices of human nature,
but as properties pertaining to it in the same way as heat, cold, storm,
thunder pertain to the nature of the atmosphere. For these, though
troublesome, are yet necessary and have certain causes through which
we may come to understand them, and thus by contemplating them in their
truth, gain for our minds as much joy as by the knowledge of things
which are pleasing to the senses."
I think that Isabel Meredith, so far as the outlook of her book extends,
is a disciple of Spinoza. But she can speak for herself.
MORLEY ROBERTS.
CONTENTS
I. A STRANGE CHILDHOOD
II. A GATHERING IN CHISWICK
III. AN ABORTIVE GROUP-MEETING.
IV. A POLICE SCARE
V. TO THE RESCUE
VI. A FOREIGN INVASION
VII. THE OFFICE OF THE _TOCSIN_
VIII. THE DYNAMITARD'S ESCAPE
IX. SOME ANARCHIST PERSONALITIES
X. A FLIGHT
XI. A CRISIS
XII. THE _TOCSIN'S_ LAST TOLL.
CHAPTER I
A STRANGE CHILDHOOD
In the small hours of a bitter January morning I sat in my room gazing
into the fire, and thinking over many things. I was alone in the house,
except for the servants, but this circumstance did not affect me. My
childhood and upbringing had been of no ordinary nature, and I was used
to looking after myself and depending on my own resources for amusement
and occupation.
My mother had died when I was yet a small child and, with my elder
sister and brother, I had grown up under our father's eye. He was a
chemist and a man of advanced ideas on most things. He had never sent us
to school, preferring to watch in person over our education, procuring
for us private tuition in many subjects, and himself instructing us
in physical science and history, his two favourite studies. We rapidly
gained knowledge under his system and were decidedly precocious
children, but we had none of the ordinary school society and routine.
Our childhood was by no means dull or mopish, for there were three of
us and we got on very well together, but we mixed hardly at all with
children of our own age, our interests were not theirs, and their
boisterous ways were somewhat repellent to us.
Our father was a great believer in liberty, and, strange to say, he
put his ideas into practice in his own household. He was a devoted and
enthusiastic student, and for days, nay, weeks together, we would see
but little of him. He had fitted himself up a small laboratory at the
top of our house on which he spent all his available money, and here
he passed nearly all the time he could dispose of over and beyond that
necessary for the preparation and delivery of his scientific lectures.
As we grew out of childhood he made no difference in his mode of life.
He gave us full liberty to follow our various bents, assisting us with
his advice when requested, ever ready to provide the money necessary
for any special studies or books; taking an interest in our readings and
intellectual pursuits. The idea of providing us with suitable society,
of launching us out into the world, of troubling to see that we
conformed to the ordinary conventions of society, never occurred to him.
Occasionally some old friend of his would drop in, or some young admirer
who had followed his scientific work in the press would write asking
permission to call and consult him on some point. They were always
received with cordiality, and my father would take much trouble to be
of any assistance he could to them. We children used generally to
be present on such occasions, and frequently would join in the
conversation, and thus we got to know various people, among whom
foreigners and various types of cranks were fairly in evidence.
We lived in a large old-fashioned house in Fitzroy Square where our
father had settled down somewhere in the seventies soon after his
marriage to a South American Spaniard, whom he had met during a
scientific research expedition in Brazil. She was a girl of seventeen,
his junior by some twenty years. During his journeys into the interior
of Brazil he had fallen seriously ill with malarial fever, and had been
most kindly taken in and nursed by a coffee-planter and his family.
Here he had met his future wife who was acting as governess. She was of
Spanish descent, and combined the passionate enthusiasm of a Southerner
with the independence and self-reliance which life in a new and only
partially civilised country breeds. She was an orphan and penniless, but
our father fell in love with her, attracted doubtless by her beauty and
vivaciousness in such striking contrast with his bookish way of life,
and he married her and brought her home to London. He truly loved her
and was a good husband in all essential respects, but the uncongenial
climate and monotonous life told on her health, and she died three years
after my birth, much mourned by her husband, who plunged all the more
deeply into scientific research, his only other thought being a care for
our education. He had lived on in the same old house which grew somewhat
dingier and shabbier each year, whilst the neighbourhood fell from its
pristine respectability to become the resort of foreigners of somewhat
doubtful character, of Bohemian artists and musicians.
As I sat gazing into the fire many pictures of those old days rose
before me. I saw our large drawing-room with its old-fashioned
furniture, handsome, often beautiful, but ill-kept; its sombre hangings
and fine pictures. I recalled a typical scene there with a large fire
burning cheerily in the big grate, relieving the gloom of a late winter
afternoon with the bright flickering of its flames. Ensconced in a
roomy arm-chair, our father is seated by the fire in a skullcap and list
slippers, with his favourite cat perched on his knee. Opposite him sit
two ladies, the elder of whom--a quaint, nice-looking old lady, dressed
neatly in black, but whose innate eccentricity succeeded in imparting
something odd to the simplest and quietest of attires--is leaning
eagerly forward, pouring forth a long tale of woe into my father's
sympathetic ear. She is denouncing the London roughs, landlords, and
police, who, apparently, are all in league to ruin her and turn her
cats astray upon an unkind world. The brutality of the English poor, who
consider their duty towards the feline race fully performed when they
have fed them, and who pay no more attention to their morals and higher
feelings than if they were stocks and stones, arouses her ire; sympathy
is what she needs, sympathy to help her to face the world and continue
her crusade against cruelty. She says all this in a scattered and
disconnected style, jumping from one point to another, turning
occasionally to her friend for support or confirmation. This friend is
a meek, subdued-looking person of uncertain age, somewhat washed-out
and bedraggled in appearance. Her attire is nondescript, and seems to
consist of oddments bought solely because they were cheap and bearing
no relation whatever one to the other. Mrs. Smuts, growing more and more
absorbed in the course of her harangue on the great cat question, states
that she believes in marrying cats young in life and looking strictly
after their morals; and as she appeals to Miss Meggs whilst voicing this
sentiment, the latter timidly interjects, "But do you think, my dear
Maria, that cats can maintain themselves chaste on a meat diet? I never
give mine anything more exciting than cold potatoes and rice pudding,
and I find that they thrive on it, Mr. Meredith!"
At this point we children, stifling our laughter, rush headlong from the
room, to vent our mirth in safety in the kitchen.
Another frequent visitor whom my imagination summoned from the grave
in which he had lain now for several years past, was a tall, thin,
delicate-looking man of some thirty years of age. He was by birth a
Frenchman, but had lived mostly in England, his parents having come
over as political exiles from the tyranny of Louis Napoleon, afterwards
settling permanently in this country. He was an engineer by profession,
but a poet at heart, and all his spare time and thought he devoted to
tackling the problem of aerial navigation. His day was spent earning a
scanty living in a shipbuilding yard, but his evenings and nights were
passed in constructing a model of a flying-machine. He would bring his
drawings round to our father for discussion and advice; and although he
never attained success, he was always hopeful, trusting that some one
of the ever fresh improvements and additions which his fertile brain
was always busy conceiving would solve the difficulty which had hitherto
beset him. His sallow face with its large dreamy eyes and his spare
figure, clad in an old bluish suit, rusty with age and threadbare with
brushing, stand out clear in my memory. There was also an old professor,
a chemist like my father, who often assisted him in his experiments.
He was somewhat formidable in appearance, wearing gold spectacles, and
helping himself freely to the contents of a snuff-box, but he was one of
the most kind-hearted of men. Children were great favourites with him,
and his affection was returned with interest as soon as the shyness
consequent on his somewhat gruff manner was overcome. He used to enjoy
drawing us out, and would laugh heartily at our somewhat old-fashioned
remarks and observations, at which we used to grow very indignant, for
we were decidedly touchy when our dignity was at stake. He had nicknamed
me Charlotte Corday, for, after a course of Greek and Roman history,
studied in Plutarch and Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," I had plunged
into the French Revolution, glorying in its heroisms and audacity, and
it had become a favourite amusement with all three of us to enact scenes
drawn from its history, and to recite aloud, with great emphasis if
little art, revolutionary poetry. The old professor loved to tease me
by abusing my favourite heroes; and when he had at last roused me to
a vigorous assertion of revolutionary sentiments, he would turn to my
father and say, "There's a little spitfire for you; you will have to
keep a look-out or she will be making bombs soon and blowing us all up,"
at which my father would smile complacently.
Our father was very charitable. He did not like to be bothered or
disturbed, but he would willingly give a little assistance when asked,
and the result was that our door was always besieged by beggars
of various nationalities, Spaniards and Italians forming the chief
contingent. Generally they confined themselves to sending in notes,
which used to be returned with a shilling or half-crown as the case
might be, but sometimes one would insist on a personal interview. I
remember one wild-looking Hungarian, whose flowing locks were crowned
by a sort of horse's sun-bonnet, who used to rush round on one of those
obsolete bicycles, consisting of an enormously high wheel on the top
of which he was perched, and a tiny little back one. He was generally
pursued by a crowd of hooting boys, advising him to "get 'is 'air cut,"
and inquiring, "Where did you get that 'at?" He used to insist on seeing
my father; but the help he solicited was not for himself but for various
political refugees in whom he was interested. One day the professor
happened to meet this wild-looking creature at our door, and inquired
of my father who that maniac might be. "Oh, he is a Hungarian refugee;
a good fellow, I believe. I have noticed something rather odd in his
appearance, but I do not consider him mad," replied his friend.
Amid such surroundings we grew up. My elder sister, Caroline, had a
notable musical gift, and even as a small child had a fine voice, which
developed into a rich contralto. Our father, always anxious to do his
duty by us, gave her a first-rate musical education, sending her abroad
to study under famous Continental teachers, and at eighteen she made
her first appearance in public, exciting much attention by the powerful
dramatic qualities of her voice. It was evident that her right course
was to go in for operatic singing, and this she did. She continued on
the most affectionate terms with her family, but naturally her pursuit
took her into quite another path of life, and we saw less and less of
her as time went on. This threw my brother and myself more together.
There was only a year's difference between us, and we studied together,
walked, talked, played, and read together--in fact, were inseparable.
Raymond was no ordinary boy. In character and in manners he was very
like my father. His favourite study was physical science in its various
branches; mine, history and sociological subjects. He saw things from
the scientific standpoint, I from the poetical and artistic; but we were
both by nature enthusiastic and dreamers, and sympathised heartily with
each other's views. His ambition was to become a famous explorer;
mine, to die on a scaffold or a barricade, shouting Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity.
Our father took a great pride in Raymond, and carefully supervised his
studies. He passed various brilliant examinations, and at eighteen,
having decided to go in for medicine, was already walking a hospital.
Shortly after this our father died suddenly. He was at work as usual in
his laboratory when he was seized by a paralytic stroke, and in three
days he was dead.
This blow quite stunned us for a time. Our father was everything to us;
and the possibility of his death we had never contemplated. Though, as
I have explained, he had always left us free to follow our own devices,
still he was the centre round which our family life circled; we were
passionately attached to him, and now that he was gone we felt at a loss
indeed. We had no relatives living of our father's; our mother's
family we had never known, and they were too distant to be practically
available. Our father's friends were not such as to be of much help to
us. Cat enthusiasts and scientific dreamers are all very well in their
way, but they almost always take far more than they give in the mart of
friendship. The old professor had preceded my father to his grave.
Our father left us comfortably off. The house was our own, and property
yielding a comfortable income was divided equally between us. Our home
seemed desolate indeed without our father, and very gloomily did the
first months of his absence pass; but in time hope and youth reasserted
themselves and we gradually settled down to much our old way of
life. Caroline obtained several engagements and was still studying
enthusiastically. Raymond passed most of his time at the hospital, where
he had rooms, though he frequently came home; I was the only one who had
not a definite occupation. I read a great deal and wrote a little also,
chiefly studies on historical subjects which interested me, but I had
printed nothing. In fact I had never been in the way of the literary
world, and did not know how to set about it. Time used often to hang
rather heavily on my hands in the big house where I was generally alone.
I was the housekeeper, but such cares did not take up much of my time.
The result of so much solitude and lack of occupation was that I became
restless and dissatisfied. Mere reading without any definite object did
not and could not suffice me; to write when there seemed no prospect of
ever being read, and keenly alive as I was to my own deficiencies, did
not attract me; friends I might say I had none, for the few people my
father knew were interested in him and not in us children, and ceased to
frequent our house after his death. Caroline's musical friends did not
appeal to me, so that the whole interest of my life was centred round
my brother. When he came home we used always to be together, and
conversation never flagged. Never having been to school he had none of
the schoolboy's patronising contempt for a sister. We had always been
chums and companions, and so we continued, but whereas, as children,
it was I, with my more passionate and enterprising nature, who took
the lead, now it was he who, mixing with the outer world, provided the
stimulus of new ideas and fresh activities for which I craved. Brought
suddenly face to face, after the studious seclusion of home, with the
hard facts of life as seen in a London hospital, he had begun to take
a deep interest in social questions. The frightful havoc of life and
happiness necessitated by the economic conditions of nineteenth-century
society, impressed him deeply, and he felt that any doctor who looked
upon his profession as other than a mere means to make money must tackle
such problems. Following up this line of thought he became interested
in economics and labour questions. His views were the result of no mere
surface impression, but the logical outcome of thought and study, and he
arrived at socialism by mental processes of his own, uninfluenced by
the ordinary channels of propaganda. I shared his interests and read
on parallel lines. We had no friends in Socialist circles, no personal
interest of any kind balanced our judgment. The whole trend of our
education had been to make independent thinkers of us. What we saw in
the whole problem was a question of justice, and for this we were ready
and anxious to work. A new interest was thus brought into our lives,
which, in my case, soon became all-absorbing. I was always begging my
brother to bring me home fresh books. The driest volumes of political
economy, the most indigestible of philosophical treatises, nothing came
amiss. From these I passed on to more modern works. Raymond had made
friends with a student who was a professed socialist and through him he
came into possession of a number of pamphlets and papers, all of which
I devoured eagerly, and some of which made a lasting impression on my
mind. Krapotkin's "Appeal to the Young" was of this number. I remember
in my enthusiasm reading it aloud to my sister Caroline, who, however,
took scant interest in such matters, and who tried, but in vain, to put
a damper on my enthusiasm.
I was always fond of scribbling, and the outcome of all this reading was
that I, too, flew to pen and paper. I used to read my papers to Raymond
on those rare occasions when I fancied I had not done so much amiss.
They would provide the material for an evening's conversation, then I
would toss them aside and think no more about them. One day, however,
Raymond brought his Socialist friend home with him. It seems they
had talked about me and my all-absorbing interest in social subjects.
Hughes, my brother's friend, had been surprised to hear from Raymond
that I knew no socialists in the flesh, and that all my hero-worship was
laid before the altar of mental abstractions, of my own creation for the
most part.
Great was my excitement when Raymond told me that I might expect him and
his friend, of whom I had heard so much, to turn up together one Sunday
evening. So great was my ignorance of the world, so wild my enthusiasm,
that I imagined every socialist as a hero, willing to throw away
his life at a moment's notice on behalf of the "Cause." I had had no
experience of the petty internal strifes, of the jealousies and human
frailties which a closer knowledge of all political parties reveals. I
remember how ashamed I felt of the quite unostentatious comfort of
our home, how anxious I was to dissemble the presence of servants, how
necessary I thought it to dress myself in my oldest and least becoming
clothes for the occasion, and how indignant I felt when Caroline, who
was going off to sing at a concert that evening, said, on coming in to
wish me good-bye, "Why, surely, Isabel, you're not going to receive that
gentleman looking such a fright as this?" As if a Socialist could care
for dress! How I felt he would despise me for all the outward signs
which proved that I was living on the results of "unearned increment"
(_vide_ Karl Marx) and that I was a mere social parasite!
When at last the longed-for, yet dreaded moment came, I was surprised,
relieved, and I must add somewhat disappointed, at seeing a young man
looking much like any other gentleman, except that he wore a red tie,
and that his clothes were of a looser and easier fit than is usual.
"What a jolly place you have!" he exclaimed after my brother had
introduced us and he had given a look round. I felt considerably
relieved, as I had quite expected him to scowl disapproval, and my
brother, after saying, "Yes, it is a nice old house; we are very fond of
it," suggested that we should adjourn to supper.
During this repast I took an animated part in the conversation, which
turned on recent books and plays. At last reference was made to a book,
"The Ethics of Egoism," which had excited much attention. It was a
work advocating the most rabid individualism, denying the Socialist
standpoint of the right to live, and saying that the best safeguard for
the development and amelioration of the race lay in that relentless law
of nature which sent the mentally and morally weak to the wall. I
had read the book with interest, and had even written a rather long
criticism of it, of which I felt distinctly proud. In the course of the
discussion to which this book gave rise among us, my brother mentioned
that I had written something on it, and Hughes begged me to read my
performance. Though I felt somewhat diffident, I acceded, after some
persuasion, to his request, and was elated beyond measure at earning his
good opinion of my effort.
"By George, that's about the best criticism I've read of the work. Where
do you intend publishing it, Miss Meredith?"
"Oh, I had never thought of publishing it," I replied; "I have never
published anything."
"But we cannot afford to lose such good stuff," he insisted. "Come,
Raymond, now, don't you think your sister ought to get that into print?"
"I think you should publish it, Isabel, if you could," he replied.
"Could! Why any of our papers would be only too delighted to have it.
Let me take it down to the _Democrat_," he said, mentioning the name of
a paper which Raymond often brought home with him.
"Oh, if you really think it worth while, I shall be only too pleased," I
replied.
Thus was effected my first introduction to the actual Socialist
party. My article was printed and I was asked for others. I made the
acquaintance of the editor, who, I must confess, spite of my enthusiasm,
soon struck me as a rather weak-kneed and altogether unadmirable
character. He thought it necessary to get himself up to look like an
artist, though he had not the soul of a counter-jumper, and the result
was long hair, a velvet coat, a red tie, bumptious bearing, and an
altogether scatter-brained and fly-away manner. In figure he was long
and willowy, and reminded me irresistibly of an unhealthy cellar-grown
potato plant. My circle of acquaintances rapidly enlarged, and soon,
instead of having too much time on my hands for reading and study, I
had too little. At one of the Sunday evening lectures of the Democratic
Club, at which I had become a regular attendant, I made the acquaintance
of Nekrovitch, the famous Nihilist, and his wife. I took to him
instinctively, drawn by the utter absence of sham or "side" which
characterised the man. I had never understood why Socialism need imply
the arraying of oneself in a green curtain or a terra-cotta rug, or
the cultivation of flowing locks, blue shirts, and a peculiar cut of
clothes: and the complete absence of all such outward "trade marks"
pleased me in the Russian. He invited me to his house, and I soon became
a constant visitor. In the little Chiswick house I met a class of people
who stimulated me intellectually, and once more aroused my rather waning
enthusiasm for the "Cause." The habit of taking nothing for granted, of
boldly inquiring into the origin of all accepted precepts of morality,
of intellectual speculation unbiassed by prejudice and untrammelled by
all those petty personal and party questions and interests which I had
seen occupy so much time and thought at the Democratic Club, permeated
the intellectual atmosphere. Quite a new side of the problem--that of
its moral bearings and abstract rights as opposed to the merely material
right to daily bread which had first appealed to my sense of justice and
humanity--now opened before me. The right to complete liberty of action,
the conviction that morality is relative and personal and can never
be imposed from without, that men are not responsible, or only very
partially so, for their surroundings, by which their actions are
determined, and that consequently no man has a right to judge his
fellow; such and similar doctrines which I heard frequently upheld,
impressed me deeply. I was morally convinced of their truth, and
consequently more than half an Anarchist. The bold thought and lofty
ideal which made of each man a law unto himself, answerable for his own
actions only to his own conscience, acting righteously towards others as
the result of his feeling of solidarity and not because of any external
compulsion, captivated my mind.
The Anarchists who frequented Nekrovitch's house were men of bold and
original thought, the intellectual part of the movement, and I was never
tired of listening to their arguments. Meantime the more I saw of the
Social Democrats the less I felt satisfied with them. A wider experience
would have told me that all political parties, irrespective of opinion,
are subject to much the same criticism, and that Socialist ideas are
no protection against human weaknesses; but extreme youth is not
compromising where its ideals are concerned, and I expected and insisted
on a certain approach to perfection in my heroes. True, Nekrovitch made
me hesitate some time before taking the final step. His attitude in such
discussions was one of sound common sense, and he never ceased reminding
his Anarchist friends, though all in vain, that we must live in our own
times, and that it is no use trying to forestall human evolution by some
thousand years.
At home I had become more and more my own mistress. I was now full
eighteen years of age, and had always been accustomed to think and
act for myself. Caroline, with whom I was on most affectionate terms,
despite our frequent differences on politics, had accepted an engagement
as _prima donna_ with a travelling opera company which was to visit the
United States and the principal cities of South America; her engagement
was to last two years, and she had left just three weeks before the
opening of my first chapter.
Raymond slept at home, but as the date of his final examination drew
near he was more and more occupied, and frequently whole weeks passed
in which I only caught a glimpse of him. He knew and sympathised with
my new line of thought; he had accompanied me more than once to the
Nekrovitchs', whom he liked much, but he had no longer the time
to devote much thought to such matters. Of money I always had a
considerable command; ever since our father's death I had kept house,
and now that Caroline was away I had full control of the household
purse.
Turning over all these thoughts in my mind as I sat toasting my feet
before the fire, I felt more and more inclined to throw in my lot with
the Anarchists. At the same time I felt that if I did take this step it
must be as a worker and in no half-hearted spirit. The small hours of
the morning were rapidly slipping by as I turned at last into bed to
dream of Anarchist meetings, melting into a confused jumble with the
rights of cats and the claims of the proletariat.