labouring class feel that the origin of our society is the root of
injustice, they rebel totally against that society, rejecting the good
with the evil. They passionately believe that the real and radical evil
in our social world is partly kept there by our very justice, by our
very morality, our very religion--kept there not so much by what is
called evil in our society as by what is called good. They see that much
large kindness is prevented by the morality which is expressed in the
idea of private property, that much large virtue is denied by the
institution of marriage, that psychological truth and Christian kindness
at once are not considered by the social court, which looks only to the
law--to the complex, historical law, so often meaningless and unjust to
human feeling, so often based upon special "interests" and ancient
prejudices.

Their situation, as proletarian interpreters of the working class,
enables them to see whatever is true in this view with peculiar
vividness. For, of course, it is to their interest to see this truth;
for truth is only an impassioned statement of our fundamental needs.

The salon was composed of the poor and the criminal, and what kept it
together was the human desire to form a society, the norms of judgment
of which should give value to the individual members--the deep need of
justification.

There were fakirs in the salon, unkind people, unjust people, vicious
people; there were mere "climbers," persons who saw their only chance
for recognition and livelihood in the espousal of anarchistic ideas. But
there were also kind people, relatively just people, and moderate ones,
honest and strenuous with themselves. There were none perfect, as there
are none perfect in any society. We shall see how Terry became disgusted
finally with the anarchists themselves, preferring even insanity and
probable death to them.

And Marie's letters are full of satire of her companions, of the
perception of their weaknesses and inconsistencies. She never embraces
or rejects them so completely as Terry does, for she sees them more
clearly; therefore she sees them more humorously, understands them
better. Her letters teem with "psychological gossip," so to speak, in
which some of her companions seem portrayed with relative truth. One she
wrote me, while I was seeing something in London, of an anarchist named
Nicoll, who was a friend of William Morris and still edits Morris's old
paper, is full of both