are a steadier lot, and take their work more
seriously."

"Do you mean the work of knifing?"

"That, among other things. Knives are very useful in their way; but only
when you have a good, organized propaganda behind them. That is what I
dislike in the other sect. They think a knife can settle all the world's
difficulties; and that's a mistake. It can settle a good many, but not
all."

"Do you honestly believe that it settles any?"

He looked at her in surprise.

"Of course," she went on, "it eliminates, for the moment, the practical
difficulty caused by the presence of a clever spy or objectionable
official; but whether it does not create worse difficulties in place of
the one removed is another question. It seems to me like the parable of
the swept and garnished house and the seven devils. Every assassination
only makes the police more vicious and the people more accustomed to
violence and brutality, and the last state of the community may be worse
than the first."

"What do you think will happen when the revolution comes? Do you suppose
the people won't have to get accustomed to violence then? War is war."

"Yes, but open revolution is another matter. It is one moment in the
people's life, and it is the price we have to pay for all our progress.
No doubt fearful things will happen; they must in every revolution.
But they will be isolated facts--exceptional features of an exceptional
moment. The horrible thing about this promiscuous knifing is that
it becomes a habit. The people get to look upon it as an every-day
occurrence, and their sense of the sacredness of human life gets
blunted. I have not been much in the Romagna, but what little I have
seen of the people has given me the impression that they have got, or
are getting, into a mechanical habit of violence."

"Surely even that is better than a mechanical habit of obedience and
submission."

"I don't think so. All mechanical habits are bad and slavish, and this
one is ferocious as well. Of course, if you look upon the work of the
revolutionist as the mere wresting of certain definite concessions from
the government, then the secret sect and the knife must seem to you the
best weapons, for there is nothing else which all governments so dread.
But if you think, as I do, that to force the government's hand is not an
end in itself, but only a means to an end, and that what we really
need to reform is the relation between man and man, then you must go
diff