Category: History - European
“_I think I hear a little bird who sings The people by and by will be the stronger: The veriest jade will wince whose harness wrings So much into the raw as quite to wrong her Beyond the rules of posting,—and the mob At last fall sick of imitating Job._”
“_I think I hear a little bird who sings The people by and by will be the stronger: The veriest jade will wince whose harness wrings So much into the raw as quite to wrong her B...
2. CHAPTER I“_Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would we not shatter it to bits, and then Remould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!_”
3. CHAPTER II_“We must arm the camarades, we must never rest from arming the camarades, with stronger and stronger arguments. We must enrich their memories and imaginations with fresh facts...
4. CHAPTER III“_The wonder is that he didn’t take a pair of tongs to hand me my paper. He held it towards me with the tips of his fingers in a horrified fashion, full of bourgeois indignation...
5. CHAPTER IV“_Resist not evil.” “Swear not at all.” “Judge not that ye be not judged.” “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell what thou hast and give to the poor.” “Ye shall know them by the...
6. CHAPTER V“Not songs of loyalty alone are these, But songs of insurrection also, For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel the world over, And he going with me leaves peace and rou...
7. CHAPTER VI“_But this is forcing her to beg, it is condemning the children to death. And I am well, and I am strong, and I am courageous; and they refuse me work. Ah! I am under the ban of...
8. CHAPTER VII“_He rose at five, and read until the work hour. His shop associates, knowing him sincere, generous, incapable of platitude, did not detest him in spite of his unsociable ways._...
9. CHAPTER VIII“_If the spirit of revolt is an essential part of the anarchist mentality, it is not alone in this sort of mentality that it is found. All anarchists are_ révoltés, _but all per...
10. PART II“_The man Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys. Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,...
11. CHAPTER IX“_Humble spot, dingy little court, oh, how charming I find you! Hence will go forth some day the Revolution which shall save us; the age which by chloroform has already suppress...
12. CHAPTER X_“What is love? ‘Tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What’s to come is still unsure: In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty; Yout...
13. Chapter XI“_It took a rugged faith in the future to pass the evenings—without a fire—polishing verses, after having painted all day long interminable registers._”—EMILE GOUDEAU, in Dix An...
14. CHAPTER XII“_Whoever throws himself into the streets of a great city, into the mêlée of rapacities and ambitions, with a pen for a weapon, takes_ ‘La Misère’ _for a flag._”—JEAN RICHEPIN,...
15. CHAPTER XIII“_Tu veux choisir ta mort; Va sache bien mourir sans crainte niaise: La lâcheté, c’est le travail sans pain, Le suicide lent des ruines et des fournaises. Ne tremble pas, sois f...
16. CHAPTER XIV“_‘Lord, my dear,’ returned he, with the utmost good humour, ‘you seem immensely chagrined; but, hang me, when the world laughs at me, I laugh at all the world, and so we are ev...
17. CHAPTER XV“_Whatever scorn, whatever disgrace he may bring upon himself, it is none the less true that the poor and obscure artist is often worth more than the conquerors of the world; an...
18. CHAPTER XVI“_We sang when the English dismembered the kingdom, we sang during the civil war of the Armagnacs, during the ‘Ligue,’ during the Fronde, under the Régence; and it was to the so...
19. Part I. is a query as to what would happen if Jesus Christ should comeback, and introduces a summary of the principal events of his career and a strikingly original appreciation of his personality and character. He is the “man of the beautiful eye...
20. Part III. is the after-thought, what the poet would most wish to havesaid to Jesus Christ if he really had returned and he had been the first to greet him. Necessarily a repetition at many points of Parts I. and II., its excuse is the following d...
21. CHAPTER XVII“_I have intended to rehabilitate the pariah, whatever form it may take; whether it be a buffoon, like Triboulet, a courtesan, like Marion Delorme, a poisoner, like Lucrezia Bor...
22. CHAPTER XVIII“_The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality, His insight and power encircle things of the human race, He is the glory and extract thus far of things and of the hu...
23. Book X. of _Les Blasphèmes_ is entitled “_Dernières Idoles_.” The“_Le Progrès! Oui, grand fou, sous ce titre nouveau C’est toujours Dieu qui vient te hanter le cerveau, C’est toujours la stérile et dangereuse idée Dont ton âme d’enfant fut ja...
24. CHAPTER XIX_The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes But Here or There as strikes the Player goes; And He that tossed you down into the Field, He knows about it all—HE knows—HE knows!_”