THE SOPHISTRIES OF CRIME.
[TO THE EDITOR 01 THE " SPECTLTOR."]
Sin,—There is a passage in R. L. Stevenson's " The Dynamiter" (a book of which the satire has never perhaps received its full due) that I should like to commend to some of our hurlers of invective to-day--gentlemen who speak of the Government "siding with the capitalists" or "butchering peaceful citizens " when protection is given to a non-union man who wishes to work, and ladies who, having broken the law (and the windows), whine at the inevitable consequences. In the last chapter of the book in question Clara Luxmore, the fair Anarchist, having fallen in love, desires to renounce her evil courses, in which laudable desire Prince Florizel,
sometime King of Bohemia and now tobacconist, is willing to assist her. "But," says he, " I would not willinglfput arms into the hands of a disloyal combatant, and I dare not
restore to wealth one of the layers of a barbarous and private war." What guarantee can she give him as to the future P " Clara : will not play at pride with such a man as you. . . .
What shall I say ? I have done much that I cannot defend and that I would not do again. Can I say more? Yes, I can say this : I never abused myself with the muddle•headed fairy tales of politics. I was at least prepared to meet reprisals. When I was levying war myself—or levying murder, if you choose the plainer term—I never accused my adversaries of assassination. I never felt or feigned a righteous horror when a price was put upon my life by those whom I attacked. I never called the policeman a hireling. I may have been a criminal, in short; but I never was a fool.'—The Prince : 'Enough, madam, more than enough ! Your words are most reviving to my spirits ; for in this ago, when even the assassin is a sentimentalist, there is no virtue greater in my eyes thah intellectual clarity.'" —I am, Sir, &o., C. M. HUDSON.
3 Ellerdale Road, Hampstead, N.W.
Previous page
