Year: 2016

Blazing Star Library

Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Reminiscences of Rev. Wm. Ellery Channing, D.D. (excerpts)

June 5, 2016
Two fragments from Elizabeth Palmer Peabody’s Reminiscences of Rev. Wm. Ellery Channing, D.D. (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1880) [William B. Greene / Transcendentalism / Emerson – pages 364-365] In the last year of Dr. Channing’s life I one day said to him, showing him a passage in his sermon on “Likeness to God,”–“Lieutenant Greene says the whole Transcendental movement in New England is wrapped up in this paragraph”: “The divine attributes are first developed in ourselves, and thence transferred to our Creator. The idea of God, sublime and awful as it is, is the idea of our own spiritual nature, purified […]
Blazing Star Library

Thomas Wentworth Higginson on William Batchelder Greene

June 5, 2016
Two fragments from Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s Cheerful Yesterdays (Boston, 1898) [William B. Greene at Harvard Divinity School – pages 106-107] Two of the most interesting men in the Divinity School were afterward, like myself, in military service during the Civil War. One of them was James Richardson, whom Frothingham described later as “a brilliant wreath of fire-mist, which seemed every moment to be on the point of becoming a star, but never did.” He enlisted as a private soldier and died in hospital, where he had been detailed as nurse. The other had been educated at West Point, and had […]
Blazing Star Library

James Freeman Clarke, Reminiscences of William B. Greene

June 5, 2016
From James Freeman Clarke’s Diary and Correspondence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1891) [Col. William B. Greene’s Army command outside Washington, DC, November, 1861 – pages 278-282] The whole aspect of the city is changed. It is like a city of Europe,–like Berlin, or Vienna, or St. Petersburg,–but with a difference. For this of ours is not a mere standing army, to be wielded blindly in the interests of despotism, but an intelligent army of freemen, come to protect liberty and law. It is the nation itself which has taken up arms, and come to Washington to defend its own life and […]
The Sex Question

Floyd Dell, from “Women as World-Builders” (1913)

May 30, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
CHAPTER V BEATRICE WEBB AND EMMA GOLDMAN THE careers of these two women serve admirably to exhibit the woman’s movement in still, another aspect, and to throw light upon the essential nature of woman’s character. These careers stand in plain contrast. Beatrice Webb has compiled statistics, and Emma Goldman has preached the gospel of freedom. It remains to be shown which is the better and the more characteristically feminine gift to the world. Beatrice Potter was the daughter of a Canadian railway president. Born in 1858, she grew up in a time when revolutionary movements were in the making. She […]
The Sex Question

William C. Owen, “Why Attack Emma Goldman?” (1922)

May 30, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
WHY ATTACK EMMA GOLDMAN? The man is starving, but he may not pluck so much as a turnip to save his life. The wind cuts to the marrow of his bones, but out in the open he must he if he cannot purchase shelter. This is the lot of the modern proletariat reduced to destitution. It is the condition thousands of unemployed and penniless continually must face. This very day, in every ” civilised” country, thousands will have gone without a meal. This very night thousands will shiver on park benches, or huddle themselves into a fitful sleep within some […]
Saint Ravachol

Emile Henry, “Comrades of l’En Dehors” (1892)

May 26, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
COMRADES OF L’EN DEHORS I read in your last number an article from the compagnon Malatesta, entitled “A Little Theory.” Please be so good as to insert these few lines of personal reflections on that subject. The compagnon Malatesta, after having elaborated upon the imminence and the necessity of a violent revolution, and considering the role of the anarchists to contribute to its imminent arrival, said that “any act of propaganda or achievement, by word or by deed, individual or collective, is good when it serves to bring nearer and to facilitate the Revolution… » Then, speaking of acts of revolt […]
The Sex Question

William Marion Reedy, “The Daughter of the Dream” (1908)

May 15, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE DAUGHTER OF THE DREAM. One who reads the newspapers never has the correct idea about anyone the newspapers write about. There’s Emma Goldman, for instance. From the newspapers you would judge her to be an ignorant, vulgar, shrieking harridan, with a bomb in one hand and a bottle of vitriol in the other. What is she, then? Anything but what the papers say. She’s a little woman, somewhat stout, with neatly wavy hair, a clear blue eye, a mouth sensitive if not of classic lines. She is not pretty, but when her face lights up with the glow and […]
poetry

Walt Whitman, “A Woman Waits for Me” (“Poem of Procreation”)

May 15, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Among the references in Emma Goldman’s writings on sex, Walt Whitman is undoubtedly key. His poem, “A Woman Waits for Me,” is referenced at the end of “The Element of Sex in Life.”] A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking. Sex contains all, bodies, souls, Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk, All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth, All the governments, judges, […]
Italian texts

Carlo Pisacane, “Testamento politico” (1857)

May 10, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
TESTAMENTO POLITICO DI CARLO PISACANE Nel momento d’imprendere un’ arrischiata impresa, voglio manifestare al paese le mie opinioni, onde rimbeccare la critica del volgo, corrivo sempre ad applaudire i fortunati e maledire i vinti. I miei principi politici sono abbastanza noti; io credo che il solo socialismo, ma non già i sistemi francesi informati tutti da quell’ idea monarchica e dispotica che predomina nella nazione, ma il socialismo espresso dalla formola: Libertà ed Associazione, sia il solo avvenire non lontano dell’Italia, e forse dell’Europa: questa mia idea l’ho espressa in due volumi, frutti di circa sei anni di studio; non […]
Bakunin Library

Bernard Lazare, “Michel Bakounine” (1895)

May 6, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Quelqu’un qui connut et aima Michel Bakounine, publie aujourd’hui un volume d’œuvres de celui qu’on se plaît encore à appeler le père du Nihilisme (1). Ce volume ne comprend que des fragments et ceux qui le doivent suivre ne contiendront aussi que des opuscules inachevés. On pourrait quand même essayer d’exposer ici la métaphysique de Bakounine et indiquer quelles furent ses conceptions économiques. Il vaut cependant mieux, pour un tel travail, attendre de posséder l’œuvre complète, car il ne siérait pas de commettre les erreurs de jugement ou de fait qui furent commises par ceux qui, précédemment, parlèrent de Bakounine […]