I, too, was a socialist and a
revolutionist. I joined the groups of working-class and intellectual
revolutionists, and for the first time came into intellectual living.
Here I found keen-flashing intellects and brilliant wits; for here I
met strong and alert-brained, withal horny-handed, members of the
working-class; unfrocked preachers too wide in their Christianity for
any congregation of Mammon-worshippers; professors broken on the
wheel of university subservience to the ruling class and flung out
because they were quick with knowledge which they strove to apply to
the affairs of mankind.
Here I found, also, warm faith in the human, glowing idealism,
sweetnesses of unselfishness, renunciation, and martyrdom--all the
splendid, stinging things of the spirit. Here life was clean, noble,
and alive. Here life rehabilitated itself, became wonderful and
glorious; and I was glad to be alive. I was in touch with great
souls who exalted flesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and to
whom the thin wail of the starved slum child meant more than all the
pomp and circumstance of commercial expansion and world empire.
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