gramme himself; he is not a man of action, only a man of
ideas. It is shameful, some think, to disturb the blissful ignorance of
the man with the hoe, for when the gleam of intelligence shines in his
eye and he is aroused to the knowledge of his degrading position, he is
likely to rebel in the most healthy but brutal manner, so much so that
the aesthetic reformer shrinks back from the consequences of the
propagation of his own ideas. Of course, the brutality of the
proletariat is not nearly so subtle as that of the aristocracy, and it
takes some cleverness to discover that the latter is brutality at all.
It requires time and patience to drive into the thick heads of the
workers that they are downtrodden, and that their oppressors are
worthless parasites. When they finally do awaken to this idea and rebel,
how terribly shocked the world is because these brutes have not the
cleverness or delicacy to be more subtle in their brutalities.

"In your last letter you wrote of the crudeness of most propagandists of
anarchism, naming Anatole France as one of the rare anarchists who
express themselves otherwise than crudely. He rarely or never, you say,
ever mentions the word 'anarchism,' although much of his writing is
calculated to destroy belief in the value of organised society as it now
exists. Don't you think you are perhaps prejudiced too much against
certain words because of their associations? I know that many words are
objectionable to refined, cultured people because they have been so
long associated with the coarse and brutal mob, the working class, as
the socialists would say. But you must remember that anarchism is
intended to appeal to this 'mob' especially; that its doctrines might
not be needed by refined people who ought to have enough sensibility not
to enjoy 'freedom' unless it is shared by the coarse and brutal workers.
Believe me, there is nothing so degrading as poverty. It makes the slave
more slavish and the brute more brutal. It acts like a goad, spurring
people on to do things which make them seem to themselves and others
lower and lower, until they are truly no longer human beings but
animals.

"Therefore it is that the propaganda of anarchism is generally crude. It
is true that much good literature is permeated with the ideals of
anarchism, for instance, Shelley, Whitman, Thoreau, and Emerson. Such
reading is excellent as a means of humanising and making anarchists of
refined people, but how could you