"orgie" in the salon--sexual and alcoholic: and
many wild words were spoken and many wild things done. But these same
extreme people were gentle and sensitive, too, and emotionally
interested in ideas. They went to lectures on all sorts of social
subjects, they read good books of literature and crude books on
politics, they grouped together and enjoyed to a certain extent their
communistic ideas. They published their anarchistic newspapers and they
welcomed into their ranks people who otherwise could have attained to no
consolatory philosophy--who would have had no society and no hope. And
they did not do it for the sake of charity--hollow word!--but from a
feeling of fellowship and love. You, reader, who may think ill of
thieves and prostitutes--too ill of them, perhaps: if you can come to
see that social differences are of slight value in comparison with the
great primal things and the universal qualities of human nature, you
will perhaps be better if not more "virtuous" than before, and may be
kinder, less self-righteous, and do far more good, no matter how
"charitable" you are now inclined to be. You have never been able to
arouse the real interest of the proletariat, for the simple reason that
you have never been really interested in them. But you do arouse their
hatred and their contempt. They ought not, of course, to hate and
despise anything, especially anything that means as well as you do. But
they, though they are anarchists, are human, all too human, sometimes,
like the rest of us. Here are some of the ideas of the salon about you,
about us, let me say, as voiced by Terry and Marie. To begin with,
Terry: about our "culture" he writes:

"There is not much doubt about the sapping influence of culture. It
seems that narrowness of range means intensity of emotion. This is seen
in the savage, the child, and uncultivated men as well as other animals.
I might even go farther and say we see it in such titans as Balzac and
Wagner, who seek to compress all the arts into their own particular art.
The mind that finds many outlets generally overflows in dissipation of
energy instead of digging a deep single channel of its own. And yet to
focus our feelings to one point may be a dangerous accomplishment. For
instance, the fulminating fire of Swinburne's radium rhymes, while
harmless to himself, may become dangerous through me or some other
'conductor.' Unfortunately, the inability to foretell the ultimate
effect of any g