I left the office of the _Bomb_ towards 1 A.M., undecided whether
to weep or to laugh at what I had witnessed there. This, my first
introduction into an English Anarchist circle had certainly not been
very encouraging, but I was too deeply persuaded of the truth and
justice of the Anarchist doctrines to be deterred by such a beginning,
and I did not for one instant waver from my resolve to enter and take
part in the "movement." That some insincere and dishonest men and some
fools should also play their part in it I from the first recognised
as inevitable, but I could not see that this affected the Anarchist
principles or rendered it less necessary for those believing in them
to advocate and spread them. Dr. Armitage accompanied me part of my way
home and we talked the matter over _en route_. "Why trouble ourselves,"
he exclaimed, "about a few unprincipled men in such a wide, such a
universal movement? Our objects and ideals are too far above such
considerations to allow us to be influenced by them. Men like Myers are
but the outcome of unnatural and vitiated conditions; they are produced
by the very society which it is our object to abolish--as all manner
of disease is produced by vitiated air. With better conditions such men
will disappear; nay, the very possibility of their existence will be
gone."
"But in the meantime," I rejoined, "they are surely damaging our Cause,
and scenes like the one we have just witnessed would, if known to the
public, bring our party into ridicule and discredit."
"The Cause is too great and too high to be influenced by such men or
such scenes," answered the doctor with conviction. "Moreover it is our
duty to bring fresh blood and life into the party, so that no place will
be left to renegades of the Myers type."
And in face of Armitage's unswerving faith and optimism my moment of
disgust and perplexity passed, and I felt more than ever determined to
bring my quota of time and strength to the propagation of the Anarchist
ideals. "I have only seen a very limited and narrow circle," I said
to myself; "the field is wide, and I only know one obscure and unclean
corner of it. I cannot judge from this night's experience."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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