And then our studies. It was our custom at that time to read aloud at least an hour every day to each other. We had then just discovered Bölsche. He introduced us into the halls of nature’s marvels, initiated us into the mysteries of the splendid universe. It often happened that when the reading had brought us a new revelation we would stop and exchange a silent pressure of the hand. XLVIII POLITICAL KALEIDOSCOPE Gumplowicz: father and son · The Italian campaign in Africa · Utterances of King Menelik · The defeat of Adowa · The warlike press · Demonstrations against war · Victory of the peace party · Correspondence with Carneri · From Armenia and Macedonia · Insurrection in Cuba and a sharp proclamation · Professor Röntgen’s discovery · The Anglo-American arbitration treaty · Death of Jules Simon · A letter from Jules Simon. Among the letters preserved from the year 1896 I find an interesting one from Gumplowicz, the professor of philosophy. How I came to correspond with him I do not remember. It is not to be supposed that I could have been drawn to his works in admiration and sympathy, for, together with Gaboriau and Joseph Chamberlain, he is one of the most influential defenders of that vicious race theory on which are based Aryan pride and German and Latin conceit, which are so hateful to my very soul. Probably his son was the occasion of this correspondence. As radical as the father was conservative, he had sent me for my periodical a series of poems, entitled “The Angel of Destruction” (_Der Engel der Vernichtung_), translated by himself in a masterly manner from the “Slave Songs” of the Polish poet, Adam Asnyk. Whether it was this translation or some other publication which had aroused the displeasure of the German authorities, all I knew was that the young singer of freedom was condemned to a long period of imprisonment. When, during my lecture in Prague at the Deutsches Haus, I quoted various poems, I read also some stanzas from “The Angel of Destruction.” I see from an old account of that lecture that I informed the public of the poet’s fate in the following words: