And in consequence of that, for the first time in our experience we find ourselves really free with regard to the real things of life. We have absolutely not a convention in the place. We do as we please, and we wear what we please. We are free to come and go, where we please and whenever we please. We have each our own rooms or apartments, to which we retire, and it never comes into anyone’s mind to ask what we are doing there. We may work all night and sleep all day, if we feel like it—so little do we bother with each others’ affairs that I have known people to be away for a day or two without being missed. And on the other hand, if we feel like company, we can have it; there is always a group around our wonderful four-sided fireplace in the evening, and you can always find someone willing to play billiards or go for a walk. And as for our intellectual freedom—you should see the sparks scatter when our half-score assorted varieties of “Fabians” and “impossibilists,” “individualists” and “communist-anarchists,” all get together after dinner! There are so many typewriters in Helicon Hall that as you wander about the galleries in the morning you can fancy you hear a distant battle with rapid-firing guns; and the products of the industry vary from discussions of Yogi philosophy and modern psychic research to magazine fiction, woman’s suffrage debates, and Jungle “muck-raking.” And yet all these people share amicably in the ownership of the fireplace and the swimming-pool and the tennis-court; providing thereby a most beautiful illustration of the working out of the formula laid down by Kautsky for the society of the future: “Communism in material production, anarchism in intellectual.” It is working out so beautifully, that the spirit of it has got hold of even our children, and they are holding meetings and deciding things. Of our nine youngsters seven are under six years of age; and last night I attended a meeting of the whole nine, at which a grave question was gravely discussed: “When a child wakes up early in the dormitory, is it proper to wake the other children, or should the child lie still?” After a long debate, Master David (aged five) remarked: “All in favour, please say Aye.” Everybody said “Aye.” The above was written in the middle of December, 1906. On March 16, 1907, at four o’clock in the morning, Helicon Hall was burned to the ground, and forty-six adults and fifteen children were turned out homeless upon the snow. The story of our ill-fated experiment is left to stand as it was first printed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.