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 For two or three days before the menses, the girl or woman is apt to feel a particular sensitiveness and nervous excitation, perhaps accompanied by a feeling of fullness in the abdomen. These symptoms are usually relieved at the beginning of the flow.

A healthy woman will not suffer distress from the periods when the proper attitude is assumed toward the condition. Over-emphasis on the part of the mother or other elder, of the supposed distressing nature of the event, has started many a girl off with an exaggerated notion of the ordeal. As a consequence, the anticipated "sick spells," "cramps" and other foreboding experiences have been to some extent realized by the very process of mentally encouraging them and giving them a psychological reality.

As has been stated the function is a perfectly normal one, and while slight nervous and emotional reactions are to be expected, it is well to bear in mind that one should not cultivate them as pet idiosyncrasies. When a woman is aware of just what is happening in the complex structure of her organism, and what nervous and emotional reactions she may expect at this time, she will understand their true significance. A sensible, intelligent attitude on these occasions will do much to avoid periodical moods; which if encouraged by indulgence in them, may act as an incentive to irritation and unpleasantness in the daily life.

Hygiene of Menstruation. While the misconception that menstruation means illness is an old-fashioned idea that should be discarded, it is the part of commonsense to use some judgment in one's activities and mode of life during these periods. Of course, violent exercise at this time is decidedly unwise, but continuing one's usual activities in moderation benefits the circulation, and keeps the mind from


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 Canaan, of which we read in the historical parts of the Word; and from what is said of them too in the prophetical parts of the Word, and finally by the Lord. Hence also it is that few of them are in heaven, for they have received a lot in the other life according to their life. Be not therefore willing to believe that they before others were elected for heaven. Those who so believe do not believe that the life of every one remains; nor believe that man must be prepared for heaven by his whole life in the world, and that this is done of the Lord's mercy,—and that they are not admitted into heaven of mercy alone, howsoever they have lived in the world. To such an opinion of heaven, and of the Lord's mercy the doctrine of faith alone leads, and of salvation by that faith without good works. For they who are in this doctrine are not concerned about the life. Hence they even believe that evils can be wiped away, as filth with water; and thus that a man can be transmitted into the life of good and consequently admitted into heaven in a moment; not knowing that if the life of evil were taken away from the evil they would have nothing of life at all; and that if they who are in the life of evil were admitted into heaven they would feel hell within them, and the more grievous the more interiorly they were in heaven. From all this now it may be seen that the Israelites and Jews were not elected at all, but only accepted to represent the things which are of heaven; and that it was expedient that this should be done in the land of Canaan, because the church of the Lord had been there from the most ancient times, and all places there were therefore become representative of things celestial and Divine. Thus also a Word could be written there wherein the names would signify such things as are of the Lord and of His kingdom. (A. C. n. 7439.)

That the descendants of Jacob were not chosen, but were solicitous that there might be a church with them, appears in many passages of the Word, from its internal historical sense; and plainly in the following: "Jehovah said unto Moses, Go up hence, thou and the people, which thou hast caused to go up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it. . . . I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff-necked people; lest I consume thee in the way. When the people heard this evil word they mourned, and they put every one his adornment from upon him. . . . And Moses took the tent, and stretched it for himself


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 dwelling on the subject of depressing symptoms, or anticipating them.

Congestion of the uterus is intensified by standing, and it is advisable, if possible, for women to sit at least part of the time during menstruation while continuing their regular work.

Exposure to cold, dampness or rain, is to be avoided at this time, as a chill upsets the physiological processes, and may bring about a premature cessation of the flow. When this occurs, it should be re-established, if possible, by a hot foot bath, drinking hot water, and obtaining complete relaxation in a warm bed where rest and perspiration should be helpful in bringing about the desired result.

Always during these periods avoid chilling the body, avoid cold tub baths and swimming, as these experiences are apt to be injurious and may lead to serious results. It is also better to postpone a hot tub bath until the menstrual flow has ceased.

Constipation is another cause of distressful menstruation. If the bowels are not evacuated regularly—that is, daily—the accumulation in the large intestine and rectum will tend to press upon the nerves supplying the generative organs and produce more or less congestion.

From every standpoint of health, the question of bowel regularity is an important one. The habit of using laxatives and purges is an unfortunate one, and makes the condition worse in the end, because the normal peristaltic action of the intestines is weakened.

The treatment for constipation should therefore be a general one, involving attention to diet, exercise and the cultivation of the regular daily habit of evacuating the bowels. The best time for this is immediately after breakfast. The


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64

Thanks manifold and hearty their judgment did receive.

And then these joyous warriors desired to take their leave;—

This did the noble comrades with knightly courtesy.

Bright eyes were then, with weeping, all sad and watery.

She said: “My dearest brother, you still have time to stay,

And woo some other woman, ’twould be the better way.

You would not then endanger your body and your life:

Here might you find, much nearer, as highly-born a wife!”

Her heart, I ween, foreboded what, later, did befall:

As ev’ry word was spoken they fell to weeping all.

The gold upon their bosoms was tarnished with the tears

Which rainéd from their eyelids, by reason of their fears.

Again she spake: “Sir Siegfried, let me commend, I pray,

Unto your truth and kindness, my brother dear alway;—

That no mischance befall him in Queen Brunhilda’s land.”

The gallant here swore it, upon Kriemhilda’s hand.

The mighty thane thus answered: “So long as I shall live,

You, to his safety, lady, no anxious thought need give;

I safe and sound will bring him home to the Rhine;” he said,

“That know now of a surety.” The fair maid bow’d her head.

Their gilded shields were carried straight down unto the shore,

And to the ship was taken of clothing their whole store;

They bade men bring their horses, they hasted to be gone.

Then was by beauteous women much bitter weeping done.


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 habit should be formed early in life, but if neglected at that time, the adolescent may, by diligent attention to this need, acquire regularity.

The diet should contain a sufficient amount of coarse foods, such as whole wheat or graham bread, oatmeal, cornmeal, green vegetables and fresh fruits, to stimulate the activity of the intestines in a normal way. Of the fruits, prunes, figs, dates, apples, oranges, peaches, plums, pears and grapes are especially valuable. Water should be drunk frequently. A glass of cool water about a half-hour before breakfast is particularly effective, in conjunction with the other measures recommended.

The disorders of menstruation, and some other of its peculiarities, will be referred to in Chapter XI, under Sexual Disorders of Women.

The menopause (climacteric), or "change of life," denotes the end of the reproductive period in woman's life. While the principal phenomenon is the permanent cessation of the menstrual flow, there are usually general disturbances, and nervous reactions. It is a period of readjustment in which the organism adapts itself to new conditions in the cycle of life. Among the general symptoms are flushings, also giddiness, headaches, faintness and pains in the back. Probably many of the bad results could be avoided and the inconveniences minimized if a more rational viewpoint prevailed upon the nature of the change.

After all it is a perfectly natural course and if accepted as we should accept any normal course of life, with equanimity, understanding and courage, the process of adjustment would be much easier, and many of the really serious results now


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 ''without the camp, by removing far from the camp; and Moses said unto Jehovah. See, Thou sayest unto me, Cause this people to go up, when Thou hast not made known to me whom Thou wilt send with me. . . . Now, therefore, I pray Thee, if I have found grace in Thine eyes, make known to me, I pray Thee, Thy way, that I may know of Thee, that I have found grace in Thine eyes; and see that this nation is Thy people. He said therefore, My faces shall go until I shall give thee rest" (Exod. xxxiii.). It is here said that Moses caused the people to go up out of the land of Egypt; and afterwards that they laid aside their adornment, and mourned; and that Moses stretched his tent without the camp, and so Jehovah assented; thus clearly, that they themselves were urgent. Again: "Jehovah said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke Me? and how long will they not believe in Me, for all the signs which I have shewed in the midst of them? I will smite them with pestilence, and extinguish them, and will make thee into a greater nation and mightier than they." But Moses supplicated, and Jehovah being entreated said, "I will he propitious according to Thy word; nevertheless I live, and the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah. For as to all these men who have seen My glory, and My miracles, which I did in Egypt, and in the wilderness, and yet have tempted Me these ten times, and have not obeyed My voice, if they shall see the land which I sware unto their fathers, all that have provoked Me shall not see it;. . . in this wilderness shall their carcases fall together;. ., but their children I will bring in"'' (Numb. xiv.). From this also it appears that Jehovah purposed to extinguish them, consequently not to establish a church among them, but that they were urgent, and therefore it was done. (A. C. n. 4290.)

They were urgent that a church should be instituted among them; but this was for no other end than that they might be distinguished above all nations on the whole globe. For beyond others they were in the love of self, and they could not be exalted to eminence over them by other means than that Jehovah, and thus the church also, should be among them; for where Jehovah is, that is the Lord, there is the church. That this was the end is evident from many passages in the Word; as from these words also in this chapter (Exod. xxxiii.): "Moses said, Wherein shall it become known here that I have found favour in Thine eyes, I and Thy people? Is it not in Thy going with us, and our being rendered excellent, I and Thy people, above all the people that are on the faces of the earth? (ver. 16.) (ib. n. 10,535.)


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The reason why that people is called in the Word the people of Jehovah, the chosen and beloved nation, is that by Judah there the celestial church is meant, by Israel the spiritual church, and something of the church by all the sons of Jacob; and by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord Himself also is meant, as well as by Moses, Aaron, and David. (A. C. n. 10,396.)

The character of that nation is such, that above all other nations they adore external things, thus idols; and that they wish to know nothing at all about internal things. For of all nations they are the most avaricious; and avarice such as theirs, by which gold and silver are loved for the sake of gold and silver, and not for the sake of any use, is an affection the most earthly, and draws the mind down entirely into and immerses it in the body, and so closes the interiors that nothing at all of faith and love from heaven can enter. It is therefore plain how much they err who believe that nation will again be chosen, or that the Lord's church will pass again to them, others being rejected,—when yet you shall convert stones to faith in the Lord before them. It is believed the church will pass again to them, because in many places in the prophetical parts of the Word it is said that they are to return; and it is not known that by Judah, by Jacob, and by Israel there, that nation is not meant, but those with whom the church exists. (A. C. n. 8301.)

In Jeremiah it is written: "Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. . . . Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. . . . But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith Jehovah, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it upon their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall he My people" (xxxi. 27, 31, 33). By the coming days here the advent of the Lord is meant; and therefore it is not meant that a new covenant would then be made with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, but with a new church that was to be established by the Lord,—which is meant by the house of Israel and by the house of Judah in whose inward parts the law would be put, and upon whose hearts it would be written. It is well known that this did not take place with the house of,


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VI.]

There, standing, at the windows, was many a lovely child;

A high wind fair was blowing— the ship’s sail soon was fill’d.

The gallant band of heroes on Rhine were floating free;

Then spake the royal Gunther: “Who now shall skipper be?”

“That will I be!” cried Siegfried, “for I can down the flood

Right well and safely steer you, doubt not, ye heroes good;

The proper water-channels, I well do understand.”

Then joyously they parted from the Burgundian land.

Sir Siegfried took a boathook, and stoutly did it grip,

And, leaning on it strongly, from strand he shoved the ship;

The mighty man, King Gunther, did likewise seize an oar,

And soon these worthy heroes had cleared them from the shore.

They carried costly viands, and plenty of good wine,—

The best that had been vintaged upon the banks of Rhine.

Their horses stood right firmly,— they had a well-found stall;—

Their vessel voyaged smoothly; small ill did them befall.

Then they unfurl’d the sailcloths,— the stout sails, strained and tight,—

And twenty miles they sailéd, or ever it was night,

With a good wind to help them down stream, toward the sea.

Their steadfast toil was later those brave ones’ woe to be.

Upon the twelfth day morning, as we have heard men say,

The wind had borne the vessel far distant, and away

Toward Isenstein the fortress, in Queen Brunhilda’s land:

To all of them, save Siegfried, it was an unknown strand.


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66

Now, when the royal Gunther so many towers did see,

And eke so wide a marchland, he spake, all suddenly:

“Tell me, my good friend Siegfried, if it be known to thee,

Whose are these many castles, and this fair land we see?”

Then answered Siegfried: “Truly it is to me well known:

This people and this country doth Queen Brunhilda own,

And Isenstein’s her fortress, as you have heard me say;—

And many comely women you well might see this day.

“I’ll give ye heroes counsel all of one mind to be,—

Agree in all your discourse,— so seemeth best to me,

If we to-day, as may be, before Brunhilda go,

We shall need all our prudence to deal with her, I trow.

“When we behold that fair one, attended by her train,

One speech, and but one only, ye heroes must maintain:

King Gunther is my chieftain, and of his men I’m one;

Thereby what he hath purposed shall all be duly done.”

They ready were to promise whate’er he asked of them;

With all their pride o’erweening none did his word contemn.

They vowed whate’er he wanted: so better did they fare,

What time the royal Gunther beheld Brunhilda fair.

“This not so much for thy sake, I do,” Sir Siegfried said,

“As for love of thy sister,— the ever-beauteous maid!

She’s as my soul unto me, and as my very life;

I’ll gladly do this service, so her I win to wife!”


text: The Lay of the Nibelungs/Chapter 6

title: The Lay of the Nibelungs/Chapter 6


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Rh Moi'-e-ty, the half.

Moil, to labor.

Mo- lim '-i-nous,very important.

Mõly, wild garlic.

Mo-men '-tal, important.

Mon-tan'-ic, relating to a mountain.

Mo-nop'-o- lize, to obtain the whole.

Mor-bif'-ic, causing disease.

Mor-da'-cious, biting.

Mor-dac'-ity, the act of biting.

Mo-rig'-er-ate, to obey.

Mor'-il, a mushroom.

Mor'-phe-us, the god of sleep.

Mor'-sure, a bite.

Mör-tif'-er-ous, fatal.

Motley,mixed.

Mōʻ-vent,moving

Moyle, a mule.

Mulct, to fine.

Mult-an'- gu - lar, having many angles.

Mult-i-lat -er-al, havingmany sides.

Mul-ti-fa'-ri-ous,many kinds.

Mul-tif'- lo -rous, producing many flowers.

Mul -ti-form, having many forms.

Mul-ti-gen'- er-ous, many kinds.

Mul-til -o -quous, very talkative.

Mul-ti-nom '-i-nous,having many names.

Multi-ped, an insect that has many feet.

Mul-tip'-o -tent, having much power.

Mul-tis'-cious, knowing much.

Mul-ti-tu'-din -ous, numerous.

Mul-tiv'-i-ous, having many roads.

Mum '-per, a beggar.

Mun -di-fi-ca’-tion, the act of cleansing.

Mun'-di-fy, to cleanse.

Mū-ni-ty, a right, freedom.


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Phra Pariyattithammathādā (Phǣ Parīan), whilst still being Lūang Prasœ̄tʿaksǭnnit, discovered a manuscript containing this royal chronicle at the house of a private citizen. He then asked for it to be given to the Wachirayān Royal Library on 19 June 2450 BE. Finding it was a royal chronicle distinguished from the other existing versions, the Board of the Royal Library named it the Royal Chronicle: Lūang Prasœ̄t Version to honour the person who discovered it and brought it to the Royal Library.

This royal chronicle contains a preamble declaring that it is a royal document which King Nārāi the Great ordered to be composed on Wednesday, the twelfth waxing-moon day of the fifth month of the Year of the Monkey, Year Two, 1042 LE. Its contents commence with the construction of a Buddha statue, Lord Phanan Chœ̄ng, in the year 686 LE. It is not known at which point of time the contents should end because the manuscript obtained by the Royal Library only consists of a single volume which stops short in the Year of the Dragon, Year Six, 866 LE, during the reign of King Narēsūan, when an army was prepared for attacking the city of ʿAngwa. My speculation is that there might be one more volume, being the second volume, of which the contents would end in the reign of King Prāsātthǭng at most.

The manuscript obtained was written in gamboge ink on a blackened book with the Old Kingdom penmanship. There are traces of rain drops which damped and blurred the writing in many places, 8


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130 with the analogy of that expression in the Psalms, "Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns," (Psalm xxii. 21), and in harmony with the fact that Christ's prayer in the Garden indicates that even his heroic heart had been seized with fear. But the more natural sense is, by reason of his piety; and, in this view, the statement expresses a sound and important idea, and is somewhat parallel to Malachi ii. 5.

It may seem strange that the sacred writer should say of Christ, that "He learned obedience by the things which He suffered." But assuredly, (1.) As his sufferings were themselves obedience—in accordance with the words, "Obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," (Philip. ii. 8), and his own exclamation, "Lo, I come, I delight to do thy will, God, yea, thy law is within my heart," (Psalm xl. 8; Heb. x. 5-10)—so, in suffering, He was conscious of obeying, and experimentally realized obedience; and, (2.) Although Christ "did no sin," He was, in his human spirit, finite, and as, in early life He "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man," (Luke ii. 52), so He was, afterwards, susceptible of new impressions, and capable of fresh attainments, in so far as his human nature was concerned, and may, therefore, by suffering, have acquired more distinct, and vivid, and comprehensive views of the nature, the obligation, the importance, and the means of obedience to his Father's will. O how desirable that, as suffering led to such practical results in Christ's case, it should lead to similar results in ours! Many and precious are the lessons respecting the laws of God, and the duty of men, to be learned in the school of affliction.

In his humanity, as in his Divinity, Christ was, in

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In the Conversations of S. T. Coleridge, that eminent, though not always judicious, thinker is represented as suggesting that, on the supposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews not being the production of St. Paul, the weight of the Christian testimony would be enhanced instead of lessened. Without denying that this idea is a somewhat doubtful one, I certainly hold that the Canonical authority of that Epistle does not altogether depend on the question, Whether or not it was written by St. Paul. There are several Books of the Old Testament the human authority of which is a matter uncertain and unknown — while yet their Canonical authority and Divine inspiration are explicitly determined by apostolic testimony and, indeed, by that of Christ himself. This kind of evidence is awanting in the case of the Epistle to the Hebrews. But, independently of the question as to St. Paul's having written it, — its strict and pervading accordance with unquestionably apostolic writings, its intellectual and moral majesty, its vast and manifest superiority to the uninspired remains of Christian antiquity, and the early,

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vi general, and ultimately catholic, acceptance and recognition of it in the Church as Canonical Scripture, are quite sufficient to determine its right to be received as a Divinely authoritative Book.

The last of these considerations, however, is intimately associated with the question as to the Pauline authorship of the Epistle. And on that interesting question, thus the matter stands: — Although for four hundred years after it was written it was not received by the Roman Church as the composition of St. Paul, yet, during that time, in the Churches for which it seems to have been more immediately intended, and, indeed, in all the Churches of the world except the Latin, it was acknowledged as the production of that apostle; its Pauline authorship ultimately became acknowledged by the Latin Church itself; as in respect of doctrine, so also in respect of phraseology and style — as is shown by Spanheim, and by Owen in his First Exercitation on the Epistle — there is a remarkably striking resemblance in this production to the usual composition of St. Paul; the references, in the Epistle, to Italy, to Timothy, and to the author's imprisonment, point in the same direction; and the frequent, and even pervading, peculiarity of style — which was early alleged as a reason for calling in question its Pauline authorship — may be accounted for by these three considerations — (1.) That, though called an Epistle, this production is obviously of the nature of a Treatise; (2.) That as it was probably to Hebrews residing in Palestine, that it was

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Rh originally addressed, St. Paul may have modified his style accordingly; and (3.) That on the style of St. Paal, as on that of other authors, a considerable change may have passed in the course of an interval of years.

Although, in the present Commentary, I have refrained from dogmatically speaking of St. Paul as the human author of the Epistle, I hold the evidence now so slightly glanced at amply sufficient to prove that it is the production of that great apostle. The question is discussed, with admirable learning, comprehensiveness, and candour, by the late Moses Stuart of Andover, in the Introduction to his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. I agree with the same erudite author in holding that several references in the Epistle itself go far to establish, that it was addressed to Jews residing in Palestine while the service of the Temple was still observed.

It is in accordance with the suggestion of friends, and at the solicitation of an intelligent and esteemed member of my Congregation — who has interested himself in the matter to an extent which calls for my warm acknowledgements — that I have consented to publish on this noble Book of the New Testament. I recently lectured on it in the course of my ordinary ministrations; and the Commentary which I now permit to see the light is, to a great extent, the substance of what was addressed, from week to week, to my own flock. Into the printed work, however, I have considered it reasonable and right to introduce a few short

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text: Third Anniversary of the Russian October Revolution


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viii critical discussions which would have been out of place in the Pulpit.

With the present unworthy attempt to expound and apply a rich and precious portion of God's word may He himself vouchsafe his enlightening and sanctifying grace.

A. S. P.

27th February, 1866.

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114 inspired by his eagerness to be completely eligible A good fraternity would put the seal of aristoi racy on him; it would mean everything to the “ol lady.”

For the first three nights of the rushing seaso the fraternities held open house for all freshmei but during the last three nights no freshman W2 supposed to enter a fraternity house unless invitee

The first three nights found the freshmen trave ing in scared groups from fraternity house to fr: ternity house, sticking close together unless rathe vigorously pried apart by their hosts. Everybod was introduced to everybody else; everybody trie rather hopelessly to make conversation, and near] everybody smoked too much, partly because the were nervous and partly because the “smokes” wei free.

It was the last three nights that counted. Bot Hugh and Carl received invitations from most <f the fraternities, and they stuck together, religious! visiting them all. Hugh hoped that they woul “make” the same fraternity and that that frate nity would be Nu Delta. They were together .4 consistently during the rushing period that tlj| story went around the campus that Carver and P ters were “going the same way,” and that Carv<‘ had said that he would n’t accept a bid from arj fraternity unless it asked Peters, too.

Hugh heard the story and could n’t understar


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Rh )urse in sociology, and some of the things that rof Davis has been telling us make you wonder hy the world goes on at all. Some poet has a ne somewhere about man’s inhumanity to man, nd I find myself thinking about that all the time, 'he world’s rotten as hell, and I don’t see how lything can be done about it. I don’t think somemes that it’s worth living in. I can understand hy people commit suicide.” He spoke softly, gaz;g into the fire.

Hugh had given him rapt attention. Suddenly e spoke up, forgetting his resolve not to say anyling more after Ferguson had called him “inno:nt.” “I think you ’re wrong, Mel,” he said posively. “I was reading a book the other day called ^avengro.’ It’s all about Gipsies. Well, this dlow Lavengro was all busted up and depressed; z’s just about made up his mind to commit suicide hen he meets a friend of his, a Gipsy. He tells le Gipsy that he’s going to bump himself off, that e does n’t see anything in life to live for. Then le Gipsy answers him. Gee, it hit me square in ?e eye, and I memorized it on the spot. I think can say it. He says: ‘There’s night and day, rother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, rother, all sweet things; there’s likewise a wind on ie heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would ish to die?’ I think that’s beautiful,” he added mply, “and I think it’s true, too.”


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Rh Hugh loved those nights: the shadows of the
 * 1ms, the soft spring moonlight, the twanging banos, the happy singing. He would never, so long

is he lived, hear “Rosie O’Grady” without surrenlering to a tender, sentimental mood; that song vould always mean the campus and singing youth. Suddenly examinations threw their baleful influ:nce over the campus again. Once more the ex:itement, but not so great this time, the cramming, he rumors of examinations “getting out,” the semnars, the tutoring sections, the nervousness, the ear.

Hugh, however, was surer of himself than he lad been the first term, and although he had no •eason to be proud of the grades he received, he vas not particularly ashamed of them.

He and Carl left the same day but by different rains. They had agreed to room together again n Surrey 19; so they didn’t feel that the parting or the summer was very important.

“You ’ll write, won’t you, old man?”

“Sure, Hugh—surest thing you know. Say, it lon’t seem possible that our freshman year’s over lready. Why, hell, Hugh, we ’re sophomores.”

“So we are! What do you know about that?” iugh’s eyes shone. “Gosh!”

Carl looked at his watch. “Hell, I’ve got to seat it.” He picked up his suit-case, dropped it, hook hands vigorously with Hugh, snatched up his


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 after the Chemnitz conference, and entirely reversed matters, we should have entered upon a fight which would have brought us decisive retreat with the result that all question as to the possibility of a victory of the proletariat would have been impossible for many years to come. I personally assume all responsibility for the retreat. I go further: in a similar situation I would have behaved in exactly the same way. We consulted with the Executive. We believed that we could make Central Germany a marching off place, that from defence we could pass to attack, and thence to the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Executive in September gave its complete consent to this plan. The plan was correct, but in estimating the relation of forces, we—the Executive Committee of the Communist International and the Central Committee of the German Communist Party alike—made a mistake. We chose the easiest path for the victory of the revolution. The victory, however, is somewhat more difficult. What was the estimate of the relation of forces on the basis of which we chose this relatively easiest path? In order to make this clear, I must deal with the events which took place during the occupation of the Ruhr.

The Leipsic Party Congress coincided with the beginning of the Ruhr occupation. It was clear to us that the occupation of the Ruhr would be of decisive importance for the development of events in Germany and for the German revolution.

( and : But nothing was said about it.)

This question was clearly dealt with by us in the manifesto and by Comrade Zetkin in her report.

(R. Fischer: At the public meeting.)

The manifesto was adopted unanimously at the Party Congress. It was therefore not at the public meeting; it was the expression of opinion of the Party Congress, and in fact this point of view was documented at the ceremonial session.

We defined our attitude on this matter in the political report also. In this report I stated that we could not foresee whether we should remain long in the trough of the revolutionary wave in which we then were, or whether the occupation of the Ruhr would bring us on to a new rising revolutionary wave. There was not one among you then who was wiser than I, and who could have declared that we were certainly going to rise on a revolutionary wave. And in the theses, which were adopted by the majority, I declared that we must be prepared for both possibilities. The Party policy was carried on on the basis of this decision of the Leipsic Party Congress. What was this policy? It was that we could at first mobilise the masses against the Ruhr occupation only with difficulty. We could not get them to rise against the occupation. They were not moved by the broad national tumult; only the petty-bourgeoisie was to any extent nationalist and nationally aroused. We had, before attempting to create a movement, to grope for what would arouse the masses and make them


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states of Syracuse and Ephesus being at variance, there was a cruel law made at Ephesus, ordaining that if any merchant of Syracuse was seen in the city of Ephesus, he was to be put to death, unless he could pay a thousand marks for the ransom of his life.

Ægeon, an old merchant of Syracuse, was discovered in the streets of Ephesus, and brought before the duke, either to pay this heavy fine, or to receive sentence of death.

Ægeon had no money to pay the fine, and the duke, before he pronounced the sentence of death upon him, desired him to relate the history of his life, and to tell for what cause he had ventured to come to the city of Ephesus, which it was death for any Syracusan merchant to enter.

Ægeon said, that he did not fear to die, for sorrow had made him weary of his life, but that a heavier task could not have been imposed upon him than to relate the events of his unfortunate life. He then began his own history, in the following words:

"I was born at Syracuse, and brought up to the profession of a merchant. I married a lady, with whom I lived very happily, but being obliged to go to Epidamnum, I was detained there by my business six months, and then, finding I should be obliged to stay some time longer, I sent for my wife, who, as soon as she arrived, was brought to bed of two sons, and what was very strange, they were both so exactly alike, that it was impossible to distinguish the one from the other. At the same time that my


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 but the remaining strokes make most of the indistinct parts legible still. The Board of the Royal Library had the Royal Chronicle: Lūang Prasœ̄t Version published for the first time in 126 RE, the year it was obtained. Later in this Year of the Ox, Year Five, 2456 BE, the Royal Library obtained a two-volume manuscript containing the same royal chronicle as the Lūang Prasœ̄t Version, being a royal document of the King of Thonburī written on Thai folding books in the Year of the Horse, Year Six, 2317 BE. This brought delight to me as I was expecting to get the complete contents of this royal chronicle. But when the two versions were compared together, it appeared that the royal document of the King of Thonburī is a copy of this Lūang Prasœ̄t manuscript itself because in the end it stops short with the very same words as the Lūang Prasœ̄t Version. So it became known that this Royal Chronicle: Lūang Prasœ̄t Version had been like this since the time of Thonburī, ruining my hope to find further contents of its. Yet, the obtained manuscript of the King of Thonburī affords one benefit: it offers in full the parts which, in the Lūang Prasœ̄tʿaksǭnnit’s manuscript, have become indistinct.

Although the information stated in the Royal Chronicle: Lūang Prasœ̄t Version is in an abridged style, the chronicle contains a great many accounts not found in the other royal chronicles and, importantly, the dates and times in it are accurate and its chronology is more reliable than the other royal chronicles. Thus, the Royal Chronicle: Lūang Prasœ̄t Version serves as one of the main sources for verifying royal chronicles.

3em


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 wife was brought to bed of these twin boys, a poor woman in the inn where my wife lodged was brought to bed of two sons, and these twins were as much like each other as my two sons were. The parents of these children being exceeding poor, I bought the two boys, and brought them up to attend upon my sons.

"My sons were very fine children, and my wife was not a little proud of two such boys: and she daily wishing to return home, I unwillingly agreed, and in an evil hour we got on shipboard; for we had not sailed above a league from Epidamnum before a dreadful storm arose, which continued with such violence, that the sailors seeing no chance of saving the ship, crowded into the boat to save their own lives, leaving us alone in the ship, which we every moment expected would be destroyed by the fury of the storm.

"The incessant weeping of my wife, and the piteous complaints of the pretty babes, who, not knowing what to fear, wept for fashion, because they saw their mother weep, filled me with terror for them, though I did not for myself fear death; and all my thoughts were bent to contrive means for their safety. I tied my youngest son to the end of a small spare mast, such as seafaring men provide against storms; at the other end I bound the youngest of the twin slaves, and at the same time I directed my wife how to fasten the other children in like manner to another mast. She thus having the care of the two eldest children, and I of the two younger, we bound ourselves separately to these masts with the children; and but for this contrivance we had all been lost, for the ship split on a mighty rock, and was dashed in pieces; and we, clinging to these slender masts, were supported above the water, where I, having the care of two children, was unable


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 “human element” commands a wider audience than does the sheer artistic nightmare. If not quite so potent as the latter, it is because a diluted product can never achieve the intensity of a concentrated essence.

Quite alone both as a novel and as a piece of terror-literature stands the famous Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily BronteBrontë [sic], with its mad vista of bleak, windswept Yorkshire moors and the violent, distorted lives they foster. Though primarily a tale of life, and of human passions in agony and conflict, its epically cosmic setting affords room for horror of the most spiritual sort. Heathcliff, the modified Byronic villain-hero, is a strange dark waif found in the streets as a small child and speaking only a strange gibberish till adopted by the family he ultimately ruins. That he is in truth a diabolic spirit rather than a human being is more than once suggested, and the unreal is further approached in the experience of the visitor who encounters a plaintive child-ghost at a bough-brushed upper window. Between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw is a tie deeper and more terrible than human love. After her death he twice disturbs her grave, and is haunted by an impalpable presence which can be nothing less than her spirit. The spirit enters his life more and more, and at last he becomes confident of some imminent mystical reunion. He says he feels a strange change approaching, and ceases to take nourishment. At night he either walks abroad or opens the casement by his bed. When he dies the casement is still swinging open to the pouring rain, and a queer smile pervades the stiffened face. They bury him in a grave beside the mound he has haunted for eighteen years, and small shepherd boys say that he yet walks with his Catherine in the churchyard and on the moor when it rains. Their faces, too, are sometimes seen on rainy nights behind that upper casement at Wuthering Heights. Miss BronteBrontë [sic]’s eerie terror is no mere Gothic echo, but a tense expression of man’s shuddering reaction to the unknown. In this respect, Wuthering Heights becomes the symbol of a literary transition, and marks the growth of a new and sounder school.

On the continent literary horror fared well. The celebrated short tales and novels of Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann (1776–1822) are a byword for mellowness of background and maturity of form, though they incline to levity and extravagance, and lack the exalted moments of stark, breathless terror which a less sophisticated writer might have achieved. Generally they convey the grotesque rather than the terrible. Adalbert von Chamisso, in his famous Peter Schlemihl, (1814) tells of a man who lost his own shadow as the consequence of a misdeed, and of the strange developments that resulted. Most artistic, however, of all the continental weird tales, is the German classic Undine, (1814) by Friedrich Heinrich Karl, Baron de la Motte FouqueFouqué [sic]. In this story of a water-spirit who married a mortal and gained a human soul there is a delicate fineness of craftsmanship which makes it notable in any department of literature, and an easy naturalness which places it close to the genuine folk-myth. It is, in fact, derived from a tale told by the Renaissance physician and alchemist Paracelsus in his Treatise On Elemental Sprites.

Undine, daughter of a powerful water-prince, was exchanged by her father as a small child for a fisherman’s daughter, in order that she might acquire a soul by wedding a human being. Meeting the noble youth Huldbrand at the cottage of her foster-father by the sea at the edge of a haunted wood, she soon marries him, and accompanies him to his ancestral castle of Ringstetten. Huldbrand, however, eventually wearies of his wife’s supernatural affiliations, and especially of the appearances of her uncle, the malicious woodland waterfall-spirit Kuhleborn; a weariness increased by his growing affection for Bertalda, who turns out to be the fisherman’s child for whom Undine was exchanged. At length, on a voyage down the Danube, he is provoked by some innocent act of his devoted wife to utter the angry words which consign her back to her supernatural element; from which she can, by the laws of her species, return only once—to kill him, whether she will or no, if ever he prove

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 to assist my wife, who with the other children was soon separated from me; but while they were yet in my sight, they were taken up by a boat of fishermen, from Corinth (as I supposed), and seeing them in safety, I had no care but to struggle with the wild sea-waves, to preserve my dear son and the youngest slave. At length we, in our turn, were taken up by a ship, and the sailors, knowing me, gave us kind welcome and assistance, and landed us in safety at Syracuse; but from that sad hour I have never known what became of my wife and eldest child.

"My youngest son, and now my only care, when he was eighteen years of age, began to be inquisitive after his mother and his brother, and often importuned me that he might take his attendant, the young slave, who had also lost his brother, and go in search of them: at length I unwillingly gave consent, for though I anxiously desired to hear tidings of my wife and eldest son, yet in sending my younger one to find them, I hazarded the loss of them also. It is now seven years since my son left me; five years have I passed in travelling through the world in search of him: I have been in farthest Greece, and through the bounds of Asia, and coasting homewards, I landed here in Ephesus, being unwilling to leave any place unsought that harbours men; but this day must end the story of my life, and happy should I think myself in my death, if I were assured my wife and sons were living."

Here the hapless Ægeon ended the account of his misfortunes; and the duke, pitying this unfortunate father, who had brought upon himself this great peril by his love for his lost son, said, if it were not against the laws, which his oath and dignity did not permit him to alter, he would freely pardon him; yet, instead of dooming him to instant death, as the strict letter of the law required, he would give him that


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 day to try if he could beg or borrow the money to pay the fine.

This day of grace did seem no great favour to Ægeon, for not knowing any man in Ephesus, there seemed to him but little chance that any stranger would lend or give him a thousand marks to pay the fine; and helpless and hopeless of any relief, he retired from the presence of the duke in the custody of a jailor.

Ægeon supposed he knew no person in Ephesus; but at the very time he was in danger of losing his life through the careful search he was making after his youngest son, that son and his eldest son also were both in the city of Ephesus.

Ægeon's sons, besides being exactly alike in face and person, were both named alike, being both called Antipholus, and the two twin slaves were also both named Dromio. Ægeon's youngest son, Antipholus of Syracuse, he whom the old man had come to Ephesus to seek, happened to arrive at Ephesus with his slave Dromio that very same day that Ægeon did; and he being also a merchant of Syracuse, he would have been in the same danger that his father was, but by good fortune he met a friend who told him the peril an old merchant of Syracuse was in, and advised him to pass for a merchant of Epidamnum; this Antipholus agreed to do, and he was sorry to hear one of his own countrymen was in this danger, but he little thought this old merchant was his own father.

The eldest son of Ægeon (who must be called Antipholus of Ephesus, to distinguish him from his brother Antipholus of Syracuse) had lived at Ephesus twenty years, and, being a rich man, was well able to have paid the money for the ransom of his father's life; but Antipholus knew nothing of his father, being so young when he was taken out of the sea


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 with his mother by the fishermen that he only remembered he had been so preserved, but he had no recollection of either his father or his mother; the fishermen who took up this Antipholus and his mother and the young slave Dromio, having carried the two children away from her (to the great grief of that unhappy lady), intending to sell them.

Antipholus and Dromio were sold by them to duke Menaphon, a famous warrior, who was uncle to the duke of Ephesus, and he carried the boys to Ephesus when he went to visit the duke his nephew.

The duke of Ephesus taking a liking to young Antipholus, when he grew up, made him an officer in his army, in which he distinguished himself by his great bravery in the wars, where he saved the life of his patron the duke, who rewarded his merit by marrying him to Adriana, a rich lady of Ephesus; with whom he was living (his slave Dromio still attending him) at the time his father came there.

Antipholus of Syracuse, when he parted with his friend, who advised him to say he came from Epidamnum, gave his slave Dromio some money to carry to the inn where he intended to dine, and in the mean time he said he would walk about and view the city, and observe the manners of the people.

Dromio was a pleasant fellow, and when Antipholus was dull and melancholy he used to divert himself with the odd humours and merry jests of his slave, so that the freedoms of speech he allowed in Dromio were greater than is usual between masters and their servants.

When Antipholus of Syracuse had sent Dromio away, he stood awhile thinking over his solitary wanderings in search of his mother and his brother, of whom in no place where he landed could he hear the least tidings; and he said sorrowfully to himself. "I am like a drop of water in the ocean, which


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 seeking to find its fellow drop, loses itself in the wide sea. So I unhappily, to find a mother and a brother, do lose myself"

While he was thus meditating on his weary travels, which had hitherto been so useless, Dromio (as he thought) returned. Antipholus, wondering that he came back so soon, asked him where he had left the money. Now it was not his own Dromio, but the twin brother that lived with Antipholus of Ephesus, that he spoke to. The two Dromios and the two Antipholuses were still as much alike as Ægeon had said they were in their infancy; therefore no wonder Antipholus thought it was his own slave returned, and asked him why he came back so soon. Dromio replied: "My mistress sent me to bid you come to dinner. The capon burns, and the pig falls from the spit, and the meat will be all cold if you do not come home." "These jests are out of season," said Antipholus: "where did you leave the money?" Dromio still answering, that his mistress had sent him to fetch Antipholus to dinner: "What mistress?" said Antipholus. "Why, your worship's wife, sir," replied Dromio. Antipholus having no wife, he was very angry with Dromio, and said: "Because I familiarly sometimes chat with you, you presume to jest with me in this free manner. I am not in a sportive humour now: where is the money? we being strangers here, how dare you trust so great a charge from your own custody?" Dromio hearing his master, as he thought him, talk of their being strangers supposing Antipholus was jesting, replied merrily: "I pray you, sir, jest as you sit at dinner. I had no charge but to fetch you home, to dine with my mistress and her sister." Now Antipholus lost all patience, and beat Dromio, who ran home, and told his mistress that his master had refused to come to dinner, and said that he had no wife.


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 Adriana, the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, was very angry when she heard that her husband said he had no wife; for she was of a jealous temper, and she said her husband meant that he loved another lady better than herself; and she began to fret, and say unkind words of jealousy and reproach of her husband; and her sister Luciana, who lived with her, tried in vain to persuade her out of her groundless suspicions.

Antipholus of Syracuse went to the inn, and found Dromio with the money in safety there, and seeing his own Dromio, he was going again to chide him for his free jests, when Adriana came up to him, and not doubting but it was her husband she saw, she began to reproach him for looking strange upon her (as well he might, never having seen this angry lady before); and then she told him how well he loved her before they were married, and that now he loved some other lady instead of her. "How comes it now, my husband," said she, "O how comes it that I have lost your love?"—"Plead you to me, fair dame?" said the astonished Antipholus. It was in vain he told her he was not her husband, and that he had been in Ephesus but two hours; she insisted on his going home with her, and Antipholus at last, being unable to get away, went with her to his brother's house, and dined with Adriana and her sister, the one calling him husband, and the other brother, he, all amazed, thinking he must have been married to her in his sleep, or that he was sleeping now. And Dromio, who followed them, was no less surprised, for the cook-maid, who was his brother's wife, also claimed him for her husband.

While Antipholus of Syracuse was dining with his brother's wife, his brother, the real husband, returned home to dinner with his slave Dromio; but the servants would not open the door, because


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 their mistress had ordered them not to admit any company; and when they repeatedly knocked, and said they were Antipholus and Dromio, the maids laughed at them, and said that Antipholus was at dinner with their mistress, and Dromio was in the kitchen; and though they almost knocked the door down, they could not gain admittance, and at last Antipholus went away very angry, and strangely surprised at hearing a gentleman was dining with his wife.

When Antipholus of Syracuse had finished his dinner, he was so perplexed at the lady's still persisting in calling him husband, and at hearing that Dromio had also been claimed by the cook-maid, that he left the house, as soon as he could find any pretence to get away; for though he was very much pleased with Luciana, the sister, yet the jealous-tempered Adriana he disliked very much, nor was Dromio at all better satisfied with his fair wife in the kitchen; therefore both master and man were glad to get away from their new wives as fast as they could.

The moment Antipholus of Syracuse had left the house, he was met by a goldsmith, who mistaking him, as Adriana had done, for Antipholus of Ephesus, gave him a gold chain, calling him by his name; and when Antipholus would have refused the chain, saying it did not belong to him, the goldsmith replied he made it by his own orders; and went away, leaving the chain in the hands of Antipholus, who ordered his man Dromio to get his things on board a ship, not choosing to stay in a place any longer, where he met with such strange adventures that he surely thought himself bewitched.

The goldsmith who had given the chain to the wrong Antipholus, was arrested immediately after for a sum of money he owed; and Antipholus, the


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 married brother, to whom the goldsmith thought he had given the chain, happened to come to the place where the officer was arresting the goldsmith, who, when he saw Antipholus, asked him to pay for the gold chain he had just delivered to him, the price amounting to nearly the same sum as that for which he had been arrested. Antipholus denying the having received the chain, and the goldsmith persisting to declare that he had but a few minutes before given it to him, they disputed this matter a long time, both thinking they were right: for Antipholus knew the goldsmith never gave him the chain, and so like were the two brothers, the goldsmith was as certain he had delivered the chain into his hands, till at last the officer took the goldsmith away to prison for the debt he owed, and at the same time the goldsmith made the officer arrest Antipholus for the price of the chain; so that at the conclusion of their dispute, Antipholus and the merchant were both taken away to prison together.

As Antipholus was going to prison, he met Dromio of Syracuse, his brother's slave, and mistaking him for his own, he ordered him to go to Adriana his wife, and tell her to send the money for which he was arrested. Dromio wondering that his master should send him back to the strange house where he dined, and from which he had just before been in such haste to depart, did not dare to reply, though he came to tell his master the ship was ready to sail: for he saw Antipholus was in no humour to be jested with. Therefore he went away, grumbling within himself, that he must return to Adriana's house, "Where," said he, "Dowsabel claims me for a husband: but I must go, for servants must obey their masters' commands."

Adriana gave him the money, and as Dromio was returning, he met Antipholus of Syracuse, who was


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ON THE

CHAPTERI.

1. God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 2. Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.

Thus nobly commences the Epistle to the Hebrews. The comprehensive statement of these verses may be resolved into three specific propositions.

I. "God," says the sacred writer, "at sundry times," or rather, in many parts, "spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets."

"God spake." He to whom all truth and knowledge appertain — He who embraces in the range of his unerring vision whatever has been, is, or yet shall be — He "whose faithfulness is in the heavens, and whose truth reacheth to the clouds" — having constituted man, from the beginning, an intellectual, moral, and responsible being, addressed him, as in later, so in earlier ages, on matters of transcendent interest. As, in the days of innocence. He aided man's pure and unperverted reason by express revelations of his mind

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 to her memory. Later, when Huldbrand is about to be married to Bertalda, Undine returns for her sad duty, and bears his life away in tears. When he is buried among his fathers in the village churchyard a veiled, snow-white female figure appears among the mourners, but after the prayer is seen no more. In her place is a little silver spring, which murmurs its way almost completely around the new grave, and empties into a neighbouring lake. The villagers show it to this day, and say that Undine and her Huldbrand are thus united in death. Many passages and atmospheric touches in this tale reveal FouqueFouqué [sic] as an accomplished artist in the field of the macabre; especially the descriptions of the haunted wood with its gigantic snow-white man and various unnamed terrors, which occur early in the narrative.

Not so well known as Undine, but remarkable for its convincing realism and freedom from Gothic stock devices, is the Amber Witch of Wilhelm Meinhold, another product of the German fantastic genius of the earlier nineteenth century. This tale, which is laid in the time of the Thirty Years’ War, purports to be a clergyman’s manuscript found in an old church at Coserow, and centres round the writer’s daughter, Maria Schweidler, who is wrongly accused of witchcraft. She has found a deposit of amber which she keeps secret for various reasons, and the unexplained wealth obtained from this lends colour to the accusation; an accusation instigated by the malice of the wolf-hunting nobleman Wittich Appelmann, who has vainly pursued her with ignoble designs. The deeds of a real witch, who afterward comes to a horrible supernatural end in prison, are glibly imputed to the hapless Maria; and after a typical witchcraft trial with forced confessions under torture she is about to be burned at the stake when saved just in time by her lover, a noble youth from a neighbouring district. Meinhold’s great strength is in his air of casual and realistic verisimilitude, which intensifies our suspense and sense of the unseen by half persuading us that the menacing events must somehow be either the truth or very close to the truth. Indeed, so thorough is this realism that a popular magazine recently published the main points of The Amber Witch as an actual occurrence of the seventeenth century!

But France as well as Germany was active in the realm of weirdness. Victor Hugo, in such tales as Hans Of Iceland, and Balzac, in The Wild Ass’s Skin, Seraphita, and Louis Lambert, both employ supernaturalism to a greater or less extent; though generally only as a means to some more human end, and without the sincere and dæmonic intensity which characterises the born artist in shadows. It is in TheophileThéophile [sic] Gautier that we first seem to find an authentic French sense of the unreal world, and here there appears a spectral mastery which, though not continuously used, is recognisable at once as something alike genuine and profound. Short tales like Avatar, The Foot Of The Mummy, and Clarimonde display glimpses of forbidden vistas that allure, tantalise, and sometimes horrify; whilst the Egyptian visions evoked in One Of Cleopatra’s Nights are of the keenest and most expressive potency. Gautier captured the inmost soul of æon-weighted Egypt, with its cryptic life and Cyclopean architecture, and uttered once and for all the eternal horror of its nether world of catacombs, where to the end of time millions of stiff, spiced corpses will stare up in the blackness with glassy eyes, awaiting some awesome and unrelatable summons. Gustave Flaubert ably continued the tradition of Gautier in orgies of poetic phantasy like The Temptation Of St. Anthony, and but for a strong realistic bias might have been an arch-weaver of tapestried terrors. Later on we see the stream divide, producing strange poets and fantaisistes of the symbolist and decadent schools whose dark interests really centre more in abnormalities of human thought and instinct than in the actual supernatural, and subtle story-tellers whose thrills are quite directly derived from the night-black wells of cosmic unreality. Of the former class of “artists in sin” the illustrious poet Baudelaire, influenced vastly by Poe, is the supreme type; whilst the psychological novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans, a true child of the eighteen-nineties, is at once the summation and finale. The latter and purely narrative class is continued by Prosper MerimeeMérimée [sic],

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 still in amaze at the surprising adventures he met with; for his brother being well known in Ephesus, there was hardly a man he met in the streets but saluted him as an old acquaintance: some offered him money which they said was owing to him, some invited him to come and see them, and some gave thanks for kindnesses they said he had done them, all mistaking him for his brother. A tailor showed him some silks he had bought for him, and insisted upon taking measure of him for some clothes.

Antipholus began to think he was among a nation of sorcerers and witches, and Dromio did not at all relieve his master from his bewildered thoughts, by asking him how he got free from the officer who was carrying him to prison, and giving him the purse of gold which Adriana had sent to pay the debt with. This talk of Dromio's of the arrest and of a prison, and of the money he had brought from Adriana, perfectly confounded Antipholus, and he said: "This fellow Dromio is certainly distracted, and we wander here in illusions;" and quite terrified at his own confused thoughts, he cried out: "Some blessed power deliver us from this strange place!"

And now another stranger came up to him, and she was a lady, and she too called him Antipholus, and told him he had dined with her that day, and asked him for a gold chain which she said he had promised to give her. Antipholus now lost all patience, and calling her a sorceress, he denied that he had ever promised her a chain, or dined with her, or had ever seen her face before that moment. The lady persisted in affirming he had dined with her, and had promised her a chain, which Antipholus still denying, she further said, that she had given him a valuable ring, and if he would not give her the gold chain, she insisted upon having her own ring again. On this Antipholus became quite frantic,


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 and again calling her sorceress and witch, and denying all knowledge of her or her ring, ran away from her, leaving her astonished at his words and his wild looks, for nothing to her appeared more certain than that he had dined with her, and that she had given him a ring, in consequence of his promising to make her a present of a gold chain. But this lady had fallen into the same mistake the others had done, for she had taken him for his brother: the married Antipholus had done all the things she taxed this Antipholus with.

When the married Antipholus was denied entrance into his own house (those within supposing him to be already there), he had gone away very angry, believing it to be one of his wife's jealous freaks, to which she was very subject, and remembering that she had often falsely accused him of visiting other ladies, he, to be revenged on her for shutting him out of his own house determined to go and dine with this lady, and she receiving him with great civility, and his wife having so highly offended him, Antipholus promised to give her a gold chain, which he had intended as a present for his wife; it was the same chain which the goldsmith by mistake had given to his brother. The lady liked so well the thoughts of having a fine gold chain, that she gave the married Antipholus a ring; which when, as she supposed (taking his brother for him), he denied, and said he did not know her, and left her in such a wild passion, she began to think he was certainly out of his senses; and presently she resolved to go and tell Adriana that her husband was mad. And while she was telling it to Adriana, he came, attended by the jailor (who allowed him to come home to get the money to pay the debt), for the purse of money, which Adriana had sent by Dromio, and he had delivered to the other Antipholus.


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 Adriana believed the story the lady told her of her husband's madness must be true, when he reproached her for shutting him out of his own house; and remembering how he had protested all dinner-time that he was not her husband, and had never been in Ephesus till that day, she had no doubt that he was mad; she therefore paid the jailor the money, and having discharged him, she ordered her servants to bind her husband with ropes, and had him conveyed into a dark room, and sent for a doctor to come and cure him of his madness: Antipholus all the while hotly exclaiming against this false accusation, which the exact likeness he bore to his brother had brought upon him. But his rage only the more confirmed them in the belief that he was mad; and Dromio persisting in the same story, they bound him also, and took him away along with his master.

Soon after Adriana had put her husband into confinement, a servant came to tell her that Antipholus and Dromio must have broken loose from their keepers, for that they were both walking at liberty in the next street. On hearing this, Adriana ran out to fetch him home, taking some people with her to secure her husband again; and her sister went along with her. When they came to the gates of a convent in their neighbourhood, there they saw Antipholus and Dromio, as they thought being again deceived by the likeness of the twin-brothers.

Antipholus of Syracuse was still beset with the perplexities this likeness had brought upon him. The chain which the goldsmith had given him was about his neck, and the goldsmith was reproaching him for denying that he had it, and refusing to pay for it, and Antipholus was protesting that the goldsmith freely gave him the chain in the morning, and that from that hour he had never seen the goldsmith again.


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 And now Adriana came up to him and claimed him as her lunatic husband, who had escaped from his keepers; and the men she brought with her were going to lay violent hands on Antipholus and Dromio; but they ran into the convent, and Antipholus begged the abbess to give him shelter in her house.

And now came out the lady abbess herself to inquire into the cause of this disturbance. She was a grave and venerable lady, and wise to judge of what she saw, and she would not too hastily give up the man who had sought protection in her house; so she strictly questioned the wife about the story she told of her husband's madness, and she said: "What is the cause of this sudden distemper of your husband's? Has he lost his wealth at sea? Or is it the death of some dear friend that has disturbed his mind?" Adriana replied, that no such things as these had been the cause. "Perhaps," said the abbess, "he has fixed his affections on some other lady than you his wife; and that has driven him to this state." Adriana said she had long thought the love of some other lady was the cause of his frequent absences from home. Now it was not his love for another, but the teasing jealousy of his wife's temper, that often obliged Antipholus to leave his home; and (the abbess suspecting this from the vehemence of Adriana's manner) to learn the truth, she said: "You should have reprehended him for this."—"Why, so I did," replied Adriana. "Ay," said the abbess, "but perhaps not enough." Adriana, willing to convince the abbess that she had said enough to Antipholus on this subject, replied: "It was the constant subject of our conversation: in bed I would not let him sleep for speaking of it. At table I would not let him eat for speaking of it. When I was alone with


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 him, I talked of nothing else; and in company I gave him frequent hints of it. Still all my talk was how vile and bad it was in him to love any lady better than me."

The lady abbess, having drawn this full confession from the jealous Adriana, now said: "And therefore comes it that your husband is mad. The venomous clamour of a jealous woman is a more deadly poison than a mad dog's tooth. It seems his sleep was hindered by your railing; no wonder that his head is light: and his meat was sauced with your upbraidings; unquiet meals make ill digestions, and that has thrown him into this fever. You say his sports were disturbed by your brawls; being debarred from the enjoyment of society and recreation, what could ensue but dull melancholy and comfortless despair? The consequence is then, that your jealous fits have made your husband mad."

Luciana would have excused her sister, saying, she always reprehended her husband mildly; and she said to her sister: "Why do you hear these rebukes without answering them?" But the abbess had made her so plainly perceive her fault, that she could only answer: "She has betrayed me to my own reproof."

Adriana, though ashamed of her own conduct, still insisted on having her husband delivered up to her; but the abbess would suffer no person to enter her house, nor would she deliver up this unhappy man to the care of the jealous wife, determining herself to use gentle means for his recovery, and she retired into her house again, and ordered her gates to be shut against them.

During the course of this eventful day, in which so many errors had happened from the likeness the twin brothers bore to each other, old Ægeon's day of grace was passing away, it being now near sunset;


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 and at sunset he was doomed to die, if he could not pay the money.

The place of his execution was near this convent, and here he arrived just as the abbess retired into the convent; the duke attending in person, that if any offered to pay the money, he might be present to pardon him.

Adriana stopped this melancholy procession, and cried out to the duke for justice, telling him that the abbess had refused to deliver up her lunatic husband to her care. While she was speaking, her real husband and his servant Dromio, who had got loose, came before the duke to demand justice, complaining that his wife had confined him on a false charge of lunacy; and telling in what manner he had broken his bands, and eluded the vigilance of his keepers, Adriana was strangely surprised to see her husband, when she thought he had been within the convent.

Ægeon, seeing his son, concluded this was the son who had left him to go in search of his mother and his brother; and he felt secure that his dear son would readily pay the money demanded for his ransom. He therefore spoke to Antipholus in words of fatherly affection, with joyful hope that he should now be released. But to the utter astonishment of Ægeon, his son denied all knowledge of him, as well he might, for this Antipholus had never seen his father since they were separated in the storm in his infancy; but while the poor old Ægeon was in vain endeavouring to make his son acknowledge him, thinking surely that either his griefs and the anxieties he had suffered had so strangely altered him that his son did not know him, or else that he was ashamed to acknowledge his father in his misery; in the midst of this perplexity, the lady abbess and the other Antipholus and Dromio came out and the wondering


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 Adriana saw two husbands and two Dromios standing before her.

And now these riddling errors, which had so perplexed them all, were clearly made out. When the duke saw the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios both so exactly alike, he at once conjectured aright of these seeming mysteries, for he remembered the story Ægeon had told him in the morning; and he said, these men must be the two sons of Ægeon and their twin slaves.

But now an unlooked-for joy indeed completed the history of Ægeon; and the tale he had in the morning told in sorrow, and under sentence of death, before the setting sun went down was brought to a happy conclusion, for the venerable lady abbess made herself known to be the long-lost wife of Ægeon, and the fond mother of the two Antipholuses.

When the fishermen took the eldest Antipholus and Dromio away from her, she entered a nunnery, and by her wise and virtuous conduct, she was at length made lady abbess of this convent, and in discharging the rites of hospitality to an unhappy stranger she had unknowingly protected her own son.

Joyful congratulations and affectionate greetings between these long separated parents and their children made them for a while forget that Ægeon was yet under sentence of death; but when they were become a little calm, Antipholus of Ephesus offered the duke the ransom money for his father's life; but the duke freely pardoned Ægeon, and would not take the money. And the duke went with the abbess and her newly found husband and children into the convent, to hear this happy family discourse at leisure of the blessed ending of their adverse fortunes. And the two Dromios' humble joy must not be forgotten; they had their congratulations and


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 greetings too, and each Dromio pleasantly complimented his brother on his good looks, being well pleased to see his own person (as in a glass) show so handsome in his brother.

Adriana had so well profited by the good counsel of her mother-in-law, that she never after cherished unjust suspicions, or was jealous of her husband.

Antipholus of Syracuse married the fair Luciana, the sister of his brother's wife; and the good old Ægeon, with his wife and sons, lived at Ephesus many years. Nor did the unravelling of these perplexities so entirely remove every ground of mistake for the future, but that sometimes, to remind them of adventures past, comical blunders would happen, and the one Antipholus, and the one Dromio, be mistaken for the other, making altogether a pleasant and diverting Comedy of Errors.


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 whose Venus Of Ille presents in terse and convincing prose the same ancient statue-bride theme which Thomas Moore cast in ballad form in The Ring.

The horror-tales of the powerful and cynical Guy de Maupassant, written as his final madness gradually overtook him, present individualities of their own; being rather the morbid outpourings of a realistic mind in a pathological state than the healthily imaginative products of a vision naturally disposed toward phantasy and sensitive to the normal illusions of the unseen.. [sic] Nevertheless they are of the keenest interest and poignancy; suggesting with marvellous force the imminence of nameless terrors, and the relentless dogging of an ill-starred individual by hideous and menacing representatives of the outer blackness. Of these stories The Horla is generally regarded as the masterpiece. Relating the advent to France of an invisible being who lives on water and milk, sways the minds of others, and seems to be the vanguard of a horde of extra-terrestrial organisms arrived on earth to subjugate and overwhelm mankind, this tense narrative is perhaps without a peer in its particular department; notwithstanding its indebtedness to a tale by the American Fitz-James O’Brien for details in describing the actual presence of the unseen monster. Other potently dark creations of de Maupassant are Who Knows?, The Spectre, He, The Diary Of A Madman, The White Wolf, and the grisly verses entitled Horror.

The collaborators Erckmann-Chatrian enriched French literature with many spectral fancies like The Man-Wolf, in which a transmitted curse works toward its end in a traditional Gothic-castle setting. Their power of creating a shuddering midnight atmosphere was tremendous despite a tendency toward natural explanations and scientific wonders; and few short tales contain greater horror than The Invisible Eye, where a malignant old hag weaves nocturnal hypnotic spells which induce the successive occupants of a certain inn chamber to hang themselves on a crossbeam. The Owl’s Ear and The Waters of Death are full of engulfing darkness and mystery, the latter embodying the familiar overgrown-spider theme so frequently employed by weird fictionists. Villiers de l’Isle Adam likewise followed the macabre school; his Torture By Hope, the tale of a stake-condemned prisoner permitted to escape in order to feel the pangs of recapture, being held by some to constitute the most harrowing short story in literature. This type, however, is less a part of the weird tradition than a class peculiar to itself—the so-called conte cruel, in which the wrenching of the emotions is accomplished through dramatic tantalisations, frustrations, and gruesome physical horrors. Almost wholly devoted to this form is the living writer Maurice Level, whose very brief episodes have lent themselves so readily to theatrical adaptation in the “thrillers” of the Grand Guignol. As a matter of fact, the French genius is more naturally suited to this dark realism than to the suggestion of the unseen; since the latter process requires, for its best and most sympathetic development on a large scale, the inherent mysticism of the Northern mind.

A very flourishing, though till recently quite hidden branch of weird literature is that of the Jews, kept alive and nourished in obscurity by the sombre heritage of early Eastern magic, apocalyptic literature, and cabbalism. The Semitic mind, like the Celtic and Teutonic, seems to possess marked mystical inclinations; and the wealth of underground horror-lore surviving in ghettoes and synagogues must be much more considerable than is generally imagined. Cabbalism itself, so prominent during the Middle Ages, is a system of philosophy explaining the universe as emanations of the Deity, and involving the existence of strange spiritual realms and beings apart from the visible world, of which dark glimpses may be obtained through certain secret incantations. Its ritual is bound up with mystical interpretations of the Old Testament, and attributes an esoteric significance to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet—a circumstance which has imparted to Hebrew letters a sort of spectral glamour and potency in the popular literature of magic. Jewish folklore has preserved much of the terror and mystery of the past, and when more thoroughly studied is likely to exert considerable influence on weird fiction. The best examples of its literary use so far are the tale of The

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 fight. We issued ten rallying slogans, which were somewhat mixed and confused. Why? In order to orient ourselves as to on what grounds we could lead the proletariat into the fight and in order to get beyond mere propaganda. It was the period when the opposition was determined to have action at any price; when they issued the slogan for the occupation of the factories, which the French were also advocating, and which the Party had rejected. We brought the workers into action with the slogan for the Control Commissions and the formation of proletarian hundreds. We did not invent this slogan but arrived at it after testing the situation.

Such was the situation at the beginning of the Ruhr war. It ended very quickly, after the passive resistance of the German bourgeoisie had collapsed in May and all the costs and burdens not only of the first so-called fulfilment policy, but also so-called policy of sabotage, were placed upon the shoulders of the proletariat. There began for the first time that elemental struggle of the Ruhr population, which came without opposition under the leadership of the Communist Party. What the Social-Democrats before the war and during the war failed to obtain, and what we also failed to obtain after the war, namely, the determined leadership of a broad mass movement, we obtained for the first time after the collapse of the passive resistance of the German bourgeoisie.

Of course it is now easy to say that the characteristic of the Ruhr war was that it was the rising wave of the proletariat.

After the Ruhr strike came the strike in Upper Silesia, where we were again able, uncontested, to lead the proletariat into the fight. This proves that the influence of the united front, as we conducted it, was successful.

Comrades, I now come to the most important point of all. What was shown in these struggles in the Ruhr and in Upper Silesia was also shown in Saxony at the beginning of the Ruhr occupation. In Saxony, too, we succeeded in gaining the leadership not only of the non-party working-class masses, but also of the organised Social-Democratic masses; this was thanks to our whole Saxon policy, by which we prevented the coalition of the Social-Democrats with the bourgeoisie, and by which the Right opportunist leaders, under the pressure of the Social-Democratic workers, rejected compromise and a coalition Government with the bourgeoisie and, under the pressure of the Social-Democratic and other workers, declared themselves ready to co-operate with the Communists.

Thus at three points, in the Ruhr, in Upper Silesia and Saxony, and later in Central Germany, we held the leadership of the working class fairly securely in our hands.

But it is worth while examining why the workers entrusted themselves to our leadership in all the questions of their daily needs—in the Ruhr mainly on the question of wages; in Upper


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 Silesia the same; only in Saxony did we go a shade further: there we were entrusted with the leadership of the political struggle on the question of taking advantage of the existing parliamentary situation.

Comrades, I do not want to deny any blame; I am an exponent of the policy of the Party since Leipsic and of the Saxon policy. But, comrades, it would be absurd, it would be entirely over-estimating my capacities, strength, and influence, to suggest that I was able to force a false political policy upon the whole Party. What is then in dispute? The quite definite circumstances under which we undertook the struggle. And what were these circumstances? In Saxony we forced the dissolution of the Landtag; we had a proletarian majority in the Landtag. Had we declared, as the opposition demanded, that the proletarian majority did not interest us in the least, that we would not attempt to make use of it, then I say, we should have become a sect not only in Saxony but also in the whole of Germany. We had to take up the struggle in the situation which then existed, with all its good sides and all its bad sides. Mistakes were made. The force of the attack and the impulse of the Party should have been stronger; greater advantages should have been obtained; but the decisive factor is not the great or small mistakes that we made, but the given conditions for the fight of which we had to make use. And what use had we to make of them? The slogans of the Third and Fourth Congresses. To the Masses. Make Use of the Questions of the Day. What resulted? Judged by our standards something quite worthless; a great deal, comparatively; freedom of movement for the formation of the Control Commissions, the Factory Councils, and the Proletarian Hundreds.

What was the result of exploiting the existing situation? Certainly, judged by the ultimate aims of Communism, nothing, something entirely worthless; but judged by the vital needs of the workers. something more: absolute confidence in the leadership of the German Communist Party.

This policy led to very dangerous illusions among the workers, who estimate too lightly the path laying before them. In our own Party circles illusions were created which perhaps might have been prevented by an intensive propaganda of principles. But the greatest danger was that they said to themselves: first a bourgeois coalition, then a Social-Democratic Government supported by the Communists, then a Government of Communists and Social-Democrats, and then a Government of the Communists—and all this without the necessity for severe and bloody fights. This frame of mind was a by-product of our policy, but that of course could not be avoided.

It would have been childish to say that since these dangers and difficulties must arise we must not pursue this policy. We had to attempt to overcome them. And how did we overcome


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 them? By taking the Social-Democratic workers by the scruff of the neck, by destroying their illusions with facts. Their hopes for an easy path were destroyed by practice and in the course of events.

A rising revolutionary wave began. We saw only one side of it—its good side. What was the Cuno strike? The Cuno strike was in Berlin nothing but a continuation of the revolutionary wages fights in the Ruhr, in Upper Silesia, and Saxony. But such a fight in Berlin has an entirely different political significance from a fight in the Ruhr, in Saxony, or in Upper Silesia. The strike took place during a Government crisis and precipitated the fall of the Cuno Government, But, comrades. it: was only a political strike in its effects and in the given situation. In the sense of a conscious revolutionary aim, the Cuno strike was not a political strike, it had no elemental force behind it.

Serious preparations for civil war were begun by the Party in many, in fact in nearly all places, only after the manifesto of July 11. This inadequate preparation was due to objective weaknesses, since the anti-Fascist Day, with its tremendous possibilities for agitation among the petty-bourgeoisie and the workers, created a situation in which it was almost universally believed that on the 29th the Communists would begin the attack.

There were signs of a rising revolutionary movement. We had temporarily the majority of the workers behind us, and in this situation believed that under favourable circumstances we could proceed immediately to attack. In my opinion we were mistaken. The unfortunate thing was that we over-estimated the fighting power of the majority in the Ruhr, in Saxony, and in Berlin, we could not organise it and consolidate it. As we grew stronger the Government retaliated, It retaliated by prohibiting the Factory Councils.

This situation, which was pregnant of any possibility, we as the Communist Party were unable to drive forward into a storm attack, as we have imagined. And I believe—I must say this quite plainly and bluntly—that had we, as Radek states, recognised this then, and had we in good time, as a Party and as an Executive, taken the necessary, measures, had we begun the decisive fight, then the final victory perhaps may not have come in October, but certainly we should not have suffered the defeat we did suffer during the retreat. When we undertook to take advantage of the favourable situation in Central Germany and Saxony for a storm attack against the bourgeoisie, we overlooked the fact that the enemy had already long had the initiative, and that we were unable when the enemy struck first and took the offensive to organise serious resistance.

If I had not wasted the time at my disposal for my report by a too lengthy introduction I should proceed to point out what made the attack of the enemy easy, and how we duped ourselves,


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 how we saw the situation in a false light. The enemy was able by means of petty-bourgeois Fascism in Bavaria to draw off attention from their open and secret preparations for the seizure of power through Fascism in its heavy industrial and agrarian capitalist form—in the form of Seeckt. As in 1914, 1918, and in the Kapp Putsch, so here too, the victory of Fascism without a fight was possible only because it was covered by the Social-Democrats; Fascism, like the Noske military dictatorship and the November Republic in 1918, acted so to speak from behind the backs of the Social-Democrats. The preparations for the victory of Fascism were concealed by the Coalition Government, by the empowering laws, and by the consent of the Social-Democrats. The belief arose among the masses, not in the Communist Party, but among the elements influenced by the Social-Democrats, in the trade unions, and among the unorganised working-class masses, that the enemy was in Bavaria, and that all these preparations for the seizure of power by Fascism was not intended for a fight against the proletariat, as they really were, but for a fight against the petty-bourgeois Fascist clique, Hitler, Ludendorff, &c.

Comrades, if after the many years of war policy of the German Social-Democrats, if after five years of their post-war policy, it was possible for them to deceive and influence wide sections of the workers by such obvious manœuvres, and for the united front to be shattered by the facts which I have been unable to describe as well as I wished, then we were faced by a situation in which we as Communists had in spite of a shattered united front, either to take up the fight or reject it. That is the situation we were faced with. And I assert that had we, in October, after the manœuvres of the bourgeoisie with the aid of the Social-Democrats succeeded, taken up the fight we should have been forced on from a position of defence against the Reich Executive immediately to the decisive struggle for the proletarian dictatorship. The March action then would have been mere child's play, a poor jest in comparison with the defeat which we would have suffered in that situation. The Central Committee of the German Communist Party, but also the Executive, in drawing their fighting plans, considered only the Party and the proletariat. We overlooked the possibilities and chances and the capacity for manœuvring of the bourgeoisie. It is true that we one-sidedly concentrated our attention only upon Central Germany—the Executive was acquainted with our point of view and did not correct it. I assert that a decisive fight for power was in October and November possible only in Central Germany, and then only under favourable circumstances. These favourable circumstances did not present themselves, partly because of the errors of the Party committed during the decisive weeks, while we were in Moscow. The Party failed to undertake a rousing political campaign. Not sufficient use was made of the empowering law and the temporary prohibitions. But the plan was


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 drawn up in conjunction with the Executive Committee. If we want to learn, we must criticise the false plan and its mistaken realisation. The great error which resulted in a depression of a part of the working class masses, we considered only one possible form of struggle, namely, the fight for the proletarian power; had only the dictatorship of the proletariat in mind and no other situation. Therefore we were unable to direct the retreat successfully, and could offer no resistance, as we did during the Cuno strike. Had we not staked all or nothing, we might have undertaken a defensive action, which, of course, would not have ended in victory but would certainly have saved us from decisive defeat. The representative of the Executive in his report stated that comrades during the defeat declared that it was undertaken without a fight. That is not true. From the very first we conducted retiring actions—demonstrations and strikes—and in the very first circulars and instructions. The Party did not act so rapidly. By its victory without a fight Fascism temporarily greatly affected the influence of the Communist Party over the masses. We were consequently not in a position to resist Fascism, to place the Party on an illegal basis, and to take up the struggle anew. It is for this and not a false tactic in the past we have to thank the defeat of October. In the circumstances which existed in 1921 during the March action, I declare that if the decision again lay with me I would pursue the same policy and tactics. No other policy was possible. What the comrades of the opposition desire will lead to the enfeeblement of the German revolution, in spite of their burning love for revolutionary fights, expressed by Thälmann. Speeches such as Thälmann made are easy, but if you are unable to rally the masses, you will be unable to carry out the tasks you set yourself. If we can bring the masses into the struggle, then in the struggle we shall overcome our weaknesses. By increasing our aims and intensifying the struggle we shall be able to secure victory. This time the necessary pre-requisites were lacking. In common with the Executive Committee, we over-estimated our strength and underestimated the strength of the enemy. We were therefore compelled to retreat.

In conclusion let me deal with the prospects for the future.

As far as they are concerned, there are no great differences between us and the opposition. Victory has placed State power completely into the hands of the Fascists. As far as it still tolerates the November Republic, Fascism may either embellish it or abolish it as it wishes. The Fascist dictatorship rests upon the alliance between industry and the agrarians. They can keep the proletariat under for some length of time, and give Fascism a breathing space only if they succeed: (1) in emerging from financial bankruptcy: (2) in winning over and subordinating petty-bourgeoisie Fascism by repressions and concessions: and (3) in splitting the working class by maintaining the appearance of democracy using the Social-Democrats as auxiliary troops, using repressive measures


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 against the Communist Party, and by playing off the unemployed against the employed. The power of the State and militarism which Fascism has at its disposal, have enabled it to force the ten-hour day upon the proletariat with little resistance. Defensive fights of any importance began only in January. In spite of the reports of the resistance of the workers to the lengthening of the working day, it must be said that the proletariat is in such a state of depression that it accepted the ten-hour day without a fight. The attempts of the Communists to organise resistance against the ten-hour day have met with no great practical results.

What is the reason? In this present economic crisis the proletariat is split. The unemployed is in such a situation that they must fight or be crushed, and their fight will be a light of despair if the workers leave them in the lurch. There are over three million unemployed in Germany, and they are in such a situation that they must fight. Alone they have no chance of victory. What is the position of the other sections of the working class? There are three million short-time workers in Germany. Depression prevails among the full-time workers also for they are afraid of becoming unemployed or short-time workers. Among the full-time workers and the short-time workers there are sections who, if it were a question of at once entering upon a decisive struggle, weapon in hand, would be prepared for it, but who hesitate to undertake the necessary preliminary small fights, demonstrations, strikes, &c. This is a fact we have to face boldly. If the bourgeoisie succeeds in extending the breach between the unemployed and the full-time workers and short-time workers, it will gain for itself a longer breathing space. This, of course, depends upon the possibility of restoring a temporary economic balance.

Such are the prospects. Lamentations are useless. All the conditions exist to permit us shortly, if we are able, to rally the masses again and to fight. If the Party, as a result of the October defeat, and in the process of self-examination, reaches a crisis, if it is split, then we have lost five years of work. The October defeat was a severe defeat. It has disintegrated the Social-Democrats as never before. The Social-Democrats are faced with a split. This means that if we are not capable of assimilating this section of the working class, a new centrist party will arise. If we cannot assimilate it, if the new party manages to exist more than half-a-year, if we pursue a policy of phrases, as the opposition does, we shall become a sect. We shall then have a new centrist party which will grow not only from elements split off from the Social-Democrats, but also from losses from the Communist Party. This will mean the defeat of the German Revolution for many years, and what is more, the defeat of the world revolution. It is therefore a question of the greatest importance. In spite of the October defeat, there is no need for pessimism. Never before was the activity of the German party of such great importance as it is at the present moment.


text: The Life and Work of Friedrich Engels/Chapter 11


text: The Life and Work of Friedrich Engels/Chapter 12


text: The Life and Work of Friedrich Engels/Chapter 13


text: The Life and Work of Friedrich Engels/Chapter 14