Anarchist Literature [Jun, 1887]

We have received from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a pamphlet by C. L. James, entitled 'Anarchy, a Tract for the Times,' which contains an able exposition of the principles of Anarchy. We cannot endorse all conclusions of the author, but we admire the concise and excellent manner in which he summarizes the, origins of Government and Capital.

'System of Economical Contradictions,' by P. J. Proudhon, translated from the French by Benj. Tucker. (Proudhon Library, published monthly at Boston). We earnestly recommend the reading of this work to those who know Proudhon only by the bitter pamphlet of Marx. Those who seek in books matter for independent thought surely will find few more suggestive authors than Proudhon.

FROM A PARIS GARRET.-Here, alone, above the house-tops. The eastern sun smiles through the skylight and wakes me to my work, and when I return he is setting across the Seine. All Paris lies beneath, and above is the solemn sky. And in the silence the roar of the city comes up to me in a long, infinite moan. The sound changes like a symphony; now it is sweet, human play of the children in the garden, the careless chatter of ceaseless passersby, the carol of young girls in drawing-rooms; and then it is the cry of the wretched, the groan of toil, toil, never-ending toil; a living, quickening harmony, it comes like heart-beats, throbbing faster, faster, stronger, stronger, till it stifles me! Is there no stopping the fearful flood? On, on it rushes--this turmoil of human life; blind, passionate, desperate! But--it subsides--a wave of hope sweeps by there, clear pure heights, and sunny valleys. This beautiful earth has cooled from a fiery ball, and from the living chaos too will grow a sublime humanity as varied as the grass-blades, and as glorious as the sky.