Ida a Taylor

Revolutionary Types Ida a Taylor

Publisher Marketing: WOMEN in the past having been more bound by convention than men, it is natural that revolution and revolutionists should interest them. They seem to feel instinctively, even when unaware of it themselves, that they have all to gain by alteration of existing laws. The present writer is no exception to the rule. Moreover, in a valedictory chapter, which has made my preface quite uncalled for, she has not only nailed her revolutionary colours to the mast, in a passage of great faith and beauty, but to paraphrase an ancient Scottish story, she ' has taken the word o' God oot o' the minister's mooth. The Types cover all the revolutionary gallery -that is, if, as some assert, Saint-Just was a socialist, for Harrison (would the Type selected had been honest Colonel Lilburne) was clearly an anarchist. He who wishes to see Christ's kingdom upon earth, the Rule of the Saints, the Fifth Monarchy in operation, or what not, is almost certain to be an anarchist. To him quite naturally all women's political hearts go out, for there is none of your damned logic about the position he assumes. Now the enslavement of man by logic is as incomprehensible to most women as the slavish keeping of the plighted word appeared to the Turkish pasha in the story. It is strange but true, that the man of Christ's kingdom upon earth should be an anarchist; but when we consider how many conventions would have to be broken to superinduce the coming of such a reign, it is easily understood that the easiest way is to break them all at once. This, I think, is the key to the enigma. Moreover, Christ himself to the Philistines and the vast majority of the Publicans (for one righteous Publican does not make a heaven) must have appeared as a breaker of all laws.