Page:Emma Goldman - Anarchism and Other Essays (2nd Rev. ed.) - 1911.djvu/254

Rh Who can deny, however, the tremendous influence exerted by The Power of Darkness or Night Lodging. Tolstoy, the real, true Christian, is yet the greatest enemy of organized Christianity. With a master hand he portrays the destructive effects upon the human mind of the power of darkness, the superstitions of the Christian Church.

What other medium could express, with such dramatic force, the responsibility of the Church for crimes committed by its deluded victims; what other medium could, in consequence, rouse the indignation of man's conscience?

Similarly direct and powerful is the indictment contained in Gorki's Night Lodging. The social pariahs, forced into poverty and crime, yet desperately clutch at the last vestiges of hope and aspiration. Lost existences these, blighted and crushed by cruel, unsocial environment.

France, on the other hand, with her continuous struggle for liberty, is indeed the cradle of radical thought; as such she, too, did not need the drama as a means of awakening. And yet the works of Brieux—as Robe Rouge, portraying the terrible corruption of the judiciary—and Mirbeau's Les Affaires sont les Affaires—picturing the destructive influence of wealth on the human soul—have undoubtedly reached wider circles than most of the articles and books which have been written in France on the social question.

In countries like Germany, Scandinavia, England, and even in America—though in a lesser degree—the drama is the vehicle which is really making history,