MOTHER EARTH will endeavor to attract and appeal to all those who oppose encroachment on public and individual life. It will appeal to those who strive for something higher, weary of the commonplace; to those who feel that stagnation is a deadweight on the firm and elastic step of progress; to those who breathe freely only in limitless space; to those who long for the tender shade of a new dawn for a humanity free from the dread of want, the dread of starvation in the face of mountains of riches. The Earth free for the free individual!
The strong wind is gathering the storm-clouds together Above the gray plain of the ocean so wide. The storm-finch, the bird that resembles dark lightning, Between clouds and ocean is soaring in pride.
Now skimming the waves with his wings, and now shooting Up, arrow-like, into the dark clouds on high, The storm-finch is clamoring loudly and shrilly; The clouds can hear joy in the bird's fearless cry.
In that cry is the yearning, the thirst for the tempest, And anger's hot might in its wild notes is heard; The keen fire of passion, the faith in sure triumph-- All these the clouds hear in the voice of the bird....
The storm-wind is howling, the thunder is roaring; With flame blue and lambent the cloud-masses glow O'er the fathomless ocean; it catches the lightnings, And quenches them deep in its whirlpool below.
Like serpents of fire in the dark ocean writhing, The lightnings reflected there quiver and shake As into the blackness they vanish forever. The tempest! Now quickly the tempest will break!
The storm-finch soars fearless and proud 'mid the lightnings, Above the wild waves that the roaring winds fret; And what is the prophet of victory saying? "Oh, let the storm burst! Fiercer yet--fiercer yet!"
[A] From "Songs of Russia," rendered into English by ALICE STONE BLACKWELL
The name "Open Road" had to be abandoned, owing to the existence of a magazine by that name.
+The importance+ of written history for the people can easily be compared with the importance of a diary for the individual. It furnishes data for recollections, points of comparison between the Past and Present. But as most diaries and auto-biographies show a lack of straight-forward, big, simple, sincere self-analyses, so does history seldom prove a representation of facts, of the truth, of reality.