The train rolled heavily and slowly, but the clang of its couplings, the even raps of the wheels upon the joinings of the rails were already deafening. Its snorting breath pushed Klimkov in the back. Everything round about him and with him shook in tempestuous agitation, and tore him from the ground.
He could wait no longer. He jumped to his feet, ran along the rails, and shouted in a high screech:
"I am guilty--I will--everything--I will, I will!"
Along the smoothly polished metal of the rails darted reddish rays of light, outstripping Klimkov. They glared more and more fiercely. Now glowing strips to each side of him ran impetuously into the distance, directing his course.
Something hard and wide struck his back. He fell across the sleepers between the red cords of rail, and the harsh iron rumble crushed his feeble screams.
The design on the cover is taken from Gorky's book-plate, drawn by Ephraim Mose Lilien. It is reproduced from an illustration in "The New Art of an Ancient People," by M. S. Levussove, New York, 1906.
"The torch which all the Prophets from Moses to Jesus bore aloft is to-day being borne onward by Socialist agitators."
The Spiritual Significance of Modern Socialism
Author of "The Bitter Cry of the Children"
He makes clear that socialism in its economic aspect is but a single phase of a great movement; that in every avenue of its activity, a higher meaning is connoted and that every Socialistic aspiration is as important ethically as economically and politically.
In this work the author's charm as a public speaker is transferred to the printed page. His theme is the problem of utilizing the time one has to spend as one pleases for the aim of attaining the highest culture of mind and spirit. How to work and how to play; how to read and how to study, how to avoid intellectual dissipation and how to apply the open secrets of great achievement evidenced in conspicuous lives are among the many phases of the problem which the author discusses, earnestly, yet with a light touch and not without humor.
He discusses in an intimate, conversational manner various problems of thinking and living and has entered fully into the spirit animating the publication of The Art of Life Series.