Читать книгу Pictures of the Socialistic Future (freely adapted from Bebel) онлайн

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Within our four walls we had an abundant display of resentment and ill-feeling. Agnes rejected all endeavours to tranquillise her, and it was in vain that my wife sought to comfort her with the thought of the opulent dowry which the Government meant all newly married couples to receive.

“I won’t have anything given to me,” she cried pettishly; “all I want is the wages of my own labour; such government is worse than robbery.”

I much fear that to-day’s events are not at all calculated to strengthen Agnes’ hold on socialistic principles. My father-in-law has likewise savings in the bank, and we dare not venture to tell the old gentleman that his bank book is mere waste paper. He is far from being a miser. It was only the other day he mentioned that he let interest and compound interest accumulate; we should find at his death that he had been really grateful for all our tender care of him. In very deed one requires to be as firmly grounded as I am in socialistic principles to stand such reverses without in the least losing heart.