Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-10-15
NfhfIism I'm Russia.

Nihiljsm is, no doubt, oftener Ineffective
than immoral. Much of the vaporing in
dulged in under the name begins and ends in
smoke. The intellectual malady v, in its pass-
i've forms, has widespread existence in the
presence of physical disease. Nobody, per-
hapr, has better painted the struggle in an
unhealthy mind between the doctrines of nj
hilism and the realities of life than DR..
Dostoievsky; it is noteworthy that all Dos
toievsky's characters are either madmen or
invalids-the novelist himself was epileptic.
AS rule, however, it is the robust who act;
the sickly adherents of socialism content
themselves with propaganda-aud rumina-
ton. At times the finest intelIects. the
soundest judgments, the healthiest organisms
are seized with this, the saddest of all the
intellectual maladies of modern times. owe
are all i'll" said a brisht-eyed youth of
twenty-five, the other day, "and we shall not
get WE'LL" In reply TO a remonstrsnce that
women had lot been made by nature for con-
spiracy, a schoolmistress said, in my hearing,
"Liberiy requires her victims; ii is for
US TO offer ourselves" Women students
especially are easily won over to tie side
of socialism. Married, when mailed at
all, late in life, their struggle for the
means of subsistence is often more severe
than that OF male students, and is certainly
beset with more dangers. In Russia a much
freer intercourse is permitted between the
sexes than any allowed in western Europe
The women of Russia, in fact, enjoy greater
liberty of movement and action than the
women of America. They may visit and be
visited by the other sex without breach
of the conrenances. Hence, careers being
open to them under the government, they not
only interest themselves in social questions,
but have much wider opportunities of dis.
cussing them than their Western sisters.
Their readiness to occupy positions usually
filed by men-their love of the natural
sciences, and particularly of medical studies,
as well as their aptitude for conspiracy
have led some to attribute TO them mascu-
line rather than feminine qualities. 1t ought
not to be difficult, however, TO find the woman
beneath the attire of the female student, the
doctor, or the schoolmislress.
What strikes one most about these hot-beds
of conspiracy is the secrecy of the con-
spirators, their loyalty to each other, and the /
with which so many OF them
count the probable consequences of their ac-
ton. The Russian estimate of life is not
high, nor does death seem a particularly
terrible thing when one is blind, epiieptic,
or on the point of starvation. A form of
religious worship, too, keeps alive the q ,me.
has its martyrs, it relics and its
shrines. Men and women who have never
entered place of worship for years, sudden
ly wake up to their capacity for generation
in the presence of some calamity that has
swept off fellow.conspirator. Photographs
of Sophia Perovoskaya, bits of her prison
dress and hair, are still kept sacred and
shown with bated breath, while for votaries
the Semenovsky square, in which she was
executed, has become holy place. The
malady for which so many suffer in Russia
to-day is evidently far from its cure, for it is
he malady of people politically and an
young, thrown into sickness
by hope deferred in what may be called
The morning of its intellectual life."-St.
Petersburg correspondence London Globe.