DARWIN'S NATURAL SELECTION 59 



that the sun is dead. But no, thou art riot 

 dead, oh Liberty ! At an hour when they have 

 most profoundly forgotten thee; at a moment 

 when they least expect thee, thou shall arise, 

 oh, dazzling sight! Thou shalt shoot thy 

 bright and burning rays, thy heat, thy life, on 

 all this mass of ice become hideous and dead. 

 Do you hear that dull thud, that crackling,, 

 deep and dreadful ? Tis the Neva tearing loose. 

 You said it was granite. See it splits like glass. 

 'Tis the breaking of the ice, I tell you. Tis the 

 water alive, joyous and terrible. Progress re- 

 commences. 'Tis humanity again beginning its 

 march. Tis the river which retakes its course, 

 uproots, mangles, strikes together, crushes 

 and drowns in its waves not only the empire 

 of upstart Czar Nicholas, but all of the relics 

 of ancient and modern despotism. That 

 trestle work floating away? It is the throne. 

 That other trestle? It is the scaffold. That 

 old book, half sunk? It is the old code of 

 capitalist laws and morals. That old rookery 

 just sinking? It is a tenement house in which 

 wage slaves lived. See these all pass by; 

 passing by never more to return ; and for this 

 immense engulfing, for this supreme victory of 

 life over death, what has been the power 

 necessary? One of thy looks, oh, sun! One 

 stroke of thy strong arm, oh, labor !" 



