A Bold, Bad Face

LOOK closely at the face of Emma Goldman in any one of her published photographs. Note the protruding, pugnacious chin and mouth, the heavy lips—especially the lower lip—arched in the bow of discontent; the eyes, with lids drooping, half concealing the cold look of indifference, but emphasizing and matching the expression of the mouth. It is the face of a heartless, cruel, bitter and selfish person. Its dominant characteristics are envy and selfishness, but back of these, though so closely pressing as to be easily outlined in the character of the subject, are hatred and malice and all uncharitableness for every one whom circumstances or their own industry and thrift have surrounded with more of the good things of this life than she possesses. It is the face, too, of one who could plan and plot for the doing of murder by another and then leave the ignorant tool she had incited to crime to face its consequences and punishment alone, vehemently protesting her own innocence of any part or knowledge of it to free her own neck from the halter. It is a face which cries frantically, “Revenge, revenge,” for the purely fancied slights with which fate or fortune or the higher merit of others inflict in the battle of life, and it considers all more worldly favored persons than its owner as her personal enemies. It is, moreover, a face typical, not only of the character of the woman Goldman, but of all who profess sincerely to believe in the destruction of organized society.