Page:The Descent of Bolshevism.djvu/73

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THE DESCENT OF BOLSHEVISM

consist of two classes, the virtuous and the free-hearted."

But the members had some trouble, it seems, in achieving pristine purity and practicing the pastoral virtues. According to John Robison, who exposed the Order a few years after it was suppressed and who translated some of the letters of Spartacus, they were sneaky, white-livered rascals, without the virtue even of an Ismailite, who fought in the open or an Assassin, who sacrificed himself for a full share of Mohammed's paradise. Spartacus himself realized this and bemoaned it in print.

Thus, for instance, to Cato: "Alcibiades sits the day long with the vintner's pretty wife and then sighs and pines. A few days ago at Corinth (they also gave modern cities ancient names), Tiberius attempted to ravish the wife of Democides, and her husband came in upon them. Good heavens, what Areopagitae I have got."

Admitting that some of these Spartacus letters may be forgeries, designed to discredit the Order, there is nothing to dis-

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