I might have simply settled down into an armchair literary life. I really don't know exactly why I didn't.

My ideas had been taking a socialistic shape for many years; but they were lacking in definite outline.

We lived within two hundred yards of the sea, and its voice was in our ears night and day.

With my somewhat vague aspiring mind, to be imprisoned in the rude details of a most material life was often irksome.

I might have simply settled down into an armchair literary life. I really don't know exactly why I didn't.

The general fact of surplus value, namely that the workmen does not get the full value of his labours, and that he is taken advantage of by the capitalist, is obvious.

When he was twenty-three or twenty-four my father began to learn German and read philosophy in his spare hours, which did not look as though he were destined to remain long on board ship!