palpitating with sympathy, would abstract coins from the parental
drawer to clandestinely press the money into the hands of the
unfortunate women. Thus Emma Goldman's most striking characteristic,
her sympathy with the underdog, already became manifest in these
early years.

At the age of seven little Emma was sent by her parents to her
grandmother at Konigsberg, the city of Emanuel Kant, in Eastern
Prussia. Save for occasional interruptions, she remained there till her
13th birthday. The first years in these surroundings do not exactly
belong to her happiest recollections. The grandmother, indeed, was
very amiable, but the numerous aunts of the household were concerned
more with the spirit of practical rather than pure reason, and the
categoric imperative was applied all too frequently. The situation
was changed when her parents migrated to Konigsberg, and little Emma
was relieved from her role of Cinderella. She now regularly attended
public school and also enjoyed the advantages of private instruction,
customary in middle class life; French and music lessons played an
important part in the curriculum. The future interpreter of Ibsen
and Shaw was then a little German Gretchen, quite at home in the
German atmosphere. Her special predilections in literature were the
sentimental romances of Marlitt; she was a great admirer of the good
Queen Louise, whom the bad Napoleon Buonaparte treated with so marked
a lack of knightly chivalry. What might have been her future
development had she remained in this milieu? Fate--or was it
economic necessity?--willed it otherwise. Her parents decided to
settle in St. Petersburg, the capital of the Almighty Tsar, and there
to embark in business. It was here that a great change took place in
the life of the young dreamer.