At times people have believed that he was a disciple of Nietzsche. And, in truth, he has come under his influence, like so many other Russian authors. But he has gone on mostly by himself, aided by his acute sensibility, which has not, as yet, allowed him to adopt any one system to the exclusion of all others, or to formulate a system for his personal use. "I know one thing," he says, "it is not happiness that we should hope for. What should we do with it? The meaning of life does not lie in the search for happiness, and the satisfaction of the material appetites will never suffice to make a man fully contented with himself. It is in beauty that we must look for the meaning of life, and in the energy of the will! Every moment of our lives ought to be devoted to some better end...." However, he has very neatly set forth what he considers the task of the author. According to him, the man of to-day has lost courage; he interests himself too little in life, his desire to live with dignity has grown weaker, "an odor of putrefaction surrounds him, cowardice and slavery corrupt his heart, laziness binds his hands and his mind." But, at the same time, life grows in breadth and depth, and, from day to day, men are learning to question. And it is the writer who ought to answer their questions; but he should not content himself with straightening out the balance sheet of social deterioration, and in giving photographs of daily life. The writer must also awaken in the hearts of men a desire for liberty, and speak energetically, in order to infuse in man an ardent desire to create other forms of life.... "It seems to me," says Gorky, "that we desire new dreams, gracious inventions, unforeseen things, because the life which we have created is poor, dreary, and tedious. The reality which formerly we wanted so ardently, has frozen us and broken us down.... What is there to do? Let us try: perhaps invention and imagination will aid man in raising himself so that he may again glance for a moment at the place which he has lost on earth." All of Gorky's characters curse life, but without ceasing to love it, because they "have the taste for life." Their complaints are only a means by which the author hopes to raise up around him "that revengeful shame and the taste for life" of which he so often speaks. Here is the artful Mayakine, who, indignant at the debasement of the younger generation, is ready to take the most cruel means in order "to infuse fire into the veins" of his contemporaries. Varenka Olessova, the heroine of a story, incessantly repeats that people would be more interesting if they were more animated, if they laughed, played, sang more, if they were more audacious, stronger, and even more coarse and vulgar. Gorky admires also the beautiful type, vigorous, with a rudimentary mentality, which meets with his approval simply because he sees in it a nature which is complete, untouched, and filled with a love of life.