Why think, indeed, when thinking leaves one old--so old, so cold, so sadly wise? That thinking--the realist’s way of thinking--does leave one in melancholy mood may be no objection to thinking in this way; but it may not be ignored as a fact of history. Realism’s hymn of triumph is written by the best of its poets and the most sincere of its prophets--Leconte de Lisle. One does not attempt to translate a Leconte de Lisle, but the thought of the final verses of his poem on the Southland may be put in some such way as this-- Man, if with heart full of joy or bitterness Thou go at noonday through these radiant fields-- Flee! Nature is empty and the sun consumes; Nothing here is alive, nothing sad, nothing joyous. But if having put tears behind thee and laughter Thou be turned to forgetfulness of this troubled world, No longer knowing how to pardon nor how to curse, And would taste a last sad volupté-- Come! The sun speaks to thee a glorious language; Lose thyself in its implacable flame And return slow-footed to the vile city of men, Thy soul seven times steeped in divine nothingness. It is like that. This wondering in a world we did not make and cannot change, in which all our creating is illusory--a chance trivial expression of what the world has made us--with no other purpose in our wandering but For to admire and for to see, For to be’old this world so wide. --why yes, the fulness of such experience comes as near as can be to bringing us to a seven-fold sense of the _néant divin_. Well, when a man’s philosophy has turned bitter to his tongue and hangs heavy on his heart, there are three things he may do. He may abide by the consequences of his philosophy, and seeing no fault in the premises accept the conclusion with all valiance. Or, he may rebel against all logic and reason and trust that sympathies and antipathies are safer guides to truth than any evidence could be. Or, finally, he may examine the premises anew. It is, I must confess, only to the last--to the reasoners and critics who go patiently to work to re-examine old beliefs--that I lend a respectful ear. But I do not know that I can begin an account of the backward swing from such extreme realism as I have pictured to such extreme idealism as I can tell only part of before I close, better than by letting the mere spirit of unreasoning revolt against this selfless objectivity express itself. * * * * *