The plight of Flaubert’s heroine and that of Carol Kennicott in “Main Street” are different aspects of the same social and moral disease--undue moral repression. The author of this book is not a pessimist and he is well aware that there are many American virtues; frankness, cordiality, buoyancy, a love of life and a love of action, a craving for change, the exaltation of youth, pure and triumphant, and the dynamism of national life,--these are qualities which the Old World might envy the New. But an outside observer might also have the right to point to the reverse side of these qualities. What has become of ethical and intellectual standards in the United States, a country so unmistakably prosperous and happy from a material point of view? What is the present condition of culture which exists behind the display of luxury and comfort? How has America fared in the conflict of quality _versus_ quantity which has swept the world? One thing strikes the European in these United States of to-day; it is the contrast between the general prosperity and the individual discontent. The average American, taken out of his natural surroundings, appears like one who is sacrificed by being harnessed to some huge task whose importance he cannot grasp with reference to his personal satisfaction. He has helped to build a colossal structure, but what has he succeeded in achieving for his own gratification? Has he not sacrificed his best personal interests to the general welfare? The average American is an optimist superficially, but many disappointments lie buried in his heart. There seems to be some ungratified longing in his life; neither Puritan asceticism nor material prosperity can satisfy the new generation in America. The newcomers declare themselves discontented; they have become frankly pessimistic. A proud and wealthy nation, the proudest and wealthiest of all, the most eager and the most successful in conquering the means of material welfare, America does not seem to know how to make her children happy. They are in revolt, they are questioning the ideals and institutions of their fathers. In poetry, in drama, in the pulpit and in the press, pessimism and criticism prevail. Only recently the élite of the American intelligentsia declared that the civilization of the United States had been a failure. What of all that? The author is not dismayed by these complaints. He holds that art in its largest sense has always had pessimism as its base and exaltation as its apogee. _Durch Leiden Freude!_ the great Beethoven proclaimed. Better to have the blues of a Chatterton, an Edgar Allan Poe, a Francis Thompson, than to have the banal optimism of a Babbitt after a good meal. The present pessimism of the younger generation in America is a good omen and an indication of a better future. Young America is looking forward to more thrilling spiritual adventures and it certainly will not be deceived in its high expectations.