naked, shivering, and alone, is suddenly left defenceless, confronting the fire and the darkness. The hero of one of Mr. Galsworthy’s novels finds his uncle, a shrewd, insensitive man of business, criticising the modern uncensored drama. “‘What’s right for the French and Russians, Dick,’ he said, ‘is wrong for us. When we begin to be _real_ we only really begin to be false.’ ‘Isn’t life bad enough already?’ he asks. It suddenly struck Shelton that, for all his smile, his uncle’s face had a look of crucifixion. He stood there very straight, his eyes haunting his nephew’s face; there seemed to Shelton a touching muddle in his optimism--a muddle of tenderness and of intolerance, of truth and second-handedness. Like the lion above him, he seemed to be defying Life to make him look at her.”[2] “Defying Life to make him look at her” has been the effort of all societies which have been removed for a time from the immediate necessities of labour, hunger, and cold. That defiance of life is not so mad a thing as it at first appears. It attempts, and to a certain extent with success, to create a possible existence for an average which can never be far removed from the conventional. It works: that is its justification; this gospel of the Second Best, which substitutes a placid friendliness for love’s high ardour, and prettiness for beauty, and a compromise of cruelty and kindliness for social justice, and a standard of convention for the demands of a compelling religion. It is assailed in scornfulness and bitterness and passion, by the advocates of these various flaming emotions; by the religious prophets who demand sincerity; by the social prophets who cry for equality and compassion; by the artists who wish to challenge the unveiled Truth; by the great lovers who are outraged by this ignoble treatment of the “Lord of Life of terrible aspect.” But the thing swings forward, indifferent or but politely tolerant of the clamour; because its inhabitants know that the secure second best is a wiser choice (for them) than the hazards of an effort towards a doubtful larger attainment. Most of those who have demanded less limited horizons, and pressed forward to sail on uncharted seas, and adventured “beyond the sunset,” have vanished and been heard of no more. There is surely justification for any who in the face of such disasters confine their voyages to the familiar creeks and havens, and never willingly forsake the shelter of the shore.