Where nature is obscenity and man’s abuse of it purity. Where philistinism is a habit and intellectual groping a “fad.” Where reputation is more vital than character. Where sociability is a goal instead of a vice. Where indirection is known as unselfishness and self-direction as egotism. Where thinking is only a sort of autistic stammering. Where genius, “being youth and wisdom,” is sent to school to learn—(Never mind; I can’t remember what). Where impulse is assassinated before it can prove its worth. Where one must achieve in gloom or be suspected of “lightness.” Where beauty comes only when one has struggled beyond the need of it. Where sex is known as the greatest human experience, and experience in sex as the greatest human sin. Where religion is known to be an unfolding, but experience in unfolding looked upon as irreligious. * * * * * What do you call this fantastic place where age that is weak rules youth that is strong? Where parents prescribe life for children they cannot understand. Where politicians and prostitutes and police and the press are despised but honored and great spirits are suspected of greatness but feared and cast out. Where nations go to war for things they do not believe in and individuals will not go to revolution for things they do believe in. Where those who know the rottenness in Denmark cannot think through to what caused it. Where birds that fly are put into cages and men who soar are put into jails. * * * * * What do you call this incredible place where men go inch by inch to death in jails? Where they cease to hear and see and feel and smell and talk and walk and sing and sleep and work and play and think and be—not by order of gods or monsters but by order of men? What do you call a place where those who must cease _to be_ are richer than those who _are_? What do you call this awful place where every great spirit walks not only in rebellion and misunderstanding and isolation but in persecution? Where there are no heroes to make an end of horrors. Where even to live outdoors cannot clean men. Where there is no imagination and no faith. Where there is no silence.... * * * * * Do you call it an asylum of crazed beings who annihilate each other? Not at all. You call it the world. You say it is “a good old world, after all.” And you resent the “freak” who tells you your world is upside down. Out of the loneliness of self-direction comes the only completion of life.—“_The Scavenger._” Moods BEN HECHT