s universe grinding out its
destinies. We Anglo-Saxons are fond of deceiving ourselves about life,
of dressing it up in beautiful colours, of making believe that it
actually contains happiness. All our fiction reflects this--that is
why I never cared to read English or American novels. The Continental
school, the Russians, the Frenchmen, refuse to be deluded. They are
honest."

"Realism, naturalism," he mused, recalling a course in philosophy,
"one would expect the Russian, in the conditions under which he lives,
possessing an artistic temperament combined with a paralysis of the
initiative and a sense of fate, to write in that way. And the
Frenchmen, Renan, Zola, and the others who have followed, are equally
deterministic, but viewing the human body as a highly organized machine
with which we may amuse ourselves by registering its sensations. These
literatures are true in so far as they reflect the characteristics
of the nations from which they spring. That is not to say that the
philosophies of which they are the expressions are true. Nor is it to
admit that such a literature is characteristic of the spirit of America,
and can be applied without change to our life and atmosphere. We have
yet, I believe, to develop our own literature; which will come gradually
as we find ourselves."

"Find ourselves?" she repeated.

"Yes. Isn't that what we are trying to do? We are not determinists or
fatalists, and to condemn us to such a philosophy would be to destroy
us. We live on hope. In spite of our apparent materialism, we are
idealists. And is it not possible to regard nature as governed by
laws--remorseless, if you like the word--and yet believe, with Kant and
Goethe, that there is an inner realm? You yourself struggle--you cling
to ideals."

"Ideals!" she echoed. "Ideals are useless unless one is able to see, to
feel something beyond this ruthless mechanism by which we are surrounded
and hemmed in, to have some perception of another scheme. Why struggle,
unless we struggle for something definite? Oh, I don't mean heavenly
rewards. Nothing could be more insipid and senseless than the orthodox
view of the hereafter. I am talking about a scheme of life here and
now."

"So am I," answered Hodder. "But may there not be a meaning in this very
desire we have to struggle against the order of things as it appears to
us?"

"A meaning?"

"A little while ago you spoke of your indignation at the inequalities
and injustices of