. Notwithstanding this, the authors try to persuade
us that they are giving a true picture of society, and that their
analysis of customs is an objective one. The lie, exaggeration, liking
for rotten things--such is the exact picture in contemporary novels.
I do not know what profit there is in literature like that, but I
do know that the devil has not lost anything, because through this
channel flows a river of mud and poison, and the moral sense became so
dulled that finally they tolerated such books which a few decades
ago would have brought the author to court. To-day we do not wish to
believe that the author of "Madame Bovary" had two criminal suits. Had
this book been written twenty years later, they would have found it
too modest.

But the human spirit, which does not slumber, and the organism that
wishes to live, does not suffer excess of poison. Finally there came a
moment for hiccoughs of disgust. Some voices began to rise asking for
other spiritual bread; an instinctive sentiment awakes and cries that
it cannot continue any longer in this way, that one must arise, shake
off the mud, clean, change! The people ask for a fresh breeze. The
masses cannot say what they want, but they know what they do not want;
they know they are breathing bad air, and that they are suffocating.
An uneasiness takes hold of their minds. Even in France they are
seeking and crying for something different; they began to protest
against the actual state of affairs. Many writers felt that
uneasiness. They had some moments of doubt, about which I have spoken
already, and those doubts were stronger on account of the uncertainty
of the new roads. Look at the last books of Bourget, Rod, Barres,
Desjardin, the poetry of Rimbaud, Verlaine, Heredia, Mallarme, and
even Maeterlinck and his school. What do you find there? The searching
for new essence and new form, feverish seeking for some issue,
uncertainty where to go and where to look for help--in religion or
mysticism, in duty outside of faith, or in patriotism or in humanity?
Above all, however, one sees in them an immense uneasiness. They do
not find any issue, because for it one needs two things: a great idea
and a great talent, and they did not have either of them. Hence the
uneasiness increases, and the same authors who arouse against rough
pessimism of naturalistic direction fell into pessimism themselves,
and by this the principal importance and aim of a reform became
weaker. What rem