Who are their foremost writers to-day? The Hauptmanns
and the Sudermanns, gropers in obscurity, violent sentimentalists,
'bigots to laxness,' Dr. Johnson would have called them. Their
world is a moral and artistic chaos agitated by spasms of hysteria.
Their work is a mass of decay touched with gleams of phosphorescence.
The Romans would have called it _immunditia_. What is your new
American word for that kind of thing, Richard? I heard you use it
the other day."
"Punk," responded Dick promptly. "Sometimes, if it's very sickening,
we call it pink punk."
"All right," interrupted Hardman impatiently. "Say what you like
about Hauptmann and Sudermann. They are no friends of mine. Be as
ferocious with them as you please. But you surely do not mean to
claim that the right kind of study and understanding of the classics
could have had any practical influence on the German character, or
any value in saving the German Empire from its horrible blunders."
"Precisely that is what I do mean."
"But how?"
"Through the mind, _animus_, the intelligent directing spirit
which guides human conduct in all who have passed beyond the stage
of mere barbarism.
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