To this in turn comes a feeling of reaction. The joys of life have been
a thousand times felt before they come to us. We are but following part
of a cut-and-dried program, "performing actions and reciting speeches
made up for us centuries before we were born." The new power of manhood
and womanhood which seemed so wonderful find their close limitations. As
our own part in the Universe seems to shrink as we take our place in it,
so does the Universe itself seem to grow small, hard and unsympathetic.
Very few young men or young women of strength and feeling fail to pass
through a period of Pessimism. With some it is merely an affectation
caught from the cheap literature of decadence. It then may find
expression in imitation, as a few years ago the sad-hearted youth turned
down his collar in sympathy with the "conspicuous loneliness" that took
the starch out of the collar of Byron. "The youth," says Zangwill,
says bitter things about Life which Life would have winced to hear had
it been alive." With others Pessimism has deeper roots and finds its
expression in the poetry or philosophy of real despair.
This adolescent Pessimism cannot be wrought into action. The mood
disappears when real action is demanded. The Pessimism of youth vanishes
with the coming of life. Through the rush of the new century, the fad of
the drooping spirit has already given way to the fad of the strenuous
life. Equally unreasoning it may be, but far more wholesome.
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