Abstract

Special Correspondence

The article reports social news. English poet, essayist and critic Matthew Arnold, in his volume of "Mixed Essays," lately published, in speaking somewhere of some of the less creditable features of English civilization, alludes to the British theatre as "probably the most contemptible in Europe." The judgment is a harsh one, but lie would be a bold man who, looking round him at the condition of the London stage at the present moment, should attempt to gainsay it. There is probably no word in common use of such vague and indeterminate sense as the word "pessimist." Pessimism of some type is last becoming the confessed creed of those who experience the inevitable reaction of a precocious culture, or find themselves falling behind in the struggles of survival; of those whose superficial mental culture has left the heart untouched by all the great enthusiasms of humanity, and who have, perhaps unconsciously, adopted the maxim of the cynic, Dum ridel philosopitatur; of those who have been suddenly awakened to a realizing sense that their early ideals, standards, and creed have been lost without being replaced by others, that the present is all man is sure of, and that they are unfairly handicapped in the world's hunt for pleasure and money.