The Captives

by

Hugh Walpole




TO

ARNOLD BENNETT

WITH DEEP AFFECTION




"I confess that I do not see why the very existence
of an invisible world may not in part depend on the
personal response which any of us may make to the
religious appeal. God Himself, in short, may draw
vital strength and increase of very being from our
fidelity. For my own part I do not know what the
sweat and blood and tragedy of this life mean, if they
mean anything short of this. If this life be not a real
fight, in which something is eternally gained for the
universe by success, it is no better than a game of private
theatricals from which one may withdraw at will.
But it feels like a real fight--as if there were something