truly be called most modern, everything that can without
unreasonableness be called most morbid, comes from these fresh
and untried and unexhausted nationalities. Out of these infant
peoples come the oldest voices of the earth. This contradiction,
like many other contradictions, is one which ought first of all
to be registered as a mere fact; long before we attempt to
explain why things contradict themselves, we ought, if we are
honest men and good critics, to register the preliminary truth
that things do contradict themselves. In this case, as I say,
there are many possible and suggestive explanations. It may be,
to take an example, that our modern Europe is so exhausted that
even the vigorous expression of that exhaustion is difficult for
every one except the most robust. It may be that all the nations
are tired; and it may be that only the boldest and breeziest are
not too tired to say that they are tired. It may be that a man
like Ibsen in Norway or a man like Gorky in Russia are the only
people left who have so much faith that they can really believe
in scepticism. It may be that they are the only people left who
have so much animal spirits that they can really feast high and
drink deep at the ancient banquet of pessimism. This is one of
the possible hypotheses or explanations in the matter: that all
Europe feels these things and that they only have strength to
believe them also. Many other explanations might, however, also
be offered. It might be suggested that half-barbaric countries
like Russia or Norway, which have always lain, to say the least
of it, on the extreme edge of the circle of our European
civilisation, have a certain primal melancholy which belongs to
them through all the ages. It is highly probable that this
sadness, which to us is modern, is to them eternal. It is highly
probable that what we have solemnly and suddenly discovered in