ABSTRACT
As everyone knows, youth experiences no keener joy than the discovery of sorrow, and the young man never feels more exultingly alive than when, having hit upon pessimism all by himself, he can prove that life is not worth the living. Now, Mr. Aldous Huxley, though a superla tively clever young man, was no exception to the general rule, and so when he discovered the rich possibilities of despair he took his pen in hand and wrote with such ingenuity and zest that the nothingness of life, the brutality of love, and the disgustingness of that filthy animal man were never more delightfully set forth. Yet no one ever suspected that either his cynicism or his wickedness was more than a very clever intellectual exercise.
