ABSTRACT
The sense of desolation, of uncertainty, of futility, of the baselessness of aspirations, of the vanity of endeavour, and a thirst for life-giving water which seems suddenly to have failed, are the signs in consciousness of this necessary reorganisation of our lives. Mr Richards seems to me to be slightly under the sentimental influence of Matthew Arnold, whom he pertinently quotes at the head of his article; wandering between two worlds. In the history of literature feeling and emotion had been altered, and at certain times diminished, by whatever at the time it was inevitable to consider real or true. To limit ourselves to Christian belief, there is religious verse in the thirteenth century, in the seventeenth, and in the nineteenth centuries. It should hardly be needful to say that it not inevitably be orthodox Christian belief, although that possibility can be entertained, since Christianity will probably continue to modify itself.
