ABSTRACT
It is, I imagine, common in youth to feel in quick succession a number of different attitudes towards life and the world, and to feel each in turn as strongly as if it had no competitors. I loved the imagined beauty that I found in Shelley; I rejoiced in the ardent revolutionaries portrayed by Turgenev; and I was excited by the bold voyages of adventure that made the subject-matter of Ibsen’s plays. All these in their various ways satisfied optimistic moods; but I had other moods for which quite different literature found expression, moods of despair, disgust, hatred, and contempt. I never gave wholehearted assent to these moods, but I was glad when I found in literature anything that seemed to sanction them.
