ABSTRACT
The latest movement in European literature has been called by many names, none of them quite comprehensive - Decadence, Symbolism, Impressionism, for instance. Taking the word Decadence, as most precisely expressing the general sense of the newest movement in literature, we find that the terms Impressionism and Symbolism define correctly enough the two main branches of that movement. Impressionist and Symbolist have more in common than either supposes; both are really working on the same hypothesis, applied in different directions. The doctrine of Mysticism, with which all the symbolical literature has so much to do, of which it is all so much the expression, presents us, not with a guide for conduct, not with a plan for our happiness, not with an explanation of any mystery, but with a theory of life which makes us familiar with mystery, and which seems to harmonise those instincts which make for religion, passion, and art, freeing us at once of a great bondage.
