366 NOTES OF A NATURALIST. 



mind to care for truth, or a heart to feel for others, or 

 a soul accessible to the sense of beauty. 



Recurring to the subject, as I sometimes did during 

 the homeward voyage, it seemed to me that I had 

 perhaps treated the matter too seriously, and that the 

 article I had read was an elaborate hoax, by which 

 the writer, while in truth laughing at his readers, 

 sought merely to astonish and to gain repute as an 

 original thinker. However the fact may be, when 

 taken in connection with the shallow pessimism which, 

 through various channels, has of late filtered into 

 much modern literature, there does appear to be some 

 real danger that the disease may spread among the 

 weaker portion of the young generation. A new 

 fashion, however absurd or mischievous, is sure to 

 have attractions for the feebler forms of human vanity. 

 It is true that there is little danger that the genuine 

 doctrine will spread widely, but the mere masquerade 

 of pessimism may do unimagined mischief. The 

 better instincts of man's nature are not so firmly rooted 

 that we should wish to see the spread of any influence 

 that directly allies itself with his selfish and cowardly 

 tendencies. 



To any young man who has been touched by the 

 contagion of such doctrines, I should recommend a 

 journey long enough and distant enough to bring 

 him into contact with new and varied aspects of 

 nature and of human society. Removed from the 

 daily round of monotonous occupation, or, far worse, 

 of monotonous idleness, life is thus presented in larger 

 and truer proportions, and in a nature not quite 

 worthless some chord must be touched that will stir 



