“The human mind does not exist, Sidney, except as supposition. There are no human realities. The world still awaits the one who will show it things as they really are. Human realities, so-called, are the horrible, ghastly unrealities of carnal thought, without any basis of the divine Christ-principle. I know, we are told that the great books of the world are those which preserve and interpret its life. Alas! is it true greatness to detail, over and over again in endless recital, the carnal motives of the human mind, its passions and errors, its awful mesmerism, its final doom? Yes, perhaps, on one condition: that, like a true critic, you picture human concepts only to show their unreality, their nothingness, and to show how they may be overcome.”
“But most books––”
“Ah, yes, most books are written only to amuse the dispirited human mind for a brief hour, to make it forget for a moment its troubles. They are literary narcotics; they are 124 sops to jaded appetites, that’s all. A book, for example, that pictures an injured man discovering a great treasure, and then using it to carry out his schemes of revenge––well, what influence for good has such a work? It is only a stimulus to evil, Sidney. But had it shown him using that great wealth to bless his persecutors and turn them from their mesmerism to real life and good––”
“Such things don’t happen in this world, Carmen.”
“But they could, and should, Sidney dear. And they will, some day. Then will come the new literature, the literature of good! And it will make people think, rather than relieve them from the ennui of solid thought, as our present novels do. The intellectual palate then will find only insipidity in such books as pour from our presses now. The ability to converse glibly about authors who wallow in human unrealities will then no longer be considered the hall-mark of culture. Culture in that day will be conformity to truth.”
The lad smiled at the enthusiastic girl. “Little sister,” he said, “you are a beautiful idealist.”
“But,” came her quick reply, “are you not a living illustration of the practicability of my idealism, Sidney?”
The boy choked, and tears filled his eyes. Carmen stole an arm about him. “The most practical man who ever lived, Sidney dear, was Jesus. And he was the greatest idealist. He had ideas that differed very radically from other people’s, but he did not hide them for fear of giving offense. He was not afraid to shock people with the truth about themselves. He tore down, yes; but he then reconstructed, and on a foundation of demonstrable truth. He was not afraid to defy the Rabbis, the learned, and the puffed-up. He did not bow abjectly before the mandarins and pedagogues. Had he done so, and given the people what they wanted and were accustomed to, they would have made him a king––and his mission would have been a dead failure!”
“And for that they slew him,” returned the boy.
“It is the cowardly fear of slaughter, Sidney, that keeps people from coming out and standing for what they know to be right to-day. You are not one of those cravens.”