“Forlorn the way, yet with strange gleams of gladness;
Sad beyond words the voices far behind.
Yet we, perplext with our diviner madness,
Must heed them not—the goal is still to find!
What though beset by pain and fear and sorrow,
We must not fail, we Children of To-morrow.”
The Children of To-morrow called forth all manner of divergent opinions. It was called depressing by one critic, and out of touch with realities. Another considered the chief interest of the book to consist “in what may be called its aims. It is clearly an attempt toward greater truth in art and life.” All agreed as to the power displayed in the descriptions of nature. The critic in Public Opinion showed discernment as to the author’s intentions when he wrote “To our mind the delightful irresponsibility of this book, the calm determination which it displays that now, at least, the author means to please himself, to give vent to many a pent up feeling or opinion constitutes one of its greatest charms. This waywardness, the waywardness of a true artist, is shown on almost every page.... Mr. Sharp states his case with wonderful power and lucidity; he draws no conclusions—as an artist they do not concern him—he leaves the decision to the individual temperament.”
Mathilde Blind wrote to the author:
1 St. Edmund’s Terrace, N. W., 1889.
Dear Child of the Future,
You have indeed written a strange, weird, romantic tale with the sound of the sea running through it like an accompaniment. Adama Acosta is a specially well-imagined and truthful character of a high kind; and the intermittent wanderings of his brain have something akin to the wailing notes of the instrument of which he is such a master. But it is in your conception of love—the subtle, delicate, ideal attraction of two beings inevitably drawn to each other by the finest elements of their being—that the charm of the story consists to my mind; on the other hand, you have succeeded in drawing a very realistic and vivid picture of the hard and handsome Lydia, with her purely negative individuality, and in showing the deadly effect which one person may exercise over another in married life—without positive outward wrongdoing which might lead to the divorce court. I agree with you in thinking that the end is the finest part of the Romance, especially the last scene where Dane and Sanpriel are in the wood under the old oak tree, where the voice of the rising storm with its ominous note of destiny is magnificently described. Such a passing away in the mid-most fire of passion on the wings of the elements has always seemed to me the climax of human happiness. But I fear the book is likely to rouse a good deal of opposition in many quarters for the daring disregard of the binding sanctity of the marriage relation. If I may speak quite openly and as a friend who would wish you to do yourself full justice and produce the best work that is in you, I wish you had given yourself more time to work out some of the situations which seem, to me at least, to lack a certain degree of precision and consistency. Thus, for example, Dane after discovering that Ford has been trying to murder him, and is making secret love to his wife, rushes off to the painter’s studio evidently bent on some sort of quarrel or revenge, yet nothing comes of it, and afterwards we find the would-be murderer on outwardly friendly terms with the sculptor on board the house boat. I must tell you by the way how powerful I think the scene of the dying horse in Ratho Sands and the murder of Lydia. I should also have liked to have heard a little more of the real aims and objects of “The Children of the Future” and would like to know whether such an association really exists among any section of the modern Jews; we must talk of that this evening or some other time when we meet. I hope to look in to-night with Sarrazin and Bunand who are coming to a little repast here first. Madox Brown has been reading your book with the greatest interest.