"We are in the habit of assuming that the most serious and
profound apprehension of reality is the Sense of Tragedy; but it may be that,
in assuming this, we ourselves are mistaken.
"It may be that there are points of
view from which the Tragic Sense must be seen as serious and profound indeed,
but limited and imperfectly philosophical . . . [in this age] we hug our
negations, our doubts, our disbeliefs, to our chests, as if our moral and
intellectual dignity depended on them.
"And indeed it does—[but only] so far as the
alternative is to remain this side of
Tragedy, and to shut our ears and eyes to the horrors of experience."
-Newston Arvin
{image: A Soul Brought To Heaven by A. William Bouguereau}
