At times, after incident upon incident of war, the reader
is tempted to exclaim, "Something too much of this!" Yet nowhere,
perhaps, except from the great canvases of Verestchagin, has there
ever come a more awful, powerful plea for peace than from the pages of
"Fire and Sword."
In "Without Dogma" is presented quite another theme, treated in a
fashion strikingly different. In the historical novels the stage
is crowded with personages. In "Without Dogma," the chief interest
centres in a single character. This is not a battle between contending
armies, but the greater conflict that goes on in silence,--the battle
of a man for his own soul.
He can scarcely be considered an heroic character; he is to some
extent the creature of circumstances, the fine product of a
highly complex culture and civilization. He regards himself as a
nineteenth-century Hamlet, and for him not merely the times, but his
race and all mankind, are out of joint. He is not especially Polish
save by birth; he is as little at home in Paris or at Rome as in
Warsaw. Set him down in any quarter of the globe and he would be
equally out of place. He folds the mantle of his pessimism about him.
Life has interested him purely as a spectacle, in which he plays no
part save a purely passive one. His relation to life is that of the
Greek chorus, passing across the stage, crying "Woe, woe!"
Life has interested, entertained, and sometimes wearied him.
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