MEET ME ON THE BAR1.{-lCADES

In music, on the other hand, it is different; the formal relationship of tones and tonal combinations are more or less fixed and readily discernible. The diminished seventh, for example, is a reality which may be verified by the sense of hearing, but the word ‘humanity’ is an abstraction of an abstraction which can only be verified by still another set of abstrac- tions.

Moreover, out of the confusion of the society in which Simpson found himself, out of the pain and frustration of his personal life, his idealism was born. Such opinions as he had sprang not from closely reasoned ideas but from emotion: fear, hope, desire. He was motivated, not by ideas but by ideals, and being the creature of his hopes and fears the struggle became one between good and evil and not one where economic and historical forces relentlessly contended for power. As he walked, the problem was slowly resolved as the result of emotional instead of intel- lectual activity.

—Socialism in Russia, Soviet oil and heavy machinery to Italy and Germany, all that’s not im- portant. Suppose fascism wins in Spain. France goes next, maybe Czechoslovakia. The whole world will be fascist in ten years.

In his imagination he saw bonfires of books, saw

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