ney that ends in the delirium of death. The promised land had proved a mirage—at least for the present. And it is upon this indecisive note that the book ends.
Ferrero's introduction, though short, is substantial, and to the point. It is natural that he should have taken such a liking to the book, for Aranha's work is of intense interest to the reader who looks for psychological power, and Ferrero himself is the exponent of history as psychology rather than as economic materialism. "The critics," he says, "will judge the literary merits of this novel. As a literary amateur I will point out among its qualities the beauty of its style and its descriptions, the purity of the psychological analysis, the depth of the thoughts and the reflections of which the novel is full, and among its faults a certain disproportion between the different parts of the book and an ending which is too vague, indefinite and unexpected. But its literary qualities seem to me to be of secondary importance to the profound and incontrovertible idea that forms the kernel of the book. Here in Europe we are accustomed to say that modern civilization develops itself in America more freely than in Europe, for in the former country it has not to surmount the obstacle
