Why is it so strange that, when reading a good piece of literature on the subject of hope, I feel deeply touched? Or that, conversely, I feel unmoved? More precisely, why is it that the latter feels more natural than the former? Rebecca Solnit talks of the puritanical spirit which infuses the cynic in us with the satisfaction of being right “because the somber pleasure of condemning things is the most enduring part of that legacy, along with the sense of personal superiority