Fundamental pathos.-- Strong natures unite the best and the worst in themselves through their choice of ends, this is their lofty artifice.The great soul possesses a single virtue, which is also its only sin; everything else for it is momentary passion, accident, superficiality.
Atavism and beauty.-- Almost everything that man now finds beautiful has its origin in one of the fears of some age before him: freedom, the laws- formerly hidden, of the soul and of nature, perhaps also the nude form of a woman. It is in beauty that man enjoys the triumph over himself.
Strange melodies.-- The delight in viciousness peculiar to the ancient Greeks, the travails of the religious conscience, virtue as arete– these are all flowers that flourished only in the soil of a particular time and, deprived of this soil, quickly perished. Let us examine the growth of one of these flowers. The disparate passions of Eros, divine transcendence, and mystical union, accumulated as they were throughout the culture of Dante in the diverse strains of the philosophers, poets, and theologians to whom he had access, required him to intervene and, under the providence of his own poetic vision, to unite them. Only when these sensations had been joined and, passed down in this new combination, did they finally succeed in entering into the true baptism of culture and, having been adopted by the social conscience of a particular era in time, eventually marked the birth of a new passion altogether. We have come to call this passion “romantic” love, the idea of union with a twin soul. The former flowers have wholly perished from the earth; is it not impossible to conceive that this one, too, shall do the same? Perhaps that form of education which could revive such passions has not yet been invented. One would have to seek for the point in time were some group of disparate passions were united, as in the case of Dante, and then prepare that culture in which they had again been born asunder for the reception of this “melody” which would seem completely new and so strange to it. Given the fact that, in the past, this reception was altogether a product of nature, the reaction of a culture to the dawn of a melody whose time had come, a melody which had been tuned for their ears alone by the rhythms of their own artistic and philosophic traditions, perhaps no science yet exists which could indicate to us the steps which would have to be taken to artificially induce it and thus revitalize those passions which have been lost to us, to make comprehensible again those melodies whose aesthetic criteria have been so thoroughly forgotten. What form would this science assume? It would be nothing less than a history of the social conscience, informed by the study of the origination and development of social feelings, those listed here only serving as a few examples. In this science theology, the arts, literature, politics, philosophy-- all of these would at last find their commonality.
Conscience as a melody.-- That point of style described by Niccolò Partenio Giannettasio in Autumni Surrentini, interea loci dum haec loqueremur, nos amicus opressit, [The source of eloquence is an oppressing love, the mortifying lash which checks the tongue.] may perhaps have a wider import than he imagined. Man makes use of his ideas, his experiences- good or ill, his passions, and his ambitions as so many notes in a beautiful harmony. He enriches his soul in this fashion, although as a consequence of his daring he sometimes discovers in the process horrible discords and annuls with a faltering and unpracticed voice what harmonies he had formely endowed his soul with. Perhaps more is at stake in the concept of “art” than was formely believed.
Life’s comedy.-- Societies become childish to the extent that individuals become mature-- that is the comedy of life and also the tragedy of knowledge.
The thorn in the flesh.-- It is not a question of the intensity of pain, but of its duration, in which the ruin of the soul and the destruction of the will consists. In the end a severe affliction and a little thorn in ones flesh, or perhaps also the thorn of an idea, are indistinguishable and matters of equal severity, for in the end all long, drawn out pain makes man conscious of his fundamental powerlessness. In that lies the wellspring of his most profound suffering.
Profundity.-- Men generally find profundity only in the mystical, dark, and incomprehensible. Why? Men generally do not like to think, and these things kindly relieve him of that burden.
Veritas in Epicurum.– Epicurus was the closest among us to the truth, yet even he was indeed a long way off. Men seek happiness, yet happiness belongs to desire and therefor to war, and never to possession- and therefor certainly never to tranquility.
Naive.-- I know of nothing more naive than Pico de Mirandola’s dream of having that glorious debate before the Church, to which any man who had an objection to raise against his nine hundred theses would be admitted. Argument rarely wins even pride for a man; that it should win justice for him is inconceivable.
The young artist.-- We should not rebuke the arrogance of a young artist, for it is precisely by falsely comparing himself to other artists that the secret laws of his own impulse are concealed from him; its needs, it attractions, etc. The fact that they should be concealed from him is quite necessary, for his arrogance, as it were, suspends his development in order for his taste, which awaits quietly and without causing him any disturbance for his vanity to abate- so that the artists to whom he as done an injustice may clearly present themselves, to one day rise and meet his genius, which freely indulges itself. To rebuke a young artist for his arrogance is the worst thing one might do to him: it is arrogance that is the season of his bitter and unripe fruit; unripe and yet also promising; promising, yet also delicate, as it happens that wounded pride can mean only death to him. Arrogance then, and solitude; provided these two things the genius of an artist, his creative power, may realize its own strength so that at a much later time his taste may rise to meet it. Taste can quite easily rise to meet genius, but it is nearly impossible for genius to rise and meet taste, and as Chateaubriand said, it is through the union of these two faculties that an artist may become great.
Playful wisdom.-- I know of no greater a proof that a man of knowing, too, can also laugh, than the ‘epitaph for a poet’ which Possidius wrote: Vivere post obitum vates vis nosse, viator? Quid legis ecce loquor: vox tua nempe mea est. [You ask if there is life after death, stranger? These very words you are now reading give you the answer; lo, you pronounce them, and I am but a breath.]
Learning to fear.-- In the same manner that men fear death, so the man of knowledge fears love- fears it, and occasionally wishes for it also.
Serenity.-- Serenity is often given as the true mark of wisdom, yet it is a true mark for many things, sometimes even of hatred and love. Stillness is the wellspring of all greatness in man; calmness the mother equally of all profound virtues as well as vices.
Veritas in absurdum.-- A man who does not desire to know seems as ridiculous to me as water that does not quench thirst- and yet I meet such men every day.
The thorn of virtue.-- Man demands a thorn upon every beautiful flower: pride upon the saint, vanity upon the philosopher, anger upon the prophet. Man can endure all things, even pride, vanity, and anger- but he cannot endure perfection.
A sign of greatness.-- It is a sign of greatness of heart to love rather than hope out of desperation and sorrow. Sorrow and desperation make the contemplative man, who is used to spending his entire life under the veil of hope, finally become daring enough to embrace something with all the confidence of love.
Philosophy and misanthropy.-- One might read Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, not to confirm, but to cure his misanthropy. It is only when we see our own qualites revealed in another person that they begin to revile us.
The vanity of artists.-- Even in the purest of artistic expressions there is often more vanity than there is purity: in most cases we are bound to find, no doubt, the Italic, Petrarchan formulation of virtue at its finest, of which the delicate poet made use of in order to prove his love: ch’ ogni cor addolcisce e’ l mio consumam, [size=85]1[/size] namely, that it is only great strength that is capable of great pain, and the profound heart that is capable of profound longing. I have always therefor considered it one of the purest expressions, the sentence of Amiel: “The great heart does not always long for the great heart.”
[size=85]1. She sweetens all hearts, but mine consumes.[/size]
The morality of the poet.-- The poet has perhaps the simplest of all moralities: cui virtutis amor nobile pectus. [size=85]1[/size] [Calaminus in Silesii Liber, Vel Epistola Mnemosynes ad Eugeniam]
[size=85]1. Love is itself a virtue when in a noble breast.[/size]