It is a shame that those who know not how to write do so, and it is a bigger shame that those who could handle the pen fruitfully abandon it. The inept, by dint of working, become less inept. By dint of walking, though it be blindly, they achieve something. Blunders serve as guides; failures, as teachers. In any case, one could always stop reading them and deny circulation. But the idle talents diminish, and there is no defense against the damage of their sterility. The stubborn charlatans annoy; the mute sages rob us.
These misers of their intellect, these traitors of their fame, are divided in two classes. The first excuse themselves on account of the trade's inclination to poverty and prefer making a buck in a corner. Dinner would convince them to renounce the Quixote. The second, tangled in their purity, say that they are preparing themselves, that there is still time, and that it is better to produce nothing at all than something unremarkable.
The defection of the first is not as ruinous as that of the second. We should distrust those who have little appreciation for their career. Between writing and being rich, they chose being rich. They proved their unworthiness as writers. They were born to hassle or to sell or, which is worse, to give orders. Let us not complain too much about the flight of infidels who would rather align with a Rothschild. Instead, let us approach the ivory tower where the vacillating reside:
—Come out! We should perfume our feet with the country's dew, discover what the hill conceals, travel.
—Our tower is quite beautiful.
—No prison is beautiful.
—We are close to heaven.
—What can be expected from throwing your seed to the skies when only the earth is fertile?
—Dust is asphyxiating. The tantrums of the mass disgust us. There is a stench to the soldier's sweat. Reality smears and unnerves: it is ugly.
—Because you are not acute enough to penetrate its beauty. The world overwhelms you because you are not strong enough to change it. It seems dark and sad because you are extinct torches.
—By contrast, we give ourselves to the wonderful radiance of our dreams.
—Of what worth are your dreams if you do not communicate them? Make them universal and you will make them true. Hidden, they are false.
—Our solitary ideas flap their wings in silence.
—Leaden ideas, incapable of marching ten steps. Chicken wings. From your tower's wall nothing sets off. You decorate your egoism, you yawn with elegance, you make a complication of your uselessness. Prisoners of your pipe's smoke, you mistake toilette for philosophy, pulchritude for genius. You take shyness to be good taste. You grow old satisfied with your manners. Far from the city, you are not sought, for no one needs you. You are very distinguished—by weakness. You hate and then forget.
—Perhaps the present rejects us because we refuse to subject to its demanding miseries. We find our home in the past. We are the scholars of the grave. In our halls wander the faint tints of venerable tapestries. The discreet clarity of bronze lamps extracts a noble lightning from the Milanese armors. And in the nocturnal peace only the turning of rigid pages of parchment under our pale fingers, where an antique seal shines, can be heard.
—You seek refuge in the past, as would become only the dead. Were you alive, you would turn to the future. Exhume at a suitable time, but not corpses. Resurrect the gone or leave them be. Why bring their rot near the sun? Since you are so interested in their company, go to them: escape to the region of eternal shadow. But if there is any interest in living with us, live truly: live in life and not in death. Breathe the air of common fray and start your own work.
—It must be perfect. The perfection we strive for paralyzes us. We draw a line and immediately judge it beneath our ideal. Perfection or nothing.
—Suicides! Living is first and last. That perfection is a form of egoism. You are eager for the finished, the intangible, that in which no one can collaborate, that which humiliates and sets aside, that which elevates and isolates you, the impeccable and cold marble, the ivory tower. To seem perfect according to your patterns of the minute, you render yourselves inert. You go against the secret harmony of your being, you destroy within and without the mysterious, exquisite, wild beauty of life.
Above perfection lies imperfection. Above the august serenity of statues lie our spasms, our laments, our grimaces of ephemeral creatures. Cleanse your soul, find it and give it away entire, with its dignities and indignities, with its sublime glares and opaque clouds, with its cowardice and even monstrosity. Break free from self-absorption—you will save yourself and you will save us. The sincerity and light of the universe will have increased. Sowers, open your hand completely. No seed must remain there.
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