With believers he is an atheist; with atheists
he would be a believer." How much substantial truth there is in these
gloomy confessions of this man of painful sincerity!
This violent struggle for the perpetuation of our name extends backwards
into the past, just as it aspires to conquer the future; we contend
with the dead because we, the living, are obscured beneath their shadow.
We are jealous of the geniuses of former times, whose names, standing
out like the landmarks of history, rescue the ages from oblivion. The
heaven of fame is not very large, and the more there are who enter it
the less is the share of each. The great names of the past rob us of our
place in it; the space which they fill in the popular memory they usurp
from us who aspire to occupy it. And so we rise up in revolt against
them, and hence the bitterness with which all those who seek after fame
in the world of letters judge those who have already attained it and are
in enjoyment of it. If additions continue to be made to the wealth of
literature, there will come a day of sifting, and each one fears lest he
be caught in the meshes of the sieve. In attacking the masters,
irreverent youth is only defending itself; the iconoclast or
image-breaker is a Stylite who erects himself as an image, an _icon_.
"Comparisons are odious," says the familiar adage, and the reason is
that we wish to be unique.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113