We grow much more when we nurture respect, appreciation and affection for the works bequeathed by the authors of the past, in the face of the opposite impulse to undervalue or reject them. But perhaps we need to wait for time to amplify the first feeling, as greater experience provides more points of contact, thus increasing understanding and empathy. A good age is one that teaches complacency, and complacency, more than anyone else, benefits the one who possesses it.
Perhaps the Most Common Mistake…
Perhaps the most common mistake in literary criticism is to take historical importance as a qualitative criterion for an author. Nothing could be further from the truth. The guy who publishes a sonnet, if he gets shot, is already the murdered poet. And that could be followed by pages and pages that give a misleading impression of greatness. Meanwhile, there’s the other, obscure, with no contacts, about whom little is known, whose biography may not be brilliant, nor his work new, unexplored by critics, without influence, but who made the best of his vocation a reality, with all his spirit and full sincerity.
Something That Distinguishes the Character…
Something that distinguishes the character is the perfect notion that the devil is always walking, always at the side, lurking in wait for the slightest falter. Lose fear of him for an instant and the fall is almost certain. Only fools do not realize it. And those who are not foolish, sometimes well aware that there is nothing to joke about, experience the indescribable distress and terror that comes from realizing how weak the flesh is and how low, for how little, it can descend. To have character is, to a large extent, to become accustomed to incessant vigilance.
Nothing Lasting and Concrete Can Be Achieved…
There is no point: nothing lasting and concrete can be achieved without the spirit constantly turning towards it. Even affliction itself is only consolidated by habit. And just as it grows to monstrosity when regularly fed, so does its opposite when cultivated with courage and constancy. Life always ends up tending towards what repetition has clamored for it to become.