I have the note ready, but I cannot write it yet… Oh, anxiety! Come, time! I can already imagine the pleasure, the joy in transcribing my frustration in these words: Russian is much, much easier than Latin! Reading Dostoevsky and Tolstoy in the original is fun compared to understanding Tacitus, Virgil, Ovid, etc., etc. Come on, time! I cannot wait for this publication! Just thinking about my Latin dictionary makes me want to tear it up, burn it, throw it away, eliminate it forever from my life. I can no longer stand this crutch, without which I cannot advance a paragraph in classical authors… And the Russian… what about the Russian? Let’s wait…
Sterility and Merit
In Symbolism, it was sterility seen as a virtue and artistic choice. However… how to say? It is natural in the one who employs all his spirit in art, who devotes himself wholly to art to produce it in abundance. Fecundity is, to a great extent, dedication. In the Symbolists, it was not an isolated case of slacking off, or of giving oneself over to depravity. Let us meditate: how is it possible to value the artist who does not value himself and destroys himself in very low habits? the artist who despises his talent and spends most of his time in petty activities? It is true: there are cases in which the work speaks for itself. But the sterile artist limits himself: his work, though strong, lacks breadth, multiplicity—qualities that would probably be attainable through effort. From all this, the conclusion: a genius becomes what he engenders and, ultimately, his dimension is also conditioned to his effort.
Fame Never Fails to Chain and Corrupt
It is disappointing to see that fame never fails to chain and corrupt. Exceptions are very rare. And the consequence of this is that success, even if deserved, comes to destroy. One looks into the past and discovers the lack of authentic idols, idols that, while rising, remained true to themselves. And so biographies are closed describing pitiful sketches of personalities who allowed themselves to be overshadowed.
Models and Identification
I have models; models consciously chosen and forcibly incorporated into my literature; models that represent, in my judgment, what is aesthetically best in all genres. But a model is, if anything, an inspiration, an influence for a different creation. I cannot even imagine the feeling of someone like Baudelaire, who found his own aesthetic theory described by Poe. How is it possible? Perhaps it is, here as in everything else, a matter of feeling some belonging, of being or not being able to experience a full identification—a matter, in short, psychological-existential.