第13章 Letter IX(2)

But how will the artist avoid the corruption of his time which encloses him on all hands?Let him raise his eyes to his own dignity,and to law;let him not lower them to necessity and fortune.Equally exempt from a vain activity which would imprint its trace on the fugitive moment,and from the dreams of an impatient enthusiasm which applies the measure of the absolute to the paltry productions of time,let the artist abandon the real to the understanding,for that is its proper field.But let the artist endeavour to give birth to the ideal by the union of the possible and of the necessary.Let him stamp illusion and truth with the effigy of this ideal;let him apply it to the play of his imagination and his most serious actions,in short,to all sensuous and spiritual forms;then let him quietly launch his work into infinite time.

But the minds set on fire by this ideal have not all received an equal share of calm from the creative genius -that great and patient temper which is required to impress the ideal on the dumb marble,or to spread it over a page of cold,sober letters,and then entrust it to the faithful hands of time.This divined instinct,and creative force,much too ardent to follow this peaceful walk,often throws itself immediately on the present,on active life,and strives to transform the shapeless matter of the moral world.The misfortune of his brothers,of the whole species,appeals loudly to the heart of the man of feeling;their abasement appeals still louder;enthusiasm is inflamed,and in souls endowed with energy the burning desire aspires impatiently to action and facts.But has this innovator examined himself to see if these disorders of the moral world wound his reason,or if they do not rather wound his self-love?If he does not determine this point at once,he will find it from the impulsiveness with which he pursues a prompt and definite end.A pure,moral motive has for its end the absolute;time does not exist for it,and the future becomes the present to it directly,by a necessary development,it has to issue from the present.

To a reason having no limits the direction towards an end becomes confounded with the accomplishment of this end,and to enter on a course is to have finished it.

If,then,a young friend of the true and of the beautiful were to ask me how,notwithstanding the resistance of the times,he can satisfy the noble longing of his heart,I should reply:Direct the world on which you act towards that which is good,and the measured and peaceful course of time will bring about the results.You have given it this direction if by your teaching you raise its thoughts towards the necessary and the eternal;if,by your acts or your creations,you make the necessary and the eternal the object of your leanings.The structure of error and of all that is arbitrary must fall,and it has already fallen,as soon as you are sure that it is tottering.But it is important that it should not only totter in the external but also in the internal man.Cherish triumphant truth in the modest sanctuary of your heart;give it an incarnate form through beauty,that it may not only be the understanding that does homage to it,but that feeling may lovingly grasp its appearance.And that you may not by any chance take from external reality the model which you yourself ought to furnish,do not venture into its dangerous society before you are assured in your own heart that you have a good escort furnished by ideal nature.

Live with your age,but be not its creation;labour for your contemporaries,but do for them what they need,and not what they praise.Without having shared their faults,share their punishment with a noble resignation,and bend under the yoke which they find is as painful to dispense with as to bear.By the constancy with which you will despise their good fortune,you will prove to them that it is not through cowardice that you submit to their sufferings.See them in thought such as they ought to be when you must act upon them;but see them as they are when you are tempted to act for them.Seek to owe their suffrage to their dignity;but to make them happy keep an account of their unworthiness;thus,on the one hand,the nobleness of your heart will kindle theirs,and,on the other,your end will not be reduced to nothingness by their unworthiness.The gravity of your principles will keep them off from you,but in play they will still endure them.Their taste is purer than their heart,and it is by their taste you must lay hold of this suspicious fugitive.In vain will you combat their maxims,in vain will you condemn their actions;but you can try your moulding hand on their leisure.Drive away caprice,frivolity,and coarseness,from their pleasures,and you will banish them imperceptibly from their acts,and length from their feelings.Everywhere that you meet them,surround them with great,noble,and ingenious forms;multiply around them the symbols of perfection,till appearance triumphs over reality,and art over nature.