Chapter 2 two

Now that so much has been written about Charles Strickland, it seems unnecessary for me to write any more.In the final analysis, it is his works to set up monuments for painters.Of course, I knew him better than most; I first met him long before he turned to painting.I saw him often during the troubled days of his down and out in Paris.But I would not have put some of my memories down on paper if the turmoil of the war had not given me the opportunity to set foot on Tahiti.It is well known that it was in Tahiti that he spent the last years of his life; there I met many people who knew him well.I found that I could just throw a light on a period of his tragic life when people were least aware of it.If those who believed in Strickland's greatness were right, the descriptions of him by those who had personal contact with him would hardly be superfluous.If someone knew El Greco as well as I did Strickland, what price would we not pay to read El Greco's memoirs?

But I don't want to justify myself with these things.I do not remember who ever suggested that, for the peace of the soul, a man should do two things a day which he disliked.The man who said it was a wise man, and I have been faithful to this maxim: because I get up every morning and go to bed every day.But I was born with an ascetic character, and I have been subjecting my body to a greater ordeal every week. I haven't missed a single issue of The Times Literary Supplement.It is a wholesome discipline to think of the many books that have been painstakingly written, the authors who have seen them published with such high hopes, and the fate that awaits them.How bleak is the hope of a book struggling to emerge from this vast ocean!Even if success is achieved, how fleeting is that success!God knows how much effort the author has spent on one book, how much suffering he has endured, and how much bitterness he has tasted, just to give those who happen to read this book a few hours of rest and help him get rid of the fatigue of the journey.If I can make a conclusion based on book reviews, many books are the crystallization of the author's painstaking efforts. The author has racked his brains for it, and some are even the result of his life's hard work.The lesson I have learned from this is that the author should get his reward for writing a book out of the pleasure of writing it, out of the outlet for the thoughts smoldering in his mind; It's slander, he should take it lightly.

War came, and war brought a new attitude to life.Young people turn to gods unknown to us older generations, and already see in which direction those who come after us are going to move.The younger generation, aware of their own strength, is noisy and has stopped knocking on the door.They have broken into the house and seated on our thrones, and the air is already filled with their tumultuous cries.Some of the older generation, imitating the antics of the young, tried to convince themselves that their days were not over; these men contested throats with the liveliest youth, but their cries sounded so hollow that they seemed Poor rambunctious women, past their prime, still hope to revive the phantoms of youth by glamor and frivolity.The smarter ones put on a dignified and elegant posture.There was an indulgent sarcasm in their smiles.They remember that they too trod down a generation of enthroned men, with just such shouting and insolence; and they foresee that these brave torchbearers will someday yield their place also.No one's words can be considered the final decision.When the city of Nineveh was prosperous and famous, the new Gospel was already old.Those who say these bold words may still feel that they are saying some truths that have never been said before, but in fact, even the tone of their words has been used a hundred times before, and it has not changed a bit.The pendulum swings back and forth, and the journey repeats itself forever.

Sometimes, when a man has lived long past his period of definite status, and has entered a new century which is strange to him, one is presented with one of the strangest spectacle in human comedy.Who, for example, wants George Crabbe today?He lived in a time when he was famous and everyone recognized him as a great genius, which is rare in today's more complicated modern life.He had learned his technique of writing poetry from Alexander Pope, and he wrote many didactic stories in rhyming couplets.Then came the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, and poets sang new poems.Mr. Crabbe went on to write his moral poems in rhyming couplets, and I think he must have read the new verses that are being written by the young men, and I imagine he must have found them unreadable.Of course, most of the new poetry is like this.But odes like those written by Keats and Wordsworth, a poem or two by Coleridge, and a few more by Shelley, did discover vast spiritual realms that no one had explored before.Mr. Crabbe has become stale, but Mr. Crabbe continues to write his rhyming couplets tirelessly.I have also read here and there the poetry of some of the young men of our time, who may have had a more ardent Keats or a more spotless Shelley, and have published poems that the world will long remember, I am not sure.I admired their beauty of diction—their talent, though young, was such that it would be absurd to say that they were promising—and I marveled at their delicate style; but though their profusion of words (from their It seems that these people have already read Rogert's "Treasure of Words" in their cradles), but they tell us nothing new.It seemed to me that they knew too much and felt too superficial; I just couldn't stand the affection with which they tapped me on the shoulder and the way they rushed into my arms.I feel that their enthusiasm seems to be bloodless, and their dreams are also a little flat.I don't like them.I'm already an outdated antique.I still have to write moral stories in rhyming couplets.But if I had any other purpose in my writing than to entertain myself, I'd be a doubly fool.