***
A handsome man's head needn't carry
with it--except, perhaps, in the eyes of a woman--this idea of voluptuousness
which, in a woman, is a provocation all the more attractive the more generally
melancholy is the face. But the man's head will also contain something both
fiery and sad--spiritual longings, ambitions darkly suppressed--the idea of a
deep and rumbling power without employ--sometimes the idea of a vengeful
hard-heartedness (because the ideal type of the Dandy is not to be ignored when
considering this subject)--sometimes also--and it is one of the most
interesting characteristics of beauty--mystery; and finally (that I may have
the courage to avow to just what point I feel myself to be modern and
aesthetic) *misfortune*. --I do not pretend that Joy can have no association
with Beauty, but I would say that Joy is one of its most vulgar ornaments;
whereas Melancholy could be said to be its most illustrious companion, to the
extent that I can hardly conceive of (is my head, then, an enchanted mirror?) a
type of the Beautiful in which there would not be *Misfortune*. --On the basis
of (others would say: *obsessed by*) these ideas, one concludes that it would
be difficult for me not to come to the conclusion that the most perfect type of
masculine Beauty is *Satan*--in the manner of Milton.
I.
God is the only being that, in order
to rule, needn't even exist. [N1]
II.
The color violet (love restrained,
mysterious, and veiled; the canoness' color).
That the Church wants to do
everything and be everything--a law of the human spirit.
The people adore authority.
Priests are the servants and
sectarians of the imagination.
*Throne and altar*--a revolutionary
maxim.
Notes
"Just a minute, just a minute!
The same with me--I don't believe in the Devil; except that--and here's what
bothers me--whereas you can serve God only if you believe in Him, the Devil
does not require you to believe in him before you can serve him. On the contrary,
he is never so well served as when he is unperceived. It's always to his
interest not to let himself be recognized; and there, as I said, is what
bothers me: to think that the less I believe in him, the more I strengthen
him.... Of course, in spite of all I have just told you, in perfect sincerity I
do not believe in the Devil. I take him, such as he may be, as a puerile
oversimplification, an apparent explanation, of certain psychological
problems--for which my mind vigorously rejects any solutions other than the
perfectly natural, scientific, and rational ones. But, let me repeat, the Devil
himself would agree with me here; he is delighted; he knows he has no better
hiding place than behind such rational explanations.... Indeed, in spite of
everything I am saying about him, in spite of everything I think and am not
telling you, one fact nevertheless remains: from the moment I admit his
existence--and this happens in spite of me, if only for an instant now and
then--from that moment everything seems to be clarified, I seem to understand
everything; it seems to me that at one fell swoop I discover the explanation of
my life, of all the inexplicable, of all the incomprehensible, of all the dark
corners of my life. Some day I should like to write--oh, I don't know how to
explain it to you--I see it in my mind in the form of a dialogue, but there
would be more to it. In short, it might possibly be called 'Conversation with
the Devil'--and do you know how it would begin? I have discovered his first
remark, the first one for him to say, you understand; but just to find that
opening remark you have to be already very well acquainted with him.... I am
having him say at first: *Why should you be afraid of me? You know very well I
don't exist.*"
Email: inthemargins03@hotmail.com
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