Who taught them the trick of
tyranny?
Oscar Wilde - Poetry
It is impossible for the artist to live
with the People. All despots bribe. The people bribe and brutalise. Who
told them to exercise authority? They were made to live, to listen, and
to love. Someone has done them a great wrong. They have marred
themselves by imitation of their inferiors. They have taken the sceptre
of the Prince. How should they use it? They have taken the triple tiara
of the Pope. How should they carry its burden? They are as a clown whose
heart is broken. They are as a priest whose soul is not yet born. Let
all who love Beauty pity them. Though they themselves love not Beauty,
yet let them pity themselves.
Who taught them the trick of tyranny?
There are many other things that one might point out. One might point
out how the Renaissance was great, because it sought to solve no social
problem, and busied itself not about such things, but suffered the
individual to develop freely, beautifully, and naturally, and so had
great and individual artists, and great and individual men. One might
point out how Louis XIV. , by creating the modern state, destroyed the
individualism of the artist, and made things monstrous in their monotony
of repetition, and contemptible in their conformity to rule, and
destroyed throughout all France all those fine freedoms of expression
that had made tradition new in beauty, and new modes one with antique
form. But the past is of no importance. The present is of no importance.
It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man
should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The
future is what artists are.
It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here is
quite unpractical, and goes against human nature. This is perfectly
true. It is unpractical, and it goes against human nature. This is why
it is worth carrying out, and that is why one proposes it. For what is a
practical scheme?
with the People. All despots bribe. The people bribe and brutalise. Who
told them to exercise authority? They were made to live, to listen, and
to love. Someone has done them a great wrong. They have marred
themselves by imitation of their inferiors. They have taken the sceptre
of the Prince. How should they use it? They have taken the triple tiara
of the Pope. How should they carry its burden? They are as a clown whose
heart is broken. They are as a priest whose soul is not yet born. Let
all who love Beauty pity them. Though they themselves love not Beauty,
yet let them pity themselves.
Who taught them the trick of tyranny?
There are many other things that one might point out. One might point
out how the Renaissance was great, because it sought to solve no social
problem, and busied itself not about such things, but suffered the
individual to develop freely, beautifully, and naturally, and so had
great and individual artists, and great and individual men. One might
point out how Louis XIV. , by creating the modern state, destroyed the
individualism of the artist, and made things monstrous in their monotony
of repetition, and contemptible in their conformity to rule, and
destroyed throughout all France all those fine freedoms of expression
that had made tradition new in beauty, and new modes one with antique
form. But the past is of no importance. The present is of no importance.
It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man
should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The
future is what artists are.
It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here is
quite unpractical, and goes against human nature. This is perfectly
true. It is unpractical, and it goes against human nature. This is why
it is worth carrying out, and that is why one proposes it. For what is a
practical scheme?
