No More Learning

There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannises
over the body. There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul. There
is the despot who tyrannises over the soul and body alike. The first is
called the Prince. The second is called the Pope The third is called the
People. The Prince may be cultivated. Many Princes have been. Yet in the
Prince there is danger. One thinks of Dante at the bitter feast in
Verona, of Tasso in Ferrara's madman's cell. It is better for the artist
not to live with Princes. The Pope may be cultivated. Many Popes have
been; the bad Popes have been. The bad Popes loved Beauty, almost as
passionately, nay, with as much passion as the good Popes hated Thought.
To the wickedness of the Papacy humanity owes much.
The goodness of the
Papacy owes a terrible debt to humanity. Yet, though the Vatican has
kept the rhetoric of its thunders, and lost the rod of its lightning, it
is better for the artist not to live with Popes. It was a Pope who said
of Cellini to a conclave of Cardinals that common laws and common
authority were not made for men such as he; but it was a Pope who thrust
Cellini into prison, and kept him there till he sickened with rage, and
created unreal visions for himself, and saw the gilded sun enter his
room, and grew so enamoured of it that he sought to escape, and crept
out from tower to tower, and falling through dizzy air at dawn, maimed
himself, and was by a vine-dresser covered with vine leaves, and carried
in a cart to one who, loving beautiful things, had care of him. There is
danger in Popes. And as for the People, what of them and their
authority? Perhaps of them and their authority one has spoken enough.
Their authority is a thing blind, deaf, hideous, grotesque, tragic,
amusing, serious, and obscene. 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?