A modern poet, in my opinion, has illustrated this rhetoric of the minor
key to perfection.
He is Paul Verlaine.
A style like Verlaine's, which is non-sequent, macerated, free, is
indispensable to any mastery of the rhetoric of the minor key. This, to
me, has always been my literary ideal.
THE VALUE OF MY IDEAS
From time to time, my friend Azorin attempts to analyse my ideas. I do
not pretend to be in the secret of the scales, as such an assumption
upon my part would be ridiculous. As the pilot takes advantage of a
favourable wind, and if it does not blow, of one that is unfavourable, I
do the same. The meteorologist is able to tell with mathematical
accuracy in his laboratory, after a glance at his instruments, not only
the direction of the prevailing wind, but the atmospheric pressure and
the degree of humidity as well. I am able only, however, to say with the
pilot: "I sail this way," and then make head as best I may.
GENIUS AND ADMIRATION
I have no faith in the contention of the Lombrosians that genius is akin
to insanity, neither do I think that genius is an infinite capacity for
taking pains. Lombroso, for that matter, is as old-fashioned today as a
hoop skirt.
Genius partakes of the miraculous. If some one should tell me that a
stick had been transformed into a snake by a miracle, naturally I should
not believe it; but if I should be asked whether there was not something
miraculous in the very existence of a stick or of a snake, I should be
constrained to acknowledge the miracle.
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