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Authors: Hermann Hesse
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my own, I would spend the day lying in the grass or playing billiards, wouldnât give a damn about all those wee deities in between Varnhagen and Hauptmann, and would fill the evening hours with A Thousand and One Nights, Boccaccio, Cervantes, Fielding, and other idle fancies; I would cull passages from Heineâs poems and always save a bit of Goethe for dessert. I would maintain an orchestra and keep horses, but would banish bicycles and lending libraries from my realm, perhaps theatrical performances as well; I would favor love in the open over free love; my poems would be printed on vellum, etc., etc., etc. Although I would hardly support literature at all, I would provide funds each year so that some families could emigrate and thus improve the quality of the air.
Please excuse these idiocies; my work has left me mentally exhausted, and so the old saying applies:
Reason becomes folly, good deeds a calamity, etc. 33
[ ⦠]I never cease longing for a healthy existence, for a simple culture and an authentic life, in other words for Brazil. I would love to escape from several things: X rays, the dubious science that tries to open buds by force, literature without rules, art without aesthetics. Like the sun weary after the day, Iâm drawn westward, and like the sun, I would acquire a new red hue, once the ocean had washed the veneer and dust from my soul. Even souls that are intensely alive will soon age and grow weary of this bustling, frenetic, satiated life. âGive me a great idea so that I can come alive!â As far as those hothouse blossoms in our literature and historical writing, all that stargazing and digging for treasure, they are entirely appropriate as emblems for an age that considers itself unsatisfactory, for a life that is untrue, inflated, shadowy; our entire civilization is addicted to morphine. And I donât want to live like a fleeting shadow, a consumptive, no, I want to live genuinely, with the true warmth and in full bloom. I want to be a gay worshipper in the temple of the Muses rather than a mere hunted prey. Each day I ask in my prayers for the ability to preserve my own inner world rather than become stifled, so that the sweet poison, which I see thousands of people sipping, may not consume me as well. I know of no verse of Heineâs more full of anguish and despairâof a kind I have no wish to experience myselfâthan the following:
My songs are filled with poison â
Why shouldnât that be true?
Into my budding manhood
You poured your poison through. 34
Everybody has to bury his childhood ideals someday, but I try to keep intact the things I have learned and fought for, and I often withdraw into myself, as I strive to preserve those values from the prevailing atmosphere of decay and homogenization. I want foundations on which I can build a life of my own, without fear or need for support. To transform oneâs life into a work of art, one needs to have a grounding in nature and in truth; in our society that is beyond the reach of rich and workers alike. What is needed for life to become a work of art, in the larger sense of the term, is a simple and appropriate form of culture. I donât really believe that life can be improved, that social conditions in Germany and in Europe can be transformed; I believe that the rotten leaf will have to fall of its own accord to make way for the new. There is no point in building dams to hold back this âprogress,â this fever of the nerves, which will eventually outlive its appeal. I donât believe that anybody living in Germany today will be around to witness the new epoch. I think that there will be a long interlude of desolation and barbarism between the breakdown of our way of life and the advent of the new spring. A spring that may come from the periphery, perhaps even from Brazil. A spring that will not be perturbed by social questions. I would like to preserve for that new era the Apollo
Please excuse these idiocies; my work has left me mentally exhausted, and so the old saying applies:
Reason becomes folly, good deeds a calamity, etc. 33
[ ⦠]I never cease longing for a healthy existence, for a simple culture and an authentic life, in other words for Brazil. I would love to escape from several things: X rays, the dubious science that tries to open buds by force, literature without rules, art without aesthetics. Like the sun weary after the day, Iâm drawn westward, and like the sun, I would acquire a new red hue, once the ocean had washed the veneer and dust from my soul. Even souls that are intensely alive will soon age and grow weary of this bustling, frenetic, satiated life. âGive me a great idea so that I can come alive!â As far as those hothouse blossoms in our literature and historical writing, all that stargazing and digging for treasure, they are entirely appropriate as emblems for an age that considers itself unsatisfactory, for a life that is untrue, inflated, shadowy; our entire civilization is addicted to morphine. And I donât want to live like a fleeting shadow, a consumptive, no, I want to live genuinely, with the true warmth and in full bloom. I want to be a gay worshipper in the temple of the Muses rather than a mere hunted prey. Each day I ask in my prayers for the ability to preserve my own inner world rather than become stifled, so that the sweet poison, which I see thousands of people sipping, may not consume me as well. I know of no verse of Heineâs more full of anguish and despairâof a kind I have no wish to experience myselfâthan the following:
My songs are filled with poison â
Why shouldnât that be true?
Into my budding manhood
You poured your poison through. 34
Everybody has to bury his childhood ideals someday, but I try to keep intact the things I have learned and fought for, and I often withdraw into myself, as I strive to preserve those values from the prevailing atmosphere of decay and homogenization. I want foundations on which I can build a life of my own, without fear or need for support. To transform oneâs life into a work of art, one needs to have a grounding in nature and in truth; in our society that is beyond the reach of rich and workers alike. What is needed for life to become a work of art, in the larger sense of the term, is a simple and appropriate form of culture. I donât really believe that life can be improved, that social conditions in Germany and in Europe can be transformed; I believe that the rotten leaf will have to fall of its own accord to make way for the new. There is no point in building dams to hold back this âprogress,â this fever of the nerves, which will eventually outlive its appeal. I donât believe that anybody living in Germany today will be around to witness the new epoch. I think that there will be a long interlude of desolation and barbarism between the breakdown of our way of life and the advent of the new spring. A spring that may come from the periphery, perhaps even from Brazil. A spring that will not be perturbed by social questions. I would like to preserve for that new era the Apollo
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