There is a stage in the life of
every genius when he comes to this gate, when he has to show his
credentials and reveal the inmost kernel of his being. Dante attempted
to grasp the transcendental in one gigantic vision, Goethe timidly
shrank back from it.
In examining the prophets and youths in the Sistine Chapel, or the
chained men in the Louvre, who seem unable to bear existence, and are
therefore "slaves" of the earth; or in contemplating the half-finished
slaves in the Boboli Gardens, who seem almost to burst the stone in
their wild longing for a higher life; or in reading his last sonnets, we
can conceive a vague idea of the deep melancholy darkening the life of
this man, a gloom which was not the melancholy of the individual, but of
all humanity, unable and unwilling to deceive itself further. Can there
be a greater tragedy than the tragedy of this incomparable artist,
looking back at the work of his lifetime with despair?
For art and wit and passion fade and vanish,
Countless achievements, ever new and great,
Are naught but dross within the sight of heaven.
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