Part 30 (1/2)
”But I think that knowing things not only is not tiresome,” said Kennedy, ”but is a great satisfaction.”
”You think even learning things is a satisfaction?”
”Thousands of years ago one could know things almost without learning them; nowadays in order to know, one has to learn. That is natural and logical.”
”Yes, certainly. And the effort to learn about useful things seems natural and logical to me too, but not to learn about merely agreeable things. To learn medicine and mechanics is logical; but to learn to look at a picture or to hear a symphony is an absurdity.”
”Why?”
”At any rate the neophytes that go to see a Rafael picture or to hear a Bach sonata and have an exclamation all ready, give me the sad impression of a flock of lambs. As for your sublime pedagogues of the Ruskin type, they seem to me to be the fine flower of priggishness, of pedantry, of the most objectionable bourgeoisie.”
”What things your brother is saying!” exclaimed Kennedy.
”You shouldn't notice him,” said Laura.
”Those artistic pedagogues enrage me; they remind me of Protestant pastors and of the friars that go around dressed like peasants, and who I think are called Brothers of the Christian Doctrine. The pedagogues are Brothers of the Esthetic Doctrine, one of the stupidest inventions that ever occurred to the English. I don't know which I find more ridiculous, the Salvation Army or Ruskin's books.”
”Why have you this hatred for Ruskin?”
”I find him an idiot. I only skimmed through a book of his called _The Seven Lamps of Architecture_, and the first thing I read was a paragraph in which he said that to use an imitation diamond or any other imitation stone was a lie, an imposition, and a sin. I immediately said: 'This man who thinks a diamond is the truth and paste a lie, is a stupid fool who doesn't deserve to be read.'”
”Yes, all right: you take one point of view and he takes another. I understand why Ruskin wouldn't please you. What I do not understand is why you find it absurd that if a person has a desire to penetrate into the beauties of a symphony or a picture, he should do so. What is there strange in that?”
”You are right,” said Caesar; ”whoever wants to learn, should. I have done so about financial questions.”
”Is it true that your brother knows all about questions of money?”
Kennedy asked Laura.
”He says so.”
”I haven't much belief in his financial knowledge.”
”No?”
”No, I have not. You are a sort of dilettante, half nihilist, half financier. You would like to pa.s.s for a tranquil, well-balanced man, for what is called a philistine, but you cannot compa.s.s it.”
”I will compa.s.s it. It is true that I want to be a philistine, but a philistine out in the real world. All those great artists you people admire, Goethe, Ruskin, were really philistines, who were in the business of being interested in poetry and statues and pictures.”
”Moncada, you are a sophist,” said Kennedy. ”Possibly I am wrong in this discussion,” retorted Caesar, ”but the feeling I have is right. Artists irritate me; they seem to me like old ladies with a flatulency that prevents their breathing freely.”
Kennedy laughed at the definition.
_CHIC AND THE REVOLUTION_
”I understand hating bad kings and conquerors; but artists! What harm do they do?” said Laura.
”Artists are always doing harm to the whole of humanity. They have invented an esthetic system for the use of the rich, and they have killed the Revolution. The _chic_ put an end to the Revolution. And now everything is coming back; enthusiasm for the aristocracy, for the Church; the cult of kings. People look backward and the Revolutionary movement is paralysed. The people that irritate me most are those esthetes of the Ruskin school, for whom everything is religious: having money, buying jewels, blowing one's nose... everything is religious.