A casual reader of the foregoing pages—whether careless or malicious—might fancy I’m announcing an age of biblical bombast in literature’s immediate future: a formal reversion to prophetic inspiration and diction, coupled with an absurd contempt for our predecessors and the Works that taught us our craft, all in the service of an exclusive fixation on…

Three men and three works perfectly embody and epitomise the three Formulas. Of these three, only the representative of the classical formula achieves greatness (though he is now almost forgotten). Between the second and third lies roughly the same gulf in merit as between the first and second. These gradations of mind themselves proclaim the…

How came it that modern man, scarcely out of childhood, found himself already so old? For surely one must be old to take such exclusive interest in one’s sensations, to observe and dissect them, to pursue them through their causes, accidents and effects. — Modern man aged himself by reaction. Once the Romantic spirit had…

The Absolute remains forever beyond our grasp, alive only in our yearning. But isn’t it in the chimerical, in the impossible, that all our humanity’s noble reality dwells? Contentment with the finite betrays unmistakable impotence, for such contentment itself spawns the fatigue that saps our strength, each satisfaction another step towards death. Don’t we feel…

Yet the dignity of Poets, however incommunicable, remains all too violable. The bitter truth is they need an audience and are forever tempted to court the wavering sympathies that might yet be won. How they would love to pander to the Mob’s taste, to win the Barbarians’ vote! But no: that way is barred. To…