MEMOIRS. CONVERSATIONS AND DIARIES
539
In France a person would be guillotined for such an invention, and
the very idea of this article was an invention, perhaps in the dawn
of time related to the interview or the conversation, but in itself
bearing no more relation to those than a cough to a song recital. By
comparison, Aubrey's duchesses who "died of the pox" seem sweetly
remembered.
Gorky's remmIscences of Tolstoy-a masterpiece.
If
anyone
today were capable of composing this exalted work about a living
genius, he would become so befuddled, so bent and harassed with
accusation, so fearful of putting in and leaving out, it would be
sensible economy to leave off altogether and return to "creative"
work. What to do with himself in the reminiscence? Shall he admit his
own existence or is that an unpardonable self-assertion? And isn't it
putting it on a bit to pretend to "know" the marvelous being when
there are so many others who have known him longer and "better."
To these moral and aesthetic questions there is no answer.
Meanwhile there is always, instead,
publicity--so
easy to swallow, so
difficult to remember a moment later.
