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PARTISAN REVIEW
vice, talking down to them from my pulpit of old age, it would be
this: "When you have published four of those rhymed or unrhymed
things that are called poems, or have drawn a goat more or less true
to nature, don't expect that from now on every time you have a birth–
day the Mayor of your town will call to wish you many happy re–
turns. Mter all, it's only human handiwork you're doing. You would
do well to think occasionally of how when Schubert was twenty-nine
someone advised
him
to buy unlined paper and draw the lines him–
self, since that was cheaper. What impudence! everyone says nowa–
days when they hear of it, but of course the same thing keeps on hap–
pening all over again, and it isn't everyone who by the age of thirty–
one h'as reached a stage where he doesn't need to spend money any
more,"
Gentlemen of the rising generation, allow me to be provoking.
I do it in the hope of making you tough. Toughness is the greatest
blessing an artist can have-the ability to
be
hard on himself and on
his work. Or as Thomas Mann has said:
"It
is better to ruin a work
of
art
and make it useless for giving to the world than not to go all
out at every point." Or as I tried to put it a moment ago: One thing
is certain, when a thing is finished it must be complete, perfect. And
in this connection don't for a moment forget the questionable and
devious nature of your undertaking, the dangers and the hatred that
surround your activities. Don't lose sight of the cold and egotistical
element in your mission. Your art has deserted the temples and the
sacrificial vessels, it has ceased to have anything to do with the paint–
ing of pillars, and the painting of chapels is no longer anything for
you either. You are using your own skin for wallpaper, and nothing
can save you. Don't let yourself be tempted by "security"-312 pages,
cloth-bound, price 13 marks 80. There is no turning the clock back.
The things of the mind are irreversible; they go right along their road
to the end, right to the end of the night. With your back to the wall,
care-worn and weary, in the gray light of the void, read Job and
Jeremiah and keep going. Formulate your principles without regard
for anything else, because there will be nothing left of you but your
words when this epoch comes to an end, making an end of all sing–
ing and chanting of poetry. What you don't say will not
be
there then.
You will make enemies, you will be alone, a tiny boat on the vast
ocean, a tiny boat in which there are dubious clatterings and clank-
