s as though born again, he has a new skin, he is more
susceptible, more full of wickedness; he has a finer taste for joyfulness;
he has a more sensitive tongue for all good things; his senses are more
cheerful; he has acquired a second, more dangerous, innocence in gladness;
he is more childish too, and a hundred times more cunning than ever he had
been before.

Oh, how much more repulsive pleasure now is to him, that coarse, heavy,
buff-coloured pleasure, which is understood by our pleasure-seekers, our
"cultured people," our wealthy folk and our rulers! With how much more
irony we now listen to the hubbub as of a country fair, with which the
"cultured" man and the man about town allow themselves to be forced
through art, literature, music, and with the help of intoxicating liquor,
to "intellectual enjoyments." How the stage-cry of passion now stings our
ears; how strange to our taste the whole romantic riot and sensuous
bustle, which the cultured mob are so fond of, together with its
aspirations to the sublime, to the exalted and the distorted, have become.
No: if we convalescents require an art at all, it is _another_ art---a
mocking, nimble, volatile, divinely undisturbed, divinely artificial art,
which blazes up like pure flame into a cloudless sky! But above all, an
art for artists, _only for artists_! We are, after all, more conversant
with that which is in the highest degree necessary--cheerfulness, _every
kind_ of cheerfulness, my friends!{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} We men of knowledge, now know
something only too well: oh how well we have learnt by this time, to
forget, _not_ to know, as artists!{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} As to our future: we shall scarcely be
found on the track of those Egyptian youths who break into temples at
night, who embrace statues, and would fain unveil, strip, and set in broad
daylight, everything which there are excellent reasons to keep
concealed.(15) No, we are disgusted with this bad taste, this will to
truth, this search after truth "at all costs;" this madness of
adolescence, "the love of truth;" we are now too experienced, too serious,
too joyful, too scorched, _too profound_ for that.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} We no longer believe
that truth remains truth when it is _unveiled_,--we have lived enough to
understand this.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} To-day it seems to us good form not to strip everything
naked, not to be present at all things, not to desire to "know" all.
"_Tout comprendre c'est