It is personalities, not principles, that move the age.
"All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys."
"What is that?"
"Disillusion."
He had that dislike of being stared at which comes on geniuses late in life, and never leaves the commonplace.
Better for him that each sin of his life had brought its sure, swift penalty along with it. There was purification in punishment.
Not "Forgive us our sins," but "Smite us for our iniquities" should be the prayer of a man to a most just God.
I fancy that the true explanation is this. It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthralls us.
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