Casanova, Stendhal, Tolstoy: Adepts in Self-Portraiture by Zweig Stefan

Author:Zweig, Stefan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2012-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE ARTIST

A vrai dire, je ne suis moins que sur d'avoir quelque talent four me jaire lire. J e trouve quel que] ois beaucouf d e flaisir a écrire. Voila tout.

STENDHAL TO BALZAC

STENDHAL, the most jealous guardian of his ego yet known to literature, never gives himself up wholly to anything, neither to the world of men, nor to a profession, nor to an official post. When he writes books, be they novels or psychological studies, he either incorporates himself into these books or else the books go all awry. Even his passion for writing serves merely to gratify his own desires. Stendhal, who prides himself on never having done anything that did not please him personally, is an artist only so long as he can draw enjoyment from the occupation; he serves art only so long as art serves his ultimate purpose: his delight, his own specific pleasure. One would be tempted to call him dilettante, were it not that a disparaging sense now attaches to the word which once upon a time was used to denote a grand seigneur of the arts, one who from sheer joy, from genuine love, from delight, "diletto," and not from a desire for gain, chose art as his companion. They err, therefore, who imagine that because Stendhal has at length achieved a worldwide reputation, he himself ascribed an important place to his art. How indignant this fanatical devotee of independence would have been to find himself placed in the ranks of the authors, to be counted among the professional men of letters! It is quite inconsonant with StendhaPs own wishes that so much pother should be made about his literary achievements. In his will he left special directions for having his tombstone engraved with the words: visse, scrisse, amó. But the order of the inscription has been arbitrarily reversed, so that we now read: scrisse, visse, amó. Stendhal was true to his own device: for him living was the primary, the most important thing; writing came after, was secondary merely. Enjoyment was more important than creation, his Self more important than his actions; the whole scribbling business was nothing more than an amusing complementary function of his development, one of the many means for avoiding boredom. He is grossly misjudged if other motives are ascribed to him: literature was for this en-joyer of life merely an incidental means for the objectifying of his personality, it was not in any way a fundamental method of self-expression.

As a stripling freshly arrived in Paris the idea had certainly crossed his mind that he would like to be a man of letters, and of course one who was to become celebrated. What youth of seventeen does not harbour such ambitions? He sharked up a few philosophical essays, began a play in verse which was never completed; but he put no ardour into his work, felt no real ambition. For fourteen years thereafter he completely forgot literature; he passed his days in the saddle or at the

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