THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH OF ARMANDO PALACIO-VALDES BY I WRITE for the reader who has a taste for discussing the theory and technics of art. But he who simply seeks inspiration from art need not linger, certain that he loses nothing by doing so; and my own sympathy and that of all artists will always be for him. For it is only a fresh imagination, free from rhetorical preconceptions that can truly enjoy works of art and breathe freely in the world of fancy. Besides, say it who will, no master of marionettes likes to show the construction of his figures, with their cords and springs, and if he does sometimes do so it is because he is either impelled to defend himself from the faults attributed to him, or has to warn the public against the errors of an unfair or precipitate judgment. However, it is not this which leads me to write the present essay, nor did it inspire that which years ago I put at the beginning of my novel, La Hermana San Sulpicio. Unfortunately criticism hardly exists in Spain, and the author of novels rejoices in a delightful peace like that enjoyed by Valmiky and Homer in the early ages of the world when they wrote their immortal poems. The only reason I have in mind. - apart from a certain love of didactics retained from my youth, when my unerring finger pointed out to authors the way they should go is the antagonism I feel against the tastes and tendencies which prevail in the plastic as well as in the poetic arts. This antagonism distressed me very much, because it made me doubt myself. I cast my eye over Europe, and I see nothing in poetry and painting but lugubrious |