It is not so much that they
rush in where angels fear to tread, but rather that they let out
what devils intend to do. Some perversion of folly will float
about nameless and pervade a whole society; then some lunatic
gives it a name, and henceforth it is harmless. With all really
evil things, when the danger has appeared the danger is over.
Now it may be hoped that the self-indulgent sprawlers of Poesia
have put a name once and for all to their philosophy. In the case
of their philosophy, to put a name to it is to put an end to it.
Yet their philosophy has been very widespread in our time; it could
hardly have been pointed and finished except by this perfect folly.
The creed of which (please God) this is the flower and finish
consists ultimately in this statement: that it is bold and spirited
to appeal to the future. Now, it is entirely weak and half-witted
to appeal to the future. A brave man ought to ask for what he wants,
not for what he expects to get. A brave man who wants Atheism in
the future calls himself an Atheist; a brave man who wants Socialism,
a Socialist; a brave man who wants Catholicism, a Catholic.
But a weak-minded man who does not know what he wants in the future
calls himself a Futurist.
They have driven all the pigs away. Oh that they had driven away
the prigs, and left the pigs! The sky begins to droop with darkness
and all birds and blossoms to descend unfaltering into the healthy
underworld where things slumber and grow.
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