There may be magnificence in the smashing; but the thing is
smashed. There may be a certain splendour; but the splendour
is sterile: it abolishes all future splendours. I mean (to take a
working example), York Minster covered with flames might happen
to be quite as beautiful as York Minster covered with carvings.
But the carvings produce more carvings. The flames produce nothing
but a little black heap. When any act has this cul-de-sac quality it
matters little whether it is done by a book or a sword, by a clumsy
battle-axe or a chemical bomb. The case is the same with ideas.
The pessimist may be a proud figure when he curses all the stars;
the optimist may be an even prouder figure when he blesses them all.
But the real test is not in the energy, but in the effect.
When the optimist has said, "All things are interesting," we are
left free; we can be interested as much or as little as we please.
But when the pessimist says, "No things are interesting,"
it may be a very witty remark: but it is the last witty remark
that can be made on the subject. He has burnt his cathedral;
he has had his blaze and the rest is ashes. The sceptics, like bees,
give their one sting and die. The pessimist must be wrong,
because he says the last word.
Now, this spirit that denies and that destroys had at one
period of history a dreadful epoch of military superiority.
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