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67 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1913
Deep down, I did hate those people – the artists. That is, those false artists whose work consists of the poses they strike: saying outrageous things, cultivating complicated tastes and appetites, being artificial, irritating, unbearable. People who, in fact, take from art only what is false and external.
I really don’t think you should be discussing the role of sensuality in art, for, my friends, sensuality is an art, possibly the most beautiful of all the arts. Up until now, however, very few have cultivated it in that spirit.
Have you never considered the strange voluptuousness of fire, the perversity of water, the sensual subtleties of light? Whenever I plunge my bare legs into the waters of a stream, whenever I gaze upon the incandescent flames of a fire or feel my body lit by electric torrents of light, I must confess I feel real sexual excitement – an excitement in which desire has been ennobled by beauty.
My mind had adapted itself to the mystery and that mystery was to become the framework of my life, the flame and the golden trail…
I did not, however, realise this at once, it took me many weeks to learn it and when I did, I recoiled, horrified. I was afraid, terribly afraid. The mystery was that woman. And I loved the mystery.