Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/14

 of things—poverty, sickness, the injustice of Fate, or the wickedness of man. At another time it has its seat in one's very being. It is then no less pitiable nor less fatal. For the choice of our being was not ours: we asked neither to live nor to be what we are.

The latter form of suffering was the one which afflicted Michael Angelo. He had the strength—he had the rare good fortune to be fashioned for struggling and conquering. He conquered. But what? He had no desire for victory. That was not what he wanted. Hamlet-like tragedy! Poignant contradiction between an heroic genius and a will which was not heroic, between imperious passions and a will which willed not!

Do not expect me to see in this, after so many other proofs of greatness, an additional mark of grandeur. Never will I admit that, because a man is very great, the world is not sufficient for him. Uneasiness of mind is not a sign of grandeur. Any want of harmony between a being and things, between life and its laws, proceeds, even in the case of great men, not from their greatness but their weakness. Why endeavour to hide this weakness? Is he who is weaker less worthy of love? He is infinitely worthier of it, inasmuch as he has greater need of it. I raise not statues to inaccessible heroes. Cowardly idealism, which diverts our eyes from the woes of life and the weaknesses of the soul, I abhor. We must tell this truth to a people who are too sensitive to the deceptive illusions of sonorous words: the heroic lie is a piece of cowardice. There is only one form of heroism in the