p. 48
How to avoid the traps of both Genius and Whimsy? wrote Harsnet (typed Goldberg). How to move between pretentiousness and cynicism? There are two things fatal to the development of any artist, Leiris said, one is success and the other is failure. But he could equally well have said one is enthusiasm and the other is cynicism, one is facility and the other is aridity, one is gregariousness and the other is solitude, one is the belief that no one has ever done anything of value before and the other is the belief that everything has already been done, one is spontaneity and the other is cerebration, one is joy and the other is despair, one is heart and the other is mind, one is the garret and the other is the penthouse, one is sincerity and the other is irony, one is Jung and the other is Freud, one is Rimbaud and the other is Mallarme, one is wine and the other is coffee, one is rags and the other is riches, one is women and the other is celibacy, one is health and the other is disease, one is meat and the other is vegetables, one is life and the other is death, one is everything in upper case and the other is everything in lower case, one is everything in roman and the other is everything in italics. So Harsnet. Fatal, he wrote (and Goldberg typed). Both are fatal.
Second Slope 