Confessions of a barbarian
From preface:
This book reveals America to herself by interpreting Europe. I stand in symbolic relation, so to speak, to both hemispheres. My twofold racial consciousness serving as a fulcrum, I am enabled to pry two worlds — Archimedes aspired to lift but one — out of the furrow of their mutual misconception. I have seen the soul of the subtle siren Europe. I have chronicled facts from her unwritten history, from the secret pages of diplomatic portfolios. From her have I also learned verities greater than facts. I may speak ex-cathedra: infallibility I claim not. I have emulated not the laboured minuteness of old school painters who, numbering each hair of the head, make themselves rivals of God, but the thumbnail sketches of Whistler and the chromatic riots of Boecklin. My book, though published serially in William Marion Reedy's grave weekly.
The Mirror is journalism only in the sense in which that term may also be applied to the Reisebilder of Heine This book reveals America to herself by interpreting Europe. I stand in symbolic relation, so to speak, to both hemispheres. My twofold racial consciousness serving as a fulcrum, I am enabled to pry two worlds — Archimedes aspired to lift but one — out of the furrow of their mutual misconception. I have seen the soul of the subtle siren Europe.
I have chronicled facts from her unwritten history, from the secret pages of diplomatic portfolios. From her have I also learned verities greater than facts. I may speak ex-cathedra: infallibility I claim not. I have emulated not the laboured minuteness of old school painters who, numbering each hair of the head, make themselves rivals of God, but the thumbnail sketches of Whistler and the chromatic riots of Boecklin. My book, though published serially in William Marion Reedy's grave weekly. The Mirror is journalism only in the sense in which that term may also be applied to the Reisebilder of Heine.
If the dramatic poet may fashion himself to the exigencies of the stage, shall not literature disguise itself unreproved in the cloak of news? Only those are of all time who, like Rabelais, Cervantes, and Voltaire, are in immediate touch with their own time.
Having navigated unknown seas of Germanic psychology, I chart them. I trace the tangled lines of an elder civilization. I record spiritual data that elude Baedeker.
The guileless American mind rebels against certain peculiarities in the culture of Europe. I have lived through troubled waters as one dive for the pearl, to discover their hidden meanings, the wisdom encrusted in all things ancient.
I urge Europe's gospel of tolerance. I lead those who follow me out of the Babylonian captivity of Puritan prejudice. I have been accused of posing, because, in a world of antinomies, I am an inveterate truth-teller. This is my flesh and blood. I could not more frankly denude myself in the sanctity of the Confessional. I speak with the truthfulness of Saint Augustine, of Rousseau, and of George Moore.
the book details : Author: George Sylvester Viereck Publication date: 1910 Company: New York, Moffat, Yard
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