The Relentless Pursuit of Ragged Perfection.
Five Notes on the Lack of Genius in the Current Age

Millais: Ophelia.

2. The Elizabethans had Shakespeare. Byrd, and (over to the south) Caravaggio, at the same time. The Victorians had Darwin, Marx, and (over to the east) Wagner, at the same time. Who—and what—do we have? Imperfect technology, imperfect advertising, imperfect fame, pursued relentlessly and at an unacknowledged price far higher than the big bucks the pursuers get.

3. There is art and there is high art. There is science and there is high science. There is religion and there is high religion. Not knowing up from down, we call low high and hunker down in clever labyrinths, micro-mazes, and nano cul de sacs of the most dazzling, blindered intricacy. A way out? We don’t need a new guide. One is enough. Read Swift.

4. "You’ll never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins and you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars."
Thomas Traherne.