Why does this satisfy us? Why is it valuable to have a part of nature or
life liberated from all connection with the world? Why does it make us
happy to see anything in its perfect isolation, an isolation which real
life seldom offers and which only art can give in complete perfection?
The motives which lead us to value the product of the scholar are easily
recognized. He aims toward connection. He reshapes the world until it
appears connected, because that helps us to foresee the effects of every
event and teaches us to master nature so that we can use it for our
practical achievements. But why do we appreciate no less the opposite
work which the artist is doing? Might we not answer that this enjoyment
of the artistic work results from the fact that only in contact with an
isolated experience can we feel perfectly happy? Whatever we meet in
life or nature awakes in us desires, impulses to action, suggestions and
questions which must be answered. Life is a continuous striving. Nothing
is an end in itself and therefore nothing is a source of complete rest.
Everything is a stimulus to new wishes, a source of new uneasiness which
longs for new satisfaction in the next and again the next thing. Life
pushes us forward. Yet sometimes a touch of nature comes to us; we are
stirred by a thrill of life which awakens plenty of impulses but which
offers satisfaction to all these impulses in itself.
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