A certain attitude necessarily follows with regard to beauty, which has obviously never been envisaged here save for emotional purposes. In no way static, that is, enclosed in Baudelaire’s “dream of stone,” lost for man in the shadow of the Odaliques, in the depth of those tragedies which claim to girdle only a single day, scarcely less dynamic –that is, subject to that wild gallop which can lead only to another wild gallop– that is, more frenzied than a snowflake in a blizzard– that is, resolved, for fear of being fettered, never to be embraced at all: neither dynamic nor static, I see beauty as I have seen you. As I have seen what, at the given hour and for a given time which I hope and with all my soul believe may recur, granted you to me. Beauty is like a train that ceaselessly roars out of the Gare de Lyon and which I know will never leave, which has not left. It consists of jolts and shocks, many of which do not have real importance, but which we know are destined to produce one Shock, which does. Which has all the importance I do not want to arrogate [...]

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