Sophomoric Epigrams
Thereis no wisdom but youth. There is no vision but the unafraid impulse of unfettered nerves. The follies of youth are the enduring expressions of art. Man loses his Ego at thirty and becomes conceited. He becomes conscious of others. Life becomes a quibble. But youth! Youth, the flower before it has decayed into the mellow moss of age. Youth that knows not itself or the world. Youth that laughs at tears and weeps at laughter. Youth that paints queer pictures at which the critics smile. Illogical youth; arrogant youth; forever annoying the world’s stagnation. Youth capering like a fawn in the altar places of the holy. Ho! you with the pedantic whiskers and the ossified serenity lurking like a fog in your eye—there is no wisdom but youth. Ho! you with the murk of maturity thick upon your tongue—will you shape morals? I will unshape them. Will you rear dogmas? I will upset them. Will you burden the world with your heavy sagacity? I will ignore it. Ho, you didactic formulator, debauched with facts, man is born a butterfly and crawls to his grave a worm. Man is born young and dies old. Man is born wise and dies a fool. The ideas of youth are his wings. Do you see the lightning maze of colors forever flashing over your head? It is youth.
Ah! old Ossifus, your erudition is but the husk of my spirit. And my spirit is the shop-boy whistling on his way to work, joyous without reason for you have proved him an economic slave, stunted and damned forever to rot in chains. My spirit is the lover going to his ruin-woman, and tumbling out of heaven with a laugh. Ho! ho! old Petrifus, you have proved her the root of evil, the despoiler of greatness, the velvet vandal of illusions, and yet and yet....
And he is the artist running wild in the china-closet of the past. Have you anything sacred, old whiskers? Have you something labelled right and something labelled wrong? Show it to him. He will do for it. He is the eternal monster killing the dead.
There is no beauty but youth. There is no beauty in age. Ho! you doddering banality with the superior tolerance in your stutter, you are decomposing on your feet. Age is soiled. Age is dirty. Age drips with the phlegm of life. Age is the unclean residue in the cup.
Ho!—there is no tomorrow.
Blessed are the young in heart for they shall be God.
“A. E. D.”