Dead Souls extract
Happy the writer who flees the flat characters whose banality repels too real and overwhelming, to devote himself to painting the noble souls, honor of humanity , which, in the whirl of images continually changing, chose few exceptions , which never betrays the high tone of his lyre, not lowered to the point the lowly mortal plane and far from land in the region of the sublime. His fate is doubly enviable beautiful : he is like family elite among these beings, and the echoes of his fame resound throughout the universe. It flatters and intoxicated men in their veiling reality, hiding the flaws of humanity just to see how that greatness and beauty. All it clap and make his chariot procession of triumph. It proclaims the great poet, one says that other than engineering wits, as the eagle takes precedence over all high-flying birds. On behalf of the young hearts tremble, tears of sympathy shone in all eyes. No one is equal in power ! ...
Happy the writer who flees the flat characters whose banality repels too real and overwhelming, to devote himself to painting the noble souls, honor of humanity , which, in the whirl of images continually changing, chose few exceptions , which never betrays the high tone of his lyre, not lowered to the point the lowly mortal plane and far from land in the region of the sublime. His fate is doubly enviable beautiful : he is like family elite among these beings, and the echoes of his fame resound throughout the universe. It flatters and intoxicated men in their veiling reality, hiding the flaws of humanity just to see how that greatness and beauty. All it clap and make his chariot procession of triumph. It proclaims the great poet, one says that other than engineering wits, as the eagle takes precedence over all high-flying birds. On behalf of the young hearts tremble, tears of sympathy shone in all eyes. No one is equal in power ! ...
Another fate awaits a writer who dares to stir the mud of horrible meanness which bogged down our lives, plunging into the abyss of natures cold, petty, vulgar - we encounter at every step during our earthly pilgrimage, sometimes painful, so bitter - and a ruthless chisel highlights what our indifferent eyes refuse to see ! He does not know popular applause, tears of gratitude, the impulses of a unanimous enthusiasm , it will generate no passion in the hearts heroic sixteen years, will not suffer the fascination of its own accents ; it will not prevent the trial finally its hypocritical and insensitive contemporaries who treat his beloved creations written miserable and extravagant, its attribute the vices of his heroes, he denied all heart, all soul and the divine flame of talent. For contemporaries refuse to admit that those intended to probe the imperceptible movements of insects are worth those who can watch the sun ; they deny that a great power of penetration is required to illuminate a table borrowed from the abject and life raise the bar to the beauty of a jewel of creation ; they deny that a powerful burst of laughter is worth a beautiful lyrical movement and a gulf separates the grimace of mummers ! Denying this, critics deride the merits of the unknown writer but there was no answer to his : it will remain isolated in the middle of the road. Austin is his career, his bitter loneliness.
As for me, I know, more power forced me to walk a long time side by side with my strange heroes, to contemplate, through laughter and tears apparent unsuspected, the infinite unfolding of life. The weather is still distant when inspiration will spring to most fearsome waves of my brain in the throes of sacred eloquence, where men, trembling with emotion, sense the majestic roar of other speech ...
- Gogol
© Éric McComber 
