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Superiority
In order to despise enjoyment, one need only be supremely happy or supremely wretched.
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Beauty and Tragedy
In every beautiful face there is nobility, strength and a touch of sadness—the seal of tragedy is upon it. To make Life beautiful, then, would be to make it tragic? Nay, rather let us say that to make Life tragic is to make it beautiful. Supreme beauty is but the expression in which are comprised in a miracle of unity the sorrow and the joy of Tragedy. For in the most radiant manifestation of Beauty there is a brooding solemnity; in the most sorrowful there is triumph.
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Experimenting in Life
The aim of the æsthetes was without enduring Tragedy to enjoy Beauty. To that end they devised their creed of experimentation in Life: they wished to know all the joys of the soul and of the senses without inconvenience to themselves. Perceiving that Love and Beauty bring suffering in their train, they decided to take the initiative against them, in other words, to "experience" them. All they experienced, however, was—their experiences. That, indeed, was all they desired: their "experimenting in Life" was escaping from Life. Without the courage to accept Life with the Dionysians or to renounce it with the ascetics, they hit upon the plan of stealing a march upon it. Well, it was certainly not upon Life that they stole a march!
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