I became weary of the poets, of the old and of the new: superficial are they all unto me, and shallow seas.
They did not think sufficiently into the depth; therefore their feeling did not reach to the bottom.
Some sensation of voluptuousness and some sensation of tedium: these have as yet been their best contemplation.
Ghost-breathing and ghost-whisking, seemeth to me all the jingle-jangling of their harps; what have they known hitherto of the fervour of tones!—
They are also not pure enough for me: they all muddle their water that it may seem deep.
And fain would they thereby prove themselves reconcilers: but mediaries and mixers are they unto me, and half-and-half, and impure!—
Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and meant to catch good fish; but always did I draw up the head of some ancient God.
Thus did the sea give a stone to the hungry one. And they themselves may well originate from the sea.
Certainly, one findeth pearls in them: thereby they are the more like hard molluscs. And instead of a soul, I have often found in them salt slime.
They have learned from the sea also its vanity: is not the sea the peacock of peacocks?