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"But what is the artist? Toward no question has mankind’s indolence and inertia of discernment proved more unyielding than toward this one.’Such things are a gift,’ humbly say the good people who are under the influence of an artist, and because cheerful and exalted effects, according to their good-natured view, must quite inevitably have cheerful and exalted origins, nobody suspects that we may perhaps have here a most questionable ‘gift,’ most evilly conditioned … It is known that artists are over-sensitive—well, it is also known that this is not the case with people of good conscience and well-founded self-esteem … You see, Lisaveta, at the bottom of my soul—translated into the intellectual—I have all the suspicion of the artist type with which each one of my honorable forefathers up yonder in that cramped city would have encountered any charlatan or adventurous ‘artist’ that might have entered his house. Listen to this. I know a banker, a gray-haired business man, who possesses the ability to write stories. He makes use of this talent in his hours of leisure, and his things are sometimes quite excellent. Despite—I say ‘despite’—this sublime talent, this man’s record is not wholly stainless; on the contrary, he has already had to serve a long term in prison, and for valid reasons. Indeed it was really in prison that he first became aware of his ability, and his experiences as inmate of the jail form the fundamental theme in all his writings. One might infer from this, with a little boldness, that it is necessary to be at home in some sort of a penal institution in order to become a poet. But does not the suspicion arise that his experiences as convict may have been less intimately interwoven with the roots and origins of his artistry than what made him one—? A banker who writes stories is a curiosity, isn’t he? But a non-criminal, honest banker of clean reputation who should write stories,— there is no such thing … Yes, now you are laughing, and still I am only half joking. No problem, none in the world, is more tormenting than that of artistry and its effect on humanity. Take that most extraordinary creation of the most typical and hence mightiest artist, take so morbid and deeply ambiguous a work as Tristan and Isolde, and observe the effect this work has upon a young, healthy man with strongly normal feeling. You see elevation, invigoration, warm and honest enthusiasm, perhaps stimulation to some ‘artistic’ creation of his own … The good dilettante! Our hearts look very different from what he dreams, with his ‘warm heart’ and ‘honest enthusiasm.’ I have seen artists surrounded by adoring women and shouting youths, whereas I knew about them … One constantly has the most peculiar experiences with regard to the origin, the co-phenomena, and the conditions of artistry … "

"In others, Tonio Kröger—excuse me—or not only in others?"

He was silent. He drew his slanting eyebrows together and whistled to himself.

"Let me have your cup, Tonio. It is not strong. And take a fresh cigarette. And anyway, you know quite well that you look at things as they don’t necessarily have to be looked at. "

"That is Horatio’s answer, dear Lisaveta.”Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so,’ am I not right?"

"I say that one can consider them just as curiously from another side, Tonio Kröger. I am simply a stupid, painting female, and if I can make any answer to you at all, if I can take the part of your own calling to protect it a little against you, it is surely nothing new that I am advancing, but only a reminder of what you yourself know quite well … What then: the purifying, sanctifying power of literature; the destruction of passion by the agency of knowledge and speech; literature as the road to understanding, to forgiveness, and to love; the redeeming power of language; literary intellect as the noblest phenomenon of all human intellect whatsoever; the writer as perfect man, as saint;—if one considered things so, would that be not considering them curiously enough?"