Frequent are the divorces in the artistic world. Platitudinous moralisers explain that fact with the stupid statement that the morals of the stage are "loose." Like the Freudians, they always seek in sex the origin of every disturbance in human life. Sex in the life of an artist, however, plays an infinitely less important part than egotism, the desire to be above.
The so-called normal man, who works, eats, sleeps, reproduces himself, and, at his death leaves the world exactly as he found it is probably subnormal.
He differs very little from the animals who do exactly the same things in the same way and seem perfectly pleased with the endless repetition of an immutable life ritual.
Dissatisfaction is really the element which we must consider when we try to draw a line of[Pg 217] cleavage between men and the animals. Dissatisfaction breeds either neurosis or creation.
The dissatisfied person, devoid of intellectual resources, either commits a crime or kills himself or goes off into another world thru the door that leads into insanity.
The dissatisfied person gifted with powers of self-expression, makes the world in which he lives better, more beautiful or more comfortable. That sort of achievement presupposes a certain amount of healthy sadism, the courage to criticise, to offer suggestions, to force the products of one's mind upon the community, to say "look at me, I am perfect or, at least, better than you."
Every budding actor assumes unconsciously that he can delineate a r?le better than the other histrionic lights of his time; every new novelist must assume that he can tell a story more attractively than his readers could picture it to themselves, etc., etc.
The artist who is willing to yield, soon relapses into the ranks of the business men. Whoever panders to the popular taste of his time may derive therefrom financial advantages but very little egotistical gratification.
The real artist must know that he is right and[Pg 218] must not be, therefore, soft clay to be moulded by any one else's desires.
How then could the artist obtain lasting happiness from any form of love relationship?
The Male Artist, if married to a submissive, masochistic wife, may live happily with her for a time. Egotists, male or female, however, need flattery. Familiarity breeds contempt. Flattery must come from a constantly changing source or lose its power, as drugs do when we grow accustomed to them.
Flattery coming from a pretty woman whose attraction has not been weakened by daily contact will soon lead the artist husband into forbidden paths. Unless endowed with the wisdom of the musician's wife in "The Concert," his wife will soon be granted a divorce on the ground of his too obvious infidelity.
Woe to the male artist who takes unto himself a female artist for his wife. As I said in the preceding chapter, sadist plus sadist equals divorce suit for cruelty alleged by both parties. In this type of matrimonial castastrophy, the fault lies more frequently with the wife than with the husband.
Female Artists are more unbearable than male artists. They are more touchy, more easily offen[Pg 219]ded and angered, more apt to suspect the people in their environment of harboring veiled hostility. The reason for that state of things is not far to seek.
Women require infinitely more flattery than men do. Not that a craving for attention is by any means a typically feminine trait. That craving has been forced upon them by the masculine domination.
We have............