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"Everything that is great has a sacred horror. It is easy to admire mediocrities and hills, but anything that is too high - a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly <of great men> as well as a masterpiece - is frightening when seen from too close. Every peak seems to be an exaggeration. Climbing it is tiring. One slips and loses one's breath on the slopes, one is injured by sharp projections … foaming torrents reveal precipices, summits are hidden by clouds; the ascent is as terrifying as a fall. One has a strange feeling: aversion to the great. One sees the abysses without seeing the sublimities....It <is> examined by nearsighted men when it <is> made to be contemplated by eagles." - Victor Hugo |
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