Naturally, nothing could come from men who had long ago lost their power to create. I suggested they call in the artists I knew who were overfull of ideas, designs, etc. There was a silence. "Oh, yes, we know," they said, "you mean those mad geniuses who will not wear a clean shirt and a tie, will not come in on time and cannot be controlled." "Controlled" was the revealing word. In music too, everyone turned to the men who could be controlled—disciples, imitators, derivatives. They never dared to consult the source from which creation and invention issued like some great phenomenon of nature, the highest waterfalls, the highest mountains, the deepest canyons, the bottomless lakes. Every artist has known this isolation in which giants are left as if they were dangerous creatures. A more familiar, homelier connection could be made with the innocuous, and the hack printer was easier to deal with than the original painter. It would have required a critic, a listener, a conductor, or a foundation director of equal stature to approach the artist who is, by natural rights of the creator, the dictator in his own province. How frightened we are of a revolutionary force in full eruption.
Anaïs Nin • In Favor of The Sensitive Man and Other Essays
