'must one eternally suffer, or else eternally flee beauty?'

And now the profound depth of the sky dismays me; its purity irritates me. The insensibility of the sea, the immutability of the whole spectacle revolt me ... Ah! must one eternally suffer, or else eternally flee beauty? Nature, pitiless sorceress, ever victorious rival, do let me be! Stop tempting my desires and my pride! The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist shrieks with terror before being overcome.

—Charles Baudelaire, "Artist's Confiteor," Paris Spleen (1869) (trans. Louise Varèse 1947)