Escañuela Romana, I.
(Translated into English with Copilot’s assistance).
8 October 2026
And then, perhaps, I wander in doubt as to what the romantic impulse truly is, what it means to live celerius, altius, fortius, intensius. “A lonely impulse of delight / drove to this tumult …,” exclaimed Yeats in An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.
Nothing drives me except the very fullness of striving itself. It is not the attainment of a goal; it is delight in excellence itself. Just as Achilles pursued glory, and that pursuit found its embodiment in Alexander the Great, so action itself becomes its own object. Nothing more. Everything else would deprive it of its worth.
(A reflection: Romanticism has always reminded me of Aristotle, of activity in excellence.)
(Another reflection: it is the intrinsic nature of the specific action itself. “Specific action is performed with the expectation
that it will never be known by others or produce any effect that might reach them.” (Escañuela Romana, April 2026, p. 2).)
Escañuela Romana, I. (April 2026). The Two Forms of Action: Private and Public. PhilArchive. https://philpapers.org/rec/ESCTTF-2
