And even
if I go lonely to the end, I would rather my hope and my dream died with
me, than that my soul should content itself with any meaner union.
November 8, 1852.--Responsibility is my invisible nightmare. To suffer
through one's own fault is a torment worthy of the lost, for so grief is
envenomed by ridicule, and the worst ridicule of all, that which springs
from shame of one's self. I have only force and energy wherewith to meet
evils coming from outside; but an irreparable evil brought about by
myself, a renunciation for life of my liberty, my peace of mind, the
very thought of it is maddening--I expiate my privilege indeed. My
privilege is to be spectator of my life drama, to be fully conscious of
the tragi-comedy of my own destiny, and, more than that, to be in the
secret of the tragi-comic itself, that is to say, to be unable to take
my illusions seriously, to see myself, so to speak, from the theater on
the stage, or to be like a man looking from beyond the tomb into
existence. I feel myself forced to feign a particular interest in my
individual part, while all the time I am living in the confidence of the
poet who is playing with all these agents which seem so important, and
knows all that they are ignorant of. It is a strange position, and one
which becomes painful as soon as grief obliges me to betake myself once
more to my own little _role_, binding me closely to it, and warning me
that I am going too far in imagining myself, because of my conversations
with the poet, dispensed from taking up again my modest part of valet in
the piece.
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