I am afraid of the
subjective life, and recoil from every enterprise, demand, or promise
which may oblige me to realize myself; I feel a terror of action, and am
only at ease in the impersonal, disinterested, and objective life of
thought. The reason seems to be timidity, and the timidity springs from
the excessive development of the reflective power which has almost
destroyed in me all spontaneity, impulse, and instinct, and therefore
all boldness and confidence. Whenever I am forced to act, I see cause
for error and repentance everywhere, everywhere hidden threats and
masked vexations. From a child I have been liable to the disease of
irony, and that it may not be altogether crushed by destiny, my nature
seems to have armed itself with a caution strong enough to prevail
against any of life's blandishments. It is just this strength which is
my weakness. I have a horror of being duped, above all, duped by myself,
and I would rather cut myself off from all life's joys than deceive or
be deceived. Humiliation, then, is the sorrow which I fear the most, and
therefore it would seem as if pride were the deepest rooted of my
faults.
This may be logical, but it is not the truth: it seems to me that it is
really distrust, incurable doubt of the future, a sense of the justice
but not of the goodness of God--in short, unbelief, which is my
misfortune and my sin.
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