I
was tempted to throw off my Genevese garb and to set off, stick in hand,
for any country that might offer--stripped and poor, but still young,
enthusiastic, and alive, full of ardor and of faith.
... I have been dreaming alone since ten o'clock at the window, while
the stars twinkled among the clouds, and the lights of the neighbors
disappeared one by one in the houses round. Dreaming of what? Of the
meaning of this tragic comedy which we call life. Alas! alas! I was as
melancholy as the preacher. A hundred years seemed to me a dream, life a
breath, and everything a nothing. What tortures of mind and soul, and
all that we may die in a few minutes! What should interest us, and why?
"Le temps n'est rien pour l'ame, enfant, ta vie est pleine,
Et ce jour vaut cent ans, s'il te fait trouver Dieu."
To make an object for myself, to hope, to struggle, seems to me more and
more impossible and amazing. At twenty I was the embodiment of
curiosity, elasticity and spiritual ubiquity; at thirty-seven I have not
a will, a desire, or a talent left; the fireworks of my youth have left
nothing but a handful of ashes behind them.
December 13, 1858.--Consider yourself a refractory pupil for whom you
are responsible as mentor and tutor. To sanctify sinful nature, by
bringing it gradually under the control of the angel within us, by the
help of a holy God, is really the whole of Christian pedagogy and of
religious morals.
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