Pure virtuality and perfect equilibrium--in
these I am most at home. There I feel myself free, disinterested, and
sovereign. Is it a call or a temptation?
It represents perhaps the oscillation between the two geniuses, the
Greek and the Roman, the eastern and the western, the ancient and the
Christian, or the struggle between the two ideals, that of liberty and
that of holiness. Liberty raises us to the gods; holiness prostrates us
on the ground. Action limits us; whereas in the state of contemplation
we are endlessly expansive. Will localizes us; thought universalizes us.
My soul wavers between half a dozen antagonistic general conceptions,
because it is responsive to all the great instincts of human nature, and
its aspiration is to the absolute, which is only to be reached through a
succession of contraries. It has taken me a great deal of time to
understand myself, and I frequently find myself beginning over again the
study of the oft-solved problem, so difficult is it for us to maintain
any fixed point within us. I love everything, and detest one thing
only--the hopeless imprisonment of my being within a single arbitrary
form, even were it chosen by myself. Liberty for the inner man is then
the strongest of my passions--perhaps my only passion. Is such a passion
lawful? It has been my habit to think so, but intermittently, by fits
and starts.
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