At bottom, I am only living on out of
complaisance and without a shadow of self-delusion. I know that not one
of my desires will be realized, and for a long time I have had no
desires at all. I simply accept what comes to me as though it were a
bird perching on my window. I smile at it, but I know very well that my
visitor has wings and will not stay long. The resignation which comes
from despair has a kind of melancholy sweetness. It looks at life as a
man sees it from his death-bed, and judges it without bitterness and
without vain regrets.
I no longer hope to get well, or to be useful, or to be happy. I hope
that those who have loved me will love me to the end; I should wish to
have done them some good, and to leave them a tender memory of myself. I
wish to die without rebellion and without weakness; that is about all.
Is this relic of hope and of desire still too much? Let all be as God
will. I resign myself into his hands.
January 22, 1875. (_Hyeres_).--The French mind, according to Gioberti,
apprehends only the outward form of truth, and exaggerates it by
isolating it, so that it acts as a solvent upon the realities with which
it works. It takes the shadow for the substance, the word for the thing,
appearance for reality, and abstract formula for truth.
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