I take care to wish for rather less
than is in my power, that I may not even be reminded of the obstacles in
my way. Renunciation is the safeguard of dignity. Let us strip ourselves
if we would not be stripped. He who has freely given up his life may
look death in the face: what more can it take away from him? Do away
with desire and practice charity--there you have the whole method of
Buddha, the whole secret of the great Deliverance....
It is snowing, and my chest is troublesome. So that I depend on nature
and on God. But I do not depend on human caprice; this is the point to
be insisted on. It is true that my chemist may make a blunder and poison
me, my banker may reduce me to pauperism, just as an earthquake may
destroy my house without hope of redress. Absolute independence,
therefore, is a pure chimera. But I do possess relative
independence--that of the stoic who withdraws into the fortress of his
will, and shuts the gates behind him.
"Jurons, excepte Dieu, de n'avoir point de maitre."
This oath of old Geneva remains my motto still.
January 10, 1881.--To let one's self be troubled by the ill-will, the
ingratitude, the indifference, of others, is a weakness to which I am
very much inclined. It is painful to me to be misunderstood, ill-judged.
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