I longed for kindness, sympathy, and equity,
but my pride forbade me to ask for them, or to employ any address or
calculation to obtain them.... I do not think I have been wrong
altogether, for all through I have been in harmony with my best self,
but my want of adaptability has worn me out, to no purpose. Now, indeed,
I am at peace within, but my career is over, my strength is running out,
and my life is near its end.
"Il n'est plus temps pour rien excepte pour mourir."
This is why I can look at it all historically.
January 23, 1881.--A tolerable night, but this morning the cough has
been frightful. Beautiful weather, the windows ablaze with sunshine.
With my feet on the fender I have just finished the newspaper.
At this moment I feel well, and it seems strange to me that my doom
should be so near. Life has no sense of kinship with death. This is why,
no doubt, a sort of mechanical instinctive hope is forever springing up
afresh in us, troubling our reason, and casting doubt on the verdict of
science. All life is tenacious and persistent. It is like the parrot in
the fable, who, at the very moment when its neck is being wrung, still
repeats with its last breath:
"Cela, cela, ne sera rien."
The intellect puts the matter at its worst, but the animal protests.
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