—I have finished
Schopenhauer. My mind has been a tumult of opposing systems—Stoicism, Quietism, Buddhism,
Christianity. Shall I never be at peace with myself? If impersonality
is a good, why am I not consistent in the pursuit of it? and if it is
a temptation, why return to it, after having judged and conquered it?
Is happiness anything more than a
conventional fiction? The deepest reason for my state of doubt is
that the supreme end and aim of life seems to me a mere lure and
deception. The individual is an eternal dupe, who never obtains what
he seeks, and who is forever deceived by hope. My instinct is in
harmony with the pessimism of Buddha and of Schopenhauer. It is a
doubt which never leaves me even in my moments of religious fervor.
Nature is indeed for me a Maia; and I look at her, as it were, with
the eyes of an artist. My intelligence remains skeptical. What, then,
do I believe in? I do not know. And what is it I hope for? It would
be difficult to say. Folly! I believe in goodness, and I hope that
good will prevail. Deep within this ironical and disappointed being
of mine there is a child hidden—a frank, sad, simple creature, who
believes in the ideal, in love, in holiness, and all heavenly
superstitions. A whole millennium of idylls sleeps in my heart; I am
a pseudo−skeptic, a pseudo−scoffer.
“Borne dans sa nature, infini dans
ses voeux,
L'homme est un dieu tombe qui se
souvient des cieux.”
Amiel's Journal
translation: Mrs Humphrey Ward
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