in this world. Is this obtrusiveness of heaven, this inevitable superhuman neighbour, not enough to drive one mad? But, never fear, it was but a dream! Awake !
465
At a meeting. —A: What are you gazing at? You have been standing here for ever so long.—B: Ever the old and new thing over again! The helplessness of a thing plunges me so far and so deeply into it that I finish by reaching its bottom and learning that, in reality, it is not worth so very much. At the end of all similar experiences we meet some kind of sorrow and torpor. Upon a small scale I experience this ten times a day.
466
Loss of fame.—What an advantage it is to have occasion to speak as a stranger to mankind! When depriving us of our incognito and making us renowned, the gods deprive us of “half of our virtue.”
467
Twice patient.—”By doing this you will hurt many people.”—I know it, and I know besides that I shall have twice to suffer for it, first, from pity with their sorrow, and then, from the revenge which they will take on me. Yet, for all this, I cannot help acting as I do.
