perience, suffering, etc. It is well if he does not become hardened. He learns how to bear contempt, and to despise himself. He makes, as it were, a post-mortem examination of himself before he is dead. Such is art.
Feb. 21, 1842. . . . I must confess there is nothing so strange to me as my own body. I love any other piece of nature, almost, better. I was always conscious of sounds in nature which my ears could not hear, that I caught but a prelude to a strain. She always retreats as I advance. Away behind and behind is she and her meaning. Will not this faith and expectation make itself ears at length? I never saw to the end, nor heard to the end, but the best part was unseen and unheard.
I am like a feather floating in the atmosphere. On every side is depth unfathomable.
I have lived ill [of late] for the most part, because too near myself. I have tripped myself up, so that there was no progress for my own narrowness. I cannot walk conveniently and pleasantly but when I hold myself far off in the horizon, but when the soul dilutes the body and makes it passable. My soul and body have tottered along together, . . . tripping and hindering one another, like unpracticed Siamese twins. They two should walk as one that no obstacle may be nearer than the firmament.
