after another--convictions which,
happily for my after life, I never lacked the courage to abandon as soon
as they proved inadequate. From all this weary mental struggle I derived
only a certain pliancy of mind, a weakening of the will, a habit
of perpetual moral analysis, and a diminution both of freshness of
sentiment and of clearness of thought. Usually abstract thinking
develops man's capacity for apprehending the bent of his mind at certain
moments and laying it to heart, but my inclination for abstract thought
developed my consciousness in such a way that often when I began to
consider even the simplest matter, I would lose myself in a labyrinthine
analysis of my own thoughts concerning the matter in question. That is
to say, I no longer thought of the matter itself, but only of what I was
thinking about it. If I had then asked myself, "Of what am I thinking?"
the true answer would have been, "I am thinking of what I am thinking;"
and if I had further asked myself, "What, then, are the thoughts of
which I am thinking?" I should have had to reply, "They are attempts
to think of what I am thinking concerning my own thoughts"--and so on.
Reason, with me, had to yield to excess of reason. Every philosophical
discovery which I made so flattered my conceit that I often imagined
myself to be a great man discovering new truths for the benefit of
humanity. Consequently, I looked down with proud dignity upon my
fellow-mortals. Yet, strange to state, no sooner did I come in contact
with those fellow-mortals than I became filled with a stupid shyness of
them, and, the higher I happened to be standing in my own opinion, the
less did I feel capable of making others perceive my consciousness of
my own dignity, since I could not rid myself of a sense of diffidence
concerning even the simplest of my words and acts.

XX. WOLODA

THE further I advance in the recital of this period of my life, the more
difficult and onerous does the task become. Too rarely do I find among
the reminiscences of that time any moments full of the ardent feeling
of sincerity which so often and so cheeringly illumined my childhood.
Gladly would I pass in haste over my lonely boyhood, the sooner to
arrive at the happy time when once again a tender, sincere, and noble
friendship marked with a gleam of light at once the termination of that
period and the beginning of a phase of my youth which was full of the
charm of poetry. Therefore, I will not purs