iconoclasm: "I analyse myself
and others," he writes to a friend; "I am always anatomizing, and
whenever I at last succeed in finding something, which all men consider
pure and beautiful, but which is in reality a putrid spot, a gangrene, I
shake my head and smile. I have come to the firm conclusion that vanity
is the fundamental basis of all things, and that even that which we call
conscience is in fact only a concealed and incipient vanity. You give in
charity, partly, may be, out of compassion, out of pity, or from horror
of suffering and sordidness, but also out of egotism; for the chief
motive of your action is the desire to acquire the right to say to
yourself: I have done good; there are very few people like me; I respect
myself more than other men." Eight years later he writes to his devoted
wife: "I love to analyze; it is an occupation that distracts me.
Although I am not very much inclined to see the humorous side of things,
yet I cannot regard my own personality altogether seriously, because I
see myself how ridiculous I am, ridiculous not in the sense of being
externally comic, but in the inner sense of that inherent irony which,
being present in the life of men, shows itself sometimes even in the
most obviously natural actions, in the most ordinary gestures.... All
this one feels in oneself, but it is hard to explain. You do not
understand it, because in you it is as simple and genuine as in a
beautiful hymn of love and poetry. For I regard myself as a sort of
arabesque or marqueterie work; there are within me pieces of ivory and
of gold and of iron, some of painted paper, others of brilliants, and
others again of lead."

This life is so rich in visions and imaginings, that they finally
obscure the real world altogether, and receive in passing through this
medium a reflected colouring in addition to their own. "I always see the
antithesis of things; the sight of a child inevitably suggests to my
mind the thought of old age; the sight of a cradle, the idea of the
grave. When I look at my wife, I think of myself as her skeleton. That
is why scenes of happiness sadden me, while sad things leave me
indifferent. I weep so much internally in my own soul, that my tears
cannot flow outwardly as well; things that I read of in a book agitate
me much more than any actually existing sorrows." Here we encounter a
distinguishing trait of the majority of natures that are gifted with
strong artistic temperaments. "The more