I enjoy being exasperated
and sad. I feel as if these were so many diversions, and I love life
in spite of them all. I want to live on. It would be cruel to have me
die when I am so accommodating.

I cry, I grieve, and at the same time I am pleased--no, not exactly
that--I know not how to express it. But everything in life pleases me.
I find everything agreeable, and in the very midst of my prayers for
happiness, I find myself happy at being miserable. It is not I who
undergo all this--my body weeps and cries; but something inside of me
which is above me is glad of it all." [37]

[37] Journal de Marie Bashkirtseff, i. 67.

The supreme contemporary example of such an inability to feel evil is
of course Walt Whitman.

"His favorite occupation," writes his disciple, Dr. Bucke "seemed to be
strolling or sauntering about outdoors by himself, looking at the
grass, the trees, the flowers, the vistas of light, the varying aspects
of the sky, and listening to the birds, the crickets, the tree frogs,
and all the hundreds of natural sounds.

It was evident that these things gave him a pleasure far beyond what
they give to ordinary people. Until I knew the man," continues Dr.
Bucke, "it had not occurred to me that any one could derive so much
absolute happiness from these things as he did. He was very fond of
flowers, either wild or cultivated; liked all sorts. I think he
admired lilacs and sunflowers just as much as roses. Perhaps, indeed,
no man who ever lived liked so many things and disliked so few as Walt
Whitman. All natural objects seemed to have a charm for him. All
sights and sounds seemed to please him. He appeared to like (and I
believe he did like) all the men, women, and children he saw (though I
never knew him to say that he liked any one), but each who knew him
felt that he liked him or her, and that he liked others also. I never
knew him to argue or dispute, and he never spoke about money. He
always justified, sometimes playfully, sometimes quite seriously, those
who spoke harshly of himself or his writings, and I often thought he
even took pleasure in the opposition of enemies. When I first knew
[him], I used to think that he watched himself, and would not allow his
tongue to give expression to fretfulness, antipathy, complaint, and
remonstrance. It did not occur to me as possible that these mental
states could be absent in him. After long observation, however, I
satisfied myself that s