Meditations (on an October afternoon)

Has anyone ever felt the need to relinquish the monotony of the daily life, flee away from everyone and everything--if only for an hour or so? I like my solitary moments--not to say that I want to have them all the time--but solitude doesn't bother or frighten me: on the contrary, sometimes I find it necessary.

So on days like that, I take leisurely walks and cuddle in the heart of nature. I develop the habit of entering into myself, which makes me finally lose the feeling and even the remembrance of my and others' daily evils.

I do not exist, except in memories; so in order to contemplate myself I tend to sit apart from the opprobrium of a lame reality. In the idleness of my body, my soul is still active; it still produces sentiments and thoughts and its inner and moral life seems to be increased by the death of every earthly and temporal interest. My body is nothing but an embarrassment, but an obstacle, just there, and in advance I disengage myself from it as much as I can. I go back in times for I do find no more food for my heart upon earth; I accustom myself little by little to nourish it with its own substance, and to seek pasturage within me. I make times that have gone by be reborn, for I am the only master of a paradise of memories. Those reveries recall to me pleasure, or so to say, double my existence as I live through them again.

In spite of the world, I enjoy the charm of a remote utopia for I live decrepit with myself in another age, as if I were living with a younger friend. And there remains for me neither hope, nor fear in this world--I am tranquil at the bottom of the gulf, a poor fortunate mortal, but as undisturbed as God Himself.

I remark in the vicissitudes of my long journey, that epochs of my sweetest enjoyments and the most lively pleasures are not in every case those of which the remembrance draws me and touches me most nearly. These short moments of delirium and passion, however strong they may be are nevertheless, by there vivacity, only scattered points in the line of life. They are too rare and too rapid to constitute a state, and the happiness which I regret is not composed of fugitive instincts, but a simple and permanent state, which has nothing keen in itself, but the duration of which increases the charm to the point of finding supreme felicity.

My first sensation is delicious. I am born in this instant of life and it seems to me that I fill with my light existence all the objects that I perceive. Entirely given up to this moment, I rebuild everything all over again. I have no distinct notion of individuality--not the least idea of who I was. I feel neither evil, nor trouble, nor fear. I have emerged from a pond of tear--a mere creation of humbled despair, or disappointment--but I look at it without even dreaming that this pond, in any way, belonged to me.

I am the beautiful statue now--I am finished. My sculptor was the instability of earthly things--the manifold blends of feelings, impacts, temperaments, people that I loved and was loved by, friendships, experiences. I have been hit painfully by their chisel, but I am the beautiful statue now--I am admirable. My human covetousness has turned into a serene, silent perfection. It is my solace, my inspiration, my most rational pleasure--it is my reward for having lived.