He disappeared from college for a year and came back tanned,
ruddy and at rest. He had found a capacity for interest and
emotion outside of himself. He had experienced phases of life
about which he would not talk at first, but in later years he
admitted that he had been a "man of the world." He regretted much
that had happened, but on the whole he rejoiced in an equanimity,
in a capacity for objective interest, that he had never had
before. His introspective trend was still very strong, but it
lent subtlety and wisdom to his life, rather than weakness. Now
and then he became harassed by a feeling of unreality, by a
questioning skepticism that nullified happiness, and he felt
himself divided by his intellect. These he shook off by dropping
his work, by hunting, fishing and accepting simple goals of
activity. Later on he married, and became a scholar of some note.
I think he now relishes life as well as any really thoughtful man
of middle life can.
There is a personality type, the emotional introspective, whose
interest in life is directed toward their own sensations and
emotions. They do not view people or things as having a value in
themselves and for themselves; they deliberately view them as
sources of a personal pleasurable sensation. I do not mean the
crude egoist who asks of anything or anybody, "What good is it
(or he) for me?" but I mean that connoisseur in emotions,
casually blase and bored, who seeks new sensations. This is an
introspective deviation of a serious kind, for the connoisseur in
emotions rarely is happy and usually is most deeply miserable.
Bourget in his remarkable psychological novel, "A Love Crime,"
has admirably drawn one of these characters. The exquisite
Armand, seeking pleasure constantly, is divided into the
sensualist who seduces and ruins and the introspectionist who
watches the proceeding with disgust and disillusion. It is not an
outraged conscience that is at work but the inability to feel
without analyzing the feeling "Ah, for a single passion that
might apply my entire sensibility to another being, like wet
paper against a window pane." This is the eternal tragedy of
sophistication,--that there results an anhedonia in large part
manifested by a restless introspection. The mind is drawn away
from the outside world, and everything is seen out of proportion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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