Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/401

Rh —Oh, ye good-hearted and noble enthusiasts, I know you! You want to be right in our eyes as well as in yours, and especially in yours !—and an irritable and subtle evil conscience so often incites and urges you on against your very enthusiasm. How ingenious you then grow in the outwitting and soothing of this conscience! How much you hate the honest, simple, clean souls ; how eagerly you shun the innocent glances! That better knowledge whose representatives they are, and whose voice you hear but too distinctly in your own hearts, how it questions your belief, how you try to denounce it as a bad habit, as the disease of the age, as the neglect and infection of your own intellectual health. You go so far as to hate criticism, science, reason! You have to falsify history to make it bear witness in your favour; you have to deny virtues lest they obscure those of your idols and ideals. Coloured pictures, where arguments are wanted! Ardour and power of expression! Silver mists! Ambrosian nights! You know well how to illuminate and to darken— indeed, to darken by means of light! And indeed when your passion wallows up, a moment will arrive when you will say to yourselves, Now I have conquered a good conscience, now I am generous, courageous, self-denying, noble; now I am honest! How you long for these moments when your passion will give to you full, unlimited rights and, as it were, innocence ; when in battle, ecstasy,