Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/223

198, or in my knowledge. And now I have a strange experience of conflicting passions. This critic has caused me a sharp pang. Perhaps I hate him for it; but then, when I go away and think the matter over, I see that as to the fact, he is right. This great limitation does actually exist for me, and perhaps I cannot remove it; so I can but suffer from the sense of it. I was innocent and ignorant before, and therefore happy. If the critic had not showed me to myself, I should have kept this bliss. But it is in vain now to think of returning to that innocence. I am indeed a wretch and a fool; and how shall I escape myself? Alas for my lost pleasure in contemplating my fancied perfection!

But no: cannot I in fact return to that ignorance, and to the blissful illusion of my own worth once more? Surely I can if I but try awhile. To flatter myself, to curse the critic, to talk of his jealousy and of his blindness: surely this will bring me back to my ignorance again in time. He will be forgotten, and I contented. But once more, my enlightened self revolts from this lie. The defect is real, and I know it. Would my ignorance make it less real? To have this defect and to suffer from it is bad enough; but with horror do I now contemplate the state of going on forever with this defect, but still ignorant of it and so not suffering from it. My old innocence seems really pitiful. It actually adds much to my present pang of chagrin, that I previously ought to have felt the chagrin, and yet had it not. I tremble when I reflect how, amid all that selfish complacency, I really was a fool the whole time, and