Page:Will to Believe and Other Essays (1897).djvu/318

296 figure in these pages in the same monotonous way. The mind saw how each term belonged to its contrast through a knife- edge moment of transition which it effected, and which, perennial and eternal, was the nunc stans of life. The thought of mutual implication of the parts in the bare form of a judgment of opposition, as 'nothing—but,no more—than,only—if,' etc., produced a perfect delirium of theoretic rapture. And at last, when definite ideas to work on came slowly, the mind went through the mere form of recognizing sameness in identity by contrasting the same word with itself, differently emphasized, or shorn of its initial letter. Let me transcribe a few sentences:
 * What's mistake but a kind of take?
 * What's nausea but a kind of -ausea?
 * Sober, drunk, -unk, astonishment.
 * Everything can become the subject of criticism how criticise—without something to criticise?
 * Agreement—disagreement!!
 * Emotion—motion!!!
 * Die away from, from, die away (without the from).
 * Reconciliation of opposites; sober, drunk, all the same!
 * Good and evil reconciled in a laugh!
 * It escapes, it escapes!
 * But
 * What escapes, escapes?
 * Emphasis, phasis; there must be some emphasis in order for there to be a phasis.
 * No verbiage can give it, because the verbiage is other.
 * Incoherent, coherent—same.
 * And it fades! And it's infinite! it's infinite!
 * If it wasn't going, why should you hold on to it?
 * Don't you see the difference, don't you see the identity?
 * Constantly opposites united!
 * The same me telling you to write and not to write!
 * Extreme—extreme, extreme! Within the extensity that 'extreme' contains is contained the extreme of intensity.
 * Something, and other than that thing!
 * Intoxication, and otherness than intoxication.
 * Every attempt at betterment,—every attempt at otherment, is a.
 * It fades forever and forever as we move.