I
only express myself freely with people whose opinions I know to sit
lightly upon them, and who look down upon everything with good-natured
contempt. My correspondence will be a disgrace to me if it should be
published after my death. It is a perfect torture for me to write a
letter. I can understand a person airing his talents before ten as
before ten thousand persons, but before one! Before beginning to
write, I hesitate and reflect, and make out a rough copy of what I
shall say; very often I go to sleep over it. A person need only look
at these letters with their heavy wording and abrupt sentences to see
that they were composed in a state of torpor which borders on sleep.
Reading over what I have written, I see that it is poor stuff, and
that I have said many things which I cannot vouch for. In despair, I
fasten down the envelope, with the feeling that I have posted a letter
which is beneath criticism.
In short, all my defects are those of the young ecclesiastical student
of Treguier. I was born to be a priest, as others are born to be
soldiers and lawyers. The very fact of my being successful in my
studies was a proof of it. What was the good of learning Latin so
thoroughly if it was not for the Church? A peasant, noticing all my
dictionaries upon one occasion, observed: "These, I suppose, are the
books which people study when they are preparing for the priesthood."
As a matter of fact, all those who studied at school at all were in
training for the ecclesiastical profession.
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