I am taken here for a good little seminarist, very pious and
tractable. This is not my fault, but it grieves me now and again, for
I am so afraid of appearing not to be straightforward. Yet I do not
feign anything, God knows; I merely do not say all I feel. Should I do
better to enter upon these wretched controversies, in which they would
have the advantage of being the champions of the beautiful and the
pure, and in which I should have the appearance of assimilating myself
to all that is most vile? for anti-Christianity has in this country so
low, detestable, and revolting an aspect that I am repelled from it if
only by natural modesty. And then they know nothing whatever about
the matter. I cannot be blamed for not speaking to them in German.
Moreover, as I have already explained to you, I am so situated
intellectually that I can appear one thing to this person and another
to that one without any feigning on my part, and without either of
them being deceived, thanks to having for a time shaken off the yoke
of contradiction.
And then I must tell you that at times I have been within an ace of a
complete reaction, and have wondered whether it would not be more
agreeable to God if I were to cut short the thread of my
self-examination and trace my steps back two or three years. The fact is
that I do not see as I advance further any chance of reaching
Catholicism; each step leads me further away from it. However this may
be, the alternative is a very clear one.
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