if something were calling me there. It is neither a voice nor a sound.
I know not what it is, and yet it calls me, draws me, allures me, with
its: "Come! come!"--Yes, I am coming!

*

I know that I am not dying. I would sooner doubt that I am living. The
world is no longer an enigma to me.

*

From my mountain height I look down on those I have wronged. They are
my father, my queen, and, worst of all, myself!

*

Of all things in this world, untruth is the surest to avenge itself.
When I wrote to the king, from the convent, I vaunted my truthfulness
and yet, at the same time, I was thoroughly untruthful. I aimed at
bringing about an act of freedom and yet, at heart, my only desire was
to write to him and impress him by my love of liberty. I felt proud of
my opposition to popular opinion, and hoped thus to show him that I was
his strong friend. He declined my proffered advice, and yet it was I
who again opened the convents.

Falsehood avenges itself.

Purity and freedom can only exist where there is perfect truthfulness.

*

If I could only find words to express the delight with which to-day's
sunset filled me. It is night, and as surely as the sun shone on my
face, so surely does a ray of sunlight shine within me. I am a ray of
eternity. Compared with it, what are days or years? What is a whole
human life?

*

I never rightly knew why I was always dissatisfied, and yearning for
the next hour, the next day, the next year, hoping that it would bring
me that which I could not find in the present. It was not love, for
love does not satisfy. I desired to live in the passing moment, but
could not. It always seemed as if something were waiting for me without
the door, and calling me. What could it have been?

I know now; it was a desire to be at one with myself, to understand
myself. Myself in the world, and the world in me.

*

The vain man is the loneliest of human beings. He is constantly longing
to be seen, understood, acknowledged, admired and loved.

I could say much on the subject, for I, too, was once vain. It was
only in actual solitude that I conquered the loneliness of vanity. It
is enough for me that I exist.

How far removed this is from all that is mere show.