ABSTRACT

I ‘APART from the fact that I am a decadent, I am also the reverse of such a creature. That energy with which I sentenced myself to absolute solitude, and to a severance from all those conditions of life to which I had grown accustomed; my discipline of myself, and my refusal to allow myself to be pampered, to be tended hand and foot, to be doctored-all this betrays the absolute certainty of my instincts respecting what at that time was most needful to my health. This double thread of experience, this means to two worlds that seem so far asunder, finds in every detail its counterpart in my own nature; I am my own complement; I have a second sight, as well as a first. And perhaps I also have a third sight.’