_The man who writes the story of his life begins by trying to justify
his impulse. But justification masks the true desire; and the sincerest
confessions often start with falsehood. I could invent a reason for
these pages, easily and plausibly enough. I could say, being a man of
science and having failed in my elected sphere, that with my story I
shall make amends: give to the world a document whose revelation may
mean far more to it than any alienist’s career. This statement would
perhaps be truth. My tale will add to that source of knowledge beyond
the axioms of rational science from which to-morrow the true science
of man may spring. But this statement would not be the truth: it would
not express the extent nor the inwardness of my impulse in writing. For
I am moved by a will far warmer than any altruism. I write, first of
all, for myself._
_In setting down a record of my terrible adventure, I hope to escape
(for brief and precious hours) from this eternal Twilight. I shall
dwell once more in the innocent world of men: in the world where the
sun is luminous because the night is black, where life seems good
because death seems real. Let me not dwell upon the nature of this
Twilight. It is neither darkness nor brightness, neither warmth nor
cold. It is penetrant and it is hungry, and it devours the flesh of man
that is made of sunnier senses. You who read do not know the blessed
marriage of your world. You do not know that sun is sweet to you,
because you are sun: that your five senses catching to your mind the
rounded beauty of nature and of love bring but fond reflections ...
stars, fair women, mountains ... of yourself._
_There is a Truth in which the sun burns up as swiftly as your flesh.
All is gone here; and in this thundering silence the march of man that
to you seems so bloody, to me has the cadence of a quiet song. Man is
born into his mother’s arms, and belief cradles him. That breast and
that milk are real, for they are part of himself. The day is real and
the night, work and reward are real, love is real: pain is real because
the need of victory is real. What blessedness! Man is complete in his
flesh because no form, no thought comes to his mind that is not portion
of his flesh. He loves his flesh in the sun and calls it God: he loves
his flesh in a woman and calls it Love. He is all simple and whole:
only his words, like in a child’s game, break his unitary world. But
where I am, the flesh is not gone: it has become a fragment of a truth
vastly beyond it. This is agony, and from this I seek respite._
_I want once more to see the sun as you do: to feel the earth solid
and absolute beneath my purposeful feet. I want to live again in your
commanding passions: loyalty, wonder, anger, worship, love. What joy
to be able to say: “This is my friend,” “This is my work,” “This is
my sweetheart,” “This is my faith.” What common joy for you! Is it not
worth what you call pain to have it? Is it not worth what you call
death to have life?_
_For me, pain and joy, love and hate, heaven and earth, life and time
and death have dimmed. They are all words of mortal flesh, expressive
of flesh’s elemental moods. Outside the flesh, they have no meaning. My
flesh is broken up but it is not yet gone; so that its word and will
still speak to me ... fragmentarily, nostalgic ... of its departed day.
I tell my story to bring its wholeness back._