He cumbers himself never about
consequences, about interests; he gives an independent, genuine verdict.
You must court him; he does not court you. But the man is as it were
clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has once acted or
spoken with eclat he is a committed person, watched by the sympathy or
the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his
account. There is no Lethe for this. Ah, that he could pass again into
his neutral, godlike independence! Who can thus lose all pledge and,
having observed, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased,
unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always be formidable, must
always engage the poet's and the man's regards. Of such an immortal
youth the force would be felt. He would utter opinions on all passing
affairs, which being seen to be not private but necessary, would sink
like darts into the ear of men and put them in fear.
These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and
inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in
conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.
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