to straighten out tangled lives whose tangles make me rage because I myself am helpless. Is that wrong? No—I swear my aim is single and unselfish. I don't want credit even. You well know that You made me all-denuded of the power of loving anybody, of the power of being loved by any. Self-contained, You have made me. I shall always be detached and apart from others. Murmur? No. I never have murmured—nor will murmur. Truly, though, I should like to love, to be loved: but, so long I have been alone and lonely, I suppose[Pg 17] I must go on like that always till the end. They are frightened of me, even when they come to the very verge of loving. They are frightened because of certain labels which I frequently use to put on others: frightened lest I should fit them also some day with a label. Oh, often they have told me that they wouldn't like me to be against them. [Pg 17] I will stop that, O God, if You desire it. But, instead of it, what? I think You mean me not to waste the one talent You have given. Then, I beg of You, give me scope. I must act. No: I am not doing well at present—not my best. Oh, I know it, and I loathe it. All my life is a pose. Somehow or other I have taken the pose, or stolid stupids force me into the pose, of strange recondite haughty genius, very subtile, very learned, inaccessible,—everything that's foolish. God, You know what a sham I am: how silly this is: how very little I know really. Don't I know it too? Don't I always tell them? Then they say that I'm modest—me—ha!—modest! Here's the truth, by my One Hope of Salvation. I am frightened of all men, known and unknown; and of women I go in violent terror: though I always do say superb and hard things to the one, and all pretty gentle soft things to the other, while writing pitilessly of them both:—for I'm frightened of them, frightened; and I want to avoid them; and to keep them off me. Therefore I pose. And, therefore also, I provide an image which they can worship, like, or loathe, as it pleases, or displeases, or strikes awe—and they generally loathe it. All the time, while they manifest their feelings, I look on like a child at Punch and Judy. Oh, it's wrong, very wrong, wrong altogether. But what can I do? God, tell me, clearly unmistakeably and distinctly tell me, tell me what I must do—and make me do it." [Pg 18] [Pg 18]
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