suffered deeply--it almost determines the order of rank HOW deeply men
can suffer--the chilling certainty, with which he is thoroughly imbued
and coloured, that by virtue of his suffering he KNOWS MORE than the
shrewdest and wisest can ever know, that he has been familiar with,
and "at home" in, many distant, dreadful worlds of which "YOU know
nothing"!--this silent intellectual haughtiness of the sufferer, this
pride of the elect of knowledge, of the "initiated," of the almost
sacrificed, finds all forms of disguise necessary to protect itself from
contact with officious and sympathizing hands, and in general from all
that is not its equal in suffering. Profound suffering makes noble:
it separates.--One of the most refined forms of disguise is Epicurism,
along with a certain ostentatious boldness of taste, which takes
suffering lightly, and puts itself on the defensive against all that
is sorrowful and profound. They are "gay men" who make use of gaiety,
because they are misunderstood on account of it--they WISH to be
misunderstood. There are "scientific minds" who make use of science,
because it gives a gay appearance, and because scientificness leads to
the conclusion that a person is superficial--they WISH to mislead to a
false conclusion. There are free insolent minds which would fain conceal
and deny that they are broken, proud, incurable hearts (the cynicism of
Hamlet--the case of Galiani); and occasionally folly itself is the mask
of an unfortunate OVER-ASSURED knowledge.--From which it follows that it
is the part of a more refined humanity to have reverence "for the mask,"
and not to make use of psychology and curiosity in the wrong place.