"It as promptly settled between us that he and I were to be great friends for ever, and he would say 'our friendship' as though he were speaking of some important and delightful thing which had an existence independent of ourselves, and which he soon called - apart from his love for his mistress - the great joy of his life. These words filled me with a sort of melancholy and I was at a loss for an answer, for I felt when I was with him, when I was talking to him - and no doubt it would have been the same with anyone else - none of that happiness which it was possible for me to experience when I was by myself. Alone, at times, I felt surging from the depths of my being one or other ot those impressions which gave me a delicious sense of well-being. But as soon as I was with someone else, as soon as I was talking to a friend, my mind as it were faced about, it was towards this interlocutor and not towards myself that it directed its thoughts, and when they followed this outward course they brought me no pleasure. Once I had left Saint-Loup, I managed, with the help of words, to put some sort of order into the confused minutes that I had spent with him; I told myself that I had a good friend, that a good friend was a rare thing, and I savoured, when I felt myself surrounded by assets that were difficult to acquire, what was precisely the opposite of the pleasure that was natural to me, the opposite of the pleasure of having extracted from myself and brought to light something that waas hidden in my inner darkness."
Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove, pp. 790-701
Here Proust is discussing his new friendship with Robert de Saint-Loup, who "was one of those people who believe that merit is attached only to certain forms of art and life, had an affectionate but slightly contemptuous memory of a father who had spent his time hunting and racing, who yawned at Wagner and raved over Offenbach." His "melancholy" over his friendship reminds me of the Roman general Scipio Africanus' famous statement, "I am never less lonely than when I am by myself." It's a quote that I've often repeated - and a view that I've often championed - because it does reflect something I've felt all too frequently over the years. Sometimes it is only when you're with a group that you truly understand how you don't fit in. However, a lot of the time that is nothing more than an immature, self-pitying, Sorrows of Young Werther-esque self-absorption. As Goethe, through Werther, reminds us, "The human race is but a monotonous affair." And speaking of which, does anyone even read Goethe anymore? That would be a great title for a book on educational and cultural decline: The Last Generation to Read the Sorrows of Young Werther. It is actually the perfect book for college students to read because Werther mirrors their own narrowed worldview. I should really include it as the required text in Heroines & Heroes (essentially, Werther as hero - analyze, go!) but they are so increasingly emotionally fragile that a small (but growing) number would find it too painful. What is more sad, a professor self-regulating based on students being intellectually unprepared for an assignment or students being too emotionally brittle to tackle a difficult subject? However, I actually think our students are a lot smarter and stronger than we give them credit for, and that they will rise to the challenge if you only care enough about them to give them a challenge. Hmmm, The Sorrows of Young Werther in Heroines & Heroes? It's growing on me.
Finally, and decidedly not self-pitying, in real time I've finished Within a Budding Grove and have started The Guermantes Way, which will make itself manifest in a few weeks here on the blog.
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