I Am Malicious Because I Am Miserable

There Is Something At Work In My Soul Which I Do Not Understand. I Am Practically Industrious - Painstaking, A Workman To Execute With Perseverance And Labour - But Besides This There Is A Love For The Marvellous, A Belief In The Marvellous, Intertwined In All My Projects, Which Hurries Me Out Of The Common Pathways Of Men, Even To The Wild Sea And Unvisited Regions I Am About To Explore.

The World To Me Was A Secret, Which I Desired To Discover; To Her It Was A Vacancy, Which She Sought To People With Imaginations Of Her Own.

Invention, It Must Be Humbly Admitted, Does Not Consist In Creating Out Of A Void, But Out Of Chaos; The Materials Must In The First Place Be Afforded; It Can Give Form To Dark, Shapeless Substances, But Cannot Bring Into Being The Substance Itself.

With How Many Things Are We On The Brink Of Becoming Acquainted, If Cowardice Or Carelessness Did Not Restrain Our Inquiries.

These Wonderful Narrations Inspired Me With Strange Feelings. Was Man, Indeed, At Once So Powerful, So Virtuous, And Magnificent, Yet So Vicious And Base? He Appeared At One Time A Mere Scion Of The Evil Principle And At Another As All That Can Be Conceived Of Noble And Godlike.