In common with his age
he had lost the secret of the infinite persuasion of poetry. So the
consciousness that he was different from those who surrounded him, and
from those he admired as his masters, took hold of him. He was afraid of
his own otherness, as all men are afraid when the first knowledge of
their own essential loneliness begins to trouble their depths. The
pathos of his struggle to kill the seed of this devastating knowledge is
apparent in his declared desire to become 'a polished gentleman.' In the
note which he added to his memoir for M. Dupin in 1749 he confesses to
this ideal. If only he could become 'one of them,' indistinguishable
without and within, he might be delivered from that disquieting sense of
tongue-tied queerness in a normal world.
If he cheated himself at all, the deception was brief. The poignant
memory of Les Charmettes whispered to him that there was a state of
grace in which the hard things were made clear. But he had not yet the
courage of his destiny. His consciousness of his separation from his
fellows had still to harden into a consciousness of superiority before
that courage would come.
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