"I am experiencing the enslaving power of sin. I now know how to sympathize with poor drunkards and harlots. I will flog and starve myself in order to conquer my flesh. [I actually fasted and flagellated myself to ascertain the effect in deadening my amorousness but found these religious exercises useless.]
"I feel to-night that I can never become a preacher of the Gospel. I feel that I must give up all plans for a noble career, and that maybe I shall come to a disgraceful end!
"Oh that all instinct would die in me! It makes my life miserable. How gladly would I be free from all desire so that I could make a name for myself in the world! An extreme girl-boy can hardly become a scholar and a preacher.
"Is it my divinely appointed task to learn the lesson of resignation in affliction? To feel myself crushed to earth by the Almighty Hand? Like Isaac, to be tried in order to see whether I am willing to be slain in my youth—in my own case morally?"[1]
- ↑ I had in mind possible predestination to be a fille de joie—the career which haunted me, off and on, every year of my life after my second, even years before I heard of the existence of such filles. I had already had an intensive five years career (third to seventh years). Another foreshadowing (that of my actual career from my twenty-sixth to fortieth years) was a common dream, from about my ninth to fourteenth years, of being chased through streets and fields by youthful soldiers, who would finally catch me, and great terror would result. The dream occurred so often that in my waking hours I resolved, the next time I had that dream, to tell the soldier boldly: "I am not afraid of you, because this is only a dream!" Repeatedly in my dreams did I tell that to the soldier who had grabbed me, but he replied (as I dreamt): "You are mistaken. This is not a dream. It is the real thing!" And then I would become as terrified as ever. My dream would always end a second or two after being grabbed, and generally I would wake up as if from a night-mare.
