My days slipped by in ecstasy; I felt myself consecrated a
combatant in the service of the Highest. I used to test my body, in
order to get it wholly under my control, ate as little as possible,
slept as little as possible, lay many a night outside my bed on the bare
floor, gradually to make myself as hardy as I required to be. I tried to
crush the youthful sensuality that was awakening in me, and by degrees
acquired complete mastery over myself, so that I could be what I wished
to be, a strong and willing instrument in the fight for the victory of
Truth. And I plunged afresh into study with a passion and a delight that
prevented my perceiving any lack, but month after month carried me
along, increasing in knowledge and in mental power, growing from day to
day.
XVII.
This frame of mind, however, was crossed by another. The religious
transformation in my mind could not remain clear and unmuddied, placed
as I was in a society furrowed through and through by different
religious currents, issued as I was from the European races that for
thousands of years had been ploughed by religious ideas. All the
atavism, all the spectral repetition of the thoughts and ideas of the
past that can lie dormant in the mind of the individual, leaped to the
reinforcement of the harrowing religious impressions which came to me
from without.
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