i feel that something’s troubling him.”
“his soul? it may be that he’s a little frightened of himself. it may be that he has no confidence in the authenticity of the vision that he dimly perceives in his mind’s eye.”
…
?”i wish i could make u see how exciting the life of the spirit is and how rich in experience. it’s illimitable. it’s such a happy life. there’s only one thing like it, when u’re up in a plane by urself, high, high, and only infinity surrounds u. u’re intoxicated by the boundless space.”
…
“he said that the world isn’t a creation, for out of nothing nothing comes; but a manifestation of the eternal nature; well, that was all right, but then he added that evil is as direct a manifestation of the divine as good.”
…
“hasn’t it struck u that when he’s with us, easy as he is to get on with, friendly and sociable, one’s conscious of a sort of detachment in him, as tho he weren’t giving all of himself, but withheld in some hidden part of his soul something, i don’t know what it is – a tension, a secret, an aspiration, a knowledge – that sets him apart?”
…
?”a god that can be understood is no god. who can explain the infinite in words?”
…
“i’d known that men had been killed by the hundred thousand, but i hadn’t seen them killed. it didn’t mean very much to me. then i saw a dead man with my own eyes. the sight filled me with shame.”
“shame?” i exclaimed involuntarily.
“shame, because that boy, he was only three or four years older than me, who’d had such energy and daring, who a moment before had had so much vitality, who’d been so good, was now just mangled flesh and looked as if it had never been alive.”
i didn’t say anything. i had seen dead men when i was a medical student and i had seen dead men during the war. what dismayed me was how trifling they looked. there was no dignity in them. marionettes that the showman had thrown into the discard.
“i didn’t sleep that night. i cried. i wasn’t frightened for myself; i was indignant; it was the wickedness of it that broke me.”
…
the book is “the razor’s edge” by w somerset maugham.