The Confessions - Neuromantic.net :books you can believe in...

The Confessions
nary. Thus the senses, in concurrence with a mind equally ible, have united to produce a simple and uniform effect;
timid and romantic, have preserved my moral chaste, and while others, apparently the same, have, by the concurrence
feelings uncorrupted, with precisely the same inclinations, of certain circumstances, formed such different combinations,
which, seconded with a moderate portion of effrontery, might that it would never be imagined they had any affinity; who
have plunged me into the most unwarrantable excesses. would believe, for example, that one of the most vigorous
I have made the first, most difficult step, in the obscure springs of my soul was tempered in the identical source from
and painful maze of my Confessions. We never feel so great whence luxury and ease mingled with my constitution and
a degree of repugnance in divulging what is really criminal, circulated in my veins? Before I quit this subject, I will add a
as what is merely ridiculous. I am now assured of my resolu- striking instance of the different effects they produced.
tion, for after what I have dared disclose, nothing can have One day, while I was studying in a chamber contiguous to
power to deter me. The difficulty attending these acknowl- the kitchen, the maid set some of Miss Lambercier’s combs
edgments will be readily conceived, when I declare, that dur- to dry by the fire, and on coming to fetch them some time
ing the whole of my life, though frequently laboring under after, was surprised to find the teeth of one of them broken
the most violent agitation, being hurried away with the im- off. Who could be suspected of this mischief? No one but
petuosity of a passion which (when in company with those I myself had entered the room: I was questioned, but denied
loved) deprived me of the faculty of sight and hearing, I could having any knowledge of it. Mr. and Miss Lambercier con-
never, in the course of the most unbounded familiarity, acsult, exhort, threaten, but all to no purpose; I obstinately
quire sufficient resolution to declare my folly, and implore persist in the denial; and, though this was the first time I had
the only favor that remained to bestow.
been detected in a confirmed falsehood, appearances were
In thus investigating the first traces of my sensible exist- so strong that they overthrew all my protestations. This afence,
I find elements, which, though seemingly incompatfair was thought serious; the mischief, the lie, the obstinacy,
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