A more serious drawback is that, having never indulged in gaiety while young, and yet having a good deal of irony and cheerfulness in my temperament, I have been compelled, at an age when we see how vain and empty it all is, to be very lenient as regards foibles which I had never indulged in myself, so much so that many persons who have not perhaps been as steady as I was have been shocked at my easy-going indifference.  This holds especially true of politics.  This is a matter upon which I feel easier in my mind than upon any other, and yet a great many people look upon me as being very lax.  I cannot get out of my head the idea that perhaps the libertine is right after all and practises the true philosophy of life.  This has led me to express too much admiration for such men as Sainte-Beuve and Theophile Gautier.  Their affectation of immorality prevented me from seeing how incoherent their philosophy was.  The fear of appearing pharisaical, the idea, evangelical in itself, that he who is immaculate has the right to be indulgent, and the dread of misleading, if by chance all the doctrines emitted by the professors of philosophy were wrong, made my system of morality appear rather shaky.  It is, in reality, as solid as the rock.  These little liberties which I allow myself are by way of a recompense for my strict adherence to the general code.  So in politics I indulge in reactionary remarks so that I may not have the appearance of a Liberal understrapper.  I don’t want people to take me for being more of a dupe than I am in reality; I would not upon any account trade upon my opinions, and what I especially dread is to appear in my own eyes to be passing bad money.  Jesus has influenced me more in this respect than people may think, for He loved to show up and deride hypocrisy, and in His parable of the Prodigal Son He places morality upon its true footing—­kindness of heart—­while seeming to upset it altogether.

To the same cause may be attributed another of my defects, a tendency to waver which has almost neutralized my power of giving verbal expression to my thoughts in many matters.  The priest carries his sacred character into every relation of life, and there is a good deal of what is conventional about what he says.  In this respect, I have remained a priest, and this is all the more absurd because I do not derive any benefit either for myself or for my opinions.  In my writings, I have been outspoken to a degree.  Not only have I never said anything which I do not think, but, what is much less frequent and far more difficult, I have said all I think.  But in talking and in letter-writing, I am at times singularly weak.  I do not attach any importance to this, and, with the exception of the select few between whom and myself there is a bond of intellectual brotherhood, I say to people just what I think is likely to please them.  In the society of fashionable people I am utterly lost.  I get into a muddle and flounder about,