Monday, April 2, 2012

"melancholy... the most voluptuous of all sensations"

In [t]his depression and dreadful uninterrupted suffering, I don't condemn life. On the contrary, I like it and find it good. Can you believe it? I find everything good and pleasant, even my tears, my grief. I enjoy weeping, I enjoy my despair. I enjoy being exasperated and sad. I feel as if these were so many diversions, and I love life in spite of them all. I want to live on. It would be cruel to have me die when I am so accommodating. I cry, I grieve, and at the same time I am pleased -- no, not exactly that -- I know not how to express it. But everything in life pleases me. I find everything agreeable, and in the very midst of my prayers for happiness, I find myself happy at being miserable. It is not I who undergo all this -- my body weeps and cries; but something inside of me which is above me is glad of it all.
-Journal de Marie Bashkirtseff (via William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience)
 signs from a yet-unfinished piece of mine titled Cover

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