Adolphe

by Benjamin Constant

as I had never tried any career I mourned them all. Never having put my talents to the test, I imagined they were limitless and cursed them because of it, wishing nature had made me weak and commonplace, and spared me at any rate the remorse that comes from deliberate self-abasement. Any praise or approval of my intelligence or knowledge seemed an unbearable reproach, like hearing admiration for the powerful arms of an athlete chained down in a dungeon.

I shall publish it as a true story of the misery of the human heart. If it has any instructive lesson, that lesson is for men, for it shows that intellect, which they are so proud of, can neither find happiness nor bestow it; that character, steadfastness, fidelity, and kindness are the gifts we should pray for, and by kindness I do not mean that short-lived pity which cannot overcome impatience nor prevent it from reopening wounds which a moment of compunction had appeared to heal.