When he got home he found his friend sleeping in his bed. He wanted to rise but John would not let him. He wished to scourge himself once more. He lay on the floor, put a cigar-box under his head and drew a volunteer's cloak over him. In the morning when he awoke, John asked in trembling tones, "How did she take it?"
"Ah, she laughed; then we drank a glass, and it was over. She liked the verses."
"She laughed! Was she not angry?"
"Not at all."
"Then she only humbugged me."
John wished to hear no more. This trifle had kept him on the rack for a whole dreadful night. He felt ashamed of having asked whether she was disquieted about him. But since she had laughed and drunk punch she could not have been. Not even anxious about his life!
He dressed himself and went down to the school.
The habit of self-criticism derived from his religious training had accustomed him to occupy himself with his ego, to fondle and cherish it, as though it were a separate and beloved personality. So cherished the ego expanded and kept continually looking within instead of without upon the world. It was an interesting personal acquaintance, a friend who must be flattered, but who must also hear the truth and be corrected.
It was the mental malady of the time reduced to a system by Fichte, who taught that everything took place in the ego and through the ego, without which there was no reality. It was the formula for romanticism and for subjective idealism.
"I stood on the shore under the king's castle," "I dwell in the cave of the mountain," "I, small boy, watch the door," "I think of the beautiful times,"—all these phrases struck the same note. Was this "I" really so proud. Was not the poet's "I" more modest than the editor's royal "we"?