[1] 'for fear of the itch' is added elsewhere.
XI
These great, beautiful vessels, imperceptibly swaying (rocking) on the tranquil waters, these sturdy ships, with their idle, homesick air, do they not ask us, in a silent tongue: When do we sail for happiness?
Not to forget the marvellous in drama, sorcery, romance.
The background, the atmosphere in which a whole tale should be steeped. (See the Fall of the House of Usher, and refer this to the profound sensations of hashish and of opium.)
XII
Are there mathematical insanities, and idiots who think that two and two make three? In other words, can hallucination, if the words do not cry out (at being coupled), invade the affairs of pure reason? If, when a man is sunk in habits of sloth, of revery, of idleness, to the point of constantly deferring the important thing to the morrow, another man were to wake him in the morning with biting lash, and were to whip him pitilessly until, unable to work for pleasure, he worked for fear, that man, that flogger, would he not be truly the friend, the benefactor? Besides, one might declare that pleasure would follow, much more justly than is said "Love comes after marriage."
Similarly, in politics, the true saint is he who lashes and destroys the people, for the people's good.
That which is not slightly deformed seems to lack feeling; whence it follows that irregularity, that is, the un-foreseen, surprise, astonishment, are an essential part and characteristic of beauty.