"The past is a candle at great distance: too close to let you quit, too far to comfort you."

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the objet of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have cought happiness without dreaming of it.

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.