(no subject)

[proximoception]

Another passage I've lost: Tolstoy describing self-consciousness, late in the Childhood trilogy I'd thought. The youth feels superior yet inferior to all--his specialness sets him apart, his apartness makes him a freak, his freakishness makes him special. It's unclear if his gifts are great or if the conviction of great gifts is how you stand loneliness, or what. Tolstoy puts it infinitely better, and in the description you see Hitlers as well as benign things, Tolstoys.