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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: forbidden to linger, as those of opposite temperament linger,
over the darker aspects of the universe. In some individuals
optimism may become quasi-pathological. The capacity for even a
transient sadness or a momentary humility seems cut off from them
as by a kind of congenital anaesthesia.[36]
[36] "I know not to what physical laws philosophers will some day
refer the feelings of melancholy. For myself, I find that they
are the most voluptuous of all sensations," writes Saint Pierre,
and accordingly he devotes a series of sections of his work on
Nature to the Plaisirs de la Ruine, Plaisirs des Tombeaux, Ruines
de la Nature, Plaisirs de la Solitude--each of them more
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