Literature

Literature deals with the most difficult and important problems of existence/ and/ therefore/ litterateurs consider themselves the most important of people.  A bank clerk/ who is always handing money out/ might just as well consider himself a millionaire.  The high estimate placed upon the unexplained/ unsolved questions ought really to discredit writers in our eyes.  And yet these literary men are so clever/ so cunning at stating their own case and revealing the high importance of their mission/ that in the long run they convince everybody/ themselves most of all.  This last event is surely owing to their own limited intelligence.  The Roman augurs had subtler/ more versatile minds.  In order to deceive others/ they had no need to deceive themselves.  In their own set they were not afraid to talk about their secrets/ even to make fun of them/ being fully confident that they could easily vindicate themselves before outsiders/ in case of necessity/ and pull a solemn face befitting the occasion.  But our writers of to-day/ before they can lay their improbable assertions before the public/ must inevitably try to be convinced in their own minds.  Otherwise they cannot begin.

--Leo Shestov