'Ought' is a singular instance of the confusion wrought by words and
of their inefficiency. There is no single 'ought' and therefore no
science of the obligation it implies. 'Ought' in the phrase 'you
ought to speak the truth' refers to an instinct in us to report
veraciously what we see. 'Ought' of self-sacrifice refers to love,
and 'ought' of sobriety to the subordination of desires, to a
difference in their authority of which we can give no account,
excepting that we are creatures fashioned in a certain way.
In the presence of some people we inevitably depart from ourselves:
we are inaccurate, say things we do not feel, and talk nonsense.
When we get home we are conscious that we have made fools of
ourselves. Never go near these people.
What cardboard puppets are the creations of fiction compared with a
common man or woman intimately known!
How much of what I say is an echo; how little is myself! Sometimes
it seems as if my real self were nothing and that what stands for it
were a mere miscellany of odds and ends picked up here and there.
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