That is certainly the case as regards this excursion to Solesmes, for there is nothing, absolutely nothing to justify my alarms.
"How silly this all is; how much simpler it would be to allow myself to live, and, above all, to be led!" "I have hit it," he went on after a moment's reflection.

"The cause of this turmoil is evident.

It is my lack of self-abandonment, my want of confidence in God--yes, and my little love, my dryness of spirit, which have brought me to this state.
"In the lapse of time this disorder has brought on the malady from which I am suffering, an utter anaemia of the soul, aggravated by the patient's terrors, since he, unaware of the nature of the complaint, exaggerates its importance.
"Thus stands my balance-sheet since I came to Chartres.
"The position is very different from what it was in Paris.

For the phase I am going through is the very contrary to that in which I previously lived; in Paris my soul was not dry and friable, but dank and soft; it was saponaceous; the foot sank in it.

In short, I was melting away, in a state of langour, more painful perhaps than this state of drought which is toughening me to horniness.