In place of relying upon themselves, feeling their disabilities and the
lack of poise which prevents them from proper expression, such people
try to make themselves understood by those who do not appreciate their
feelings, without stopping to think that they have done nothing to make
clear what they really need.

Such a chaotic state of mind, based on errors of judgment, is a very
serious obstacle to the acquisition of poise.

This anxiety to communicate their feelings, always rendered ineffective
by the difficulty of making the effort involved, gives rise in the long
run to a species of misanthropy.

It is a matter of common knowledge that misanthropy urges those who
suffer from it to fall back upon themselves, and from this state to that
of active hostility toward others the road is short, and timid people
are rarely able to pull up before they have traversed it.

There comes to them from this intellectual solitude an unhappiness so
profound that they are glad to be able to attribute to the mental
inferiority of others the condition of moral isolation in which they
live.

To insist that they are misunderstood, and to pride themselves upon the
fact, is the inevitable fate of those who never can summon up courage to
undertake a battle against themselves.

It seems to them a thousand times easier to say: "These minds are too
gross to comprehend mine," than to seek for a means of establishing an