Figures of Several Centuries

By: Symons, Arthur

The Confessions of St. Augustine are the first autobiography, and they have this to distinguish them from all other autobiographies, that they are addressed directly to God. Rousseau's unburden-ing of himself is the last, most effectual manifesta-tion of that nervous, defiant consciousness of oth-er people which haunted him all his life. He felt that all the men and women whom he passed on his way through the world were at watch upon him, and mostly with no very favourable inten-tions. The exasperation of all those eyes fixed up-on him, the absorbing, the protesting self-consciousness which they called forth in him, drove him, in spite of himself, to set about ex-plaining himself to other people, to the world in general. His anxiety to explain, not to justify, himself was after all a kind of cowardice before his own conscience.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B08HTM67FZ
• ISBN13: 9798684994289
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 338 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"