Perhaps what we seek for is not a specific feeling, but just a bit of any feeling now and then, so that we can praise ourselves for living a life free from spiritual barrenness. If it happens to be a sweet feeling, let’s savor it with a smile. If it happens to be a bitter feeling, we should still try to taste it, albeit with knitted brows, for it is a hundred times better than absence of any feeling, which is most unbeatable and should be avoided by all means.

Therefore, being sentimental is better than apathetic, having a warm dream is better than becoming corpse, drinking a bitter cup is better than a cup of insipid water, having a good cry is better than being insensitive to both sorrow and happiness. This dose not mean, however, that happiness and optimism are no good, healthy wakefulness is undesirable, sweets of life are evil and hearty laughter is vicious. What I mean here is that susceptibility is always preferable to insensibility.