So young people found a use for their latent energy by affecting despair. To rail against glory, religion, love, and everything in the world is a great consolation for those who do not know what do; they mock themselves, and prove themselves right by doing so. And then it is pleasant to believe onself wretched when one is simply empty and bored.
2 August 2012
Empty and Bored
Alfred de Musset, La confession d'un enfant du siècle (Paris: Larousse, 1900), p. 15. My translation:
