My dear Georges,

When I spoke the other day of Moses on the threshold of the Promised Land and yet unable to enter it, I didn’t know how apt it was. Twice I have been to Paris and the state of my asthma has suddenly worsened as a result of the difference in altitude (or at least so I suppose, but I know absolutely nothing about it) making it impossible to climb even two steps in spite of all the caffeine in the world.[1] This impotence of my friendship is a terrible thing for me, a mixture of grief and humiliation. I think of my poor Mama saying to me at Evian: “I’m going back to Paris because I’m helpless and can no loner be of any use to you when you are ill.” I cannot repay the tender care you gave me; I always have to receive from you and never give back. And my friendship is perhaps more unhappy as a consequence of this than of the deprival of seeing you, though this deprivation is all the more cruel just now when, after the shudder of horror and danger, I would so much relish the delight of having you safe and sound. Yes, sound, for your face, your look, your cheerfulness are not those of a sick man. And even more than on your face, I could read your health on your father’s face in the hall at the rue Washington. If I had some really terrifying attacks on my three returns from Paris, and enormous joy on my first visit (when I saw you), on the other two, when I couldn’t have reached the upper floors and remained conscious, I enjoyed some minor pleasures with a girl who is new and dear to me, and a few young friends who are also new.[2]

One of these, who is very intelligent and who is about to leave France for a long period, would have liked to meet you, having heard so much about you from me.[3] I didn’t dare send him round to you with an introductory note, for fear that he might tire you at the moment, with the passionate curiosity of thinking youth for whatever is presented for its admiration.

At the moment I’m unable to leave my bed, but I hope to come and see you soon. It is always delightful to see you, but even more gratifying now: each of your limbs so miraculously spared, your beautiful, gentle hands which from time to time, when I express a doubt about your friendship, seek mine in a gesture of persuasive eloquence, your whole body whose natural gait, immobilized now but not altered, is the only one I know that is entirely devoid of conventional mannerisms, swift in its movement towards what it desires or knows itself to be desired by, and above all your eyes, which darken so quickly if a sadness traverses your heart but in the depths of which, in an instantaneous effulgence, magnificent azure flashes pierce the clouds—your whole body, indeed, is what I should like to see and touch now after having too long forgotten that it is the necessary condition of all that spiritual spontaneity which is you and which we love and for which we must worship the integrity of this symbol of yourself, this body in which your spirit dwells, those hands through which the force of your grasp runs as through a unique and highly conductive metal. Then one must thank the obscure physiological forces which resisted the shock, the good genii hidden in the depths of the muscles and the nerves which preserved you for us. It seems to me that I have too exclusively loved your mind and your heart hitherto and that now I would experience a pure and exalting joy, like the Christian who eats the bread and drinks the wine and sings Venite adoremus, in reciting in your presence the litany of your ankles and the praises of your wrists.

Alas, people have always been so cruel and uncomprehending about me, that these are things which I scarcely dare to say, because of the misunderstandings and misinterpretations which would spring up in others’ thoughts. But you who know me and grasp with your infallible intelligence the palpable reality of what I am, will understand how purely moral and reverently paternal is what I say to you.

Thank Lucien Henraux most warmly on my behalf for the exquisite letter he wrote me[4] and say to him that I’m so exhausted that he’ll understand why it’s to you that I’ve written. But I’m very grateful to him for that letter (which I hadn’t yet received when I saw you).

Your
Marcel

From Marcel Proust: Selected Letters: Volume 2, 1904–1909.

[1] Lauris was laid up in his parents’ third-floor, rue Washington apartment (round the corner from the boulevard Haussmann) where there was no lift. See letter 301, n. 1.

[2] Except for one (see n. 3 below), the people Proust mentions have not been identified, but it seems likely that they were the group of young friends from Cabourg he was to invite to the theater (cf. letter 354).

[3] Marcel Plantevignes, son of Camille Plantevignes, a neck-tie manufacturer.

[4] A letter apprising Proust of the accident.

Dear friend,

It is remarkable how much better you can present yourself in writing than in speech. Of course, I knew very much or most of what you are writing about and now need to give you only a few clarifications pertaining to it. Why didn’t I scold you and in so doing open the way to an understanding? Quite right, it was a weakness on my part; I am also not that Ψα superman whom we have constructed, and I also haven’t overcome the countertransference. I couldn’t do it, just as I can’t do it with my three sons, because I like them and I feel sorry for them in the process.

Not only have you noticed that I no longer have any need for that full opening of my personality, but you have also understood it and correctly returned to its traumatic cause. Why did you thus make a point of it? This need has been extinguished in me since Fliess’s case, with the overcoming of which you just saw me occupied. A piece of homosexual investment has been withdrawn and utilized for the enlargement of my own ego. I have succeeded where the paranoiac fails.—Add to this the fact that I was for the most part not very well; I suffered more from my intestinal troubles than I cared to admit. And I often said to myself: he who is not master of his Konrad[1] should not travel. The honesty should have begun there, and you didn’t seem stable enough not to become overconcerned.

As far as the unpleasantness that you caused me is concerned—including a certain passive resistance—, that will go the way of memories of travel in general; small disturbances vanish through a process of self-purification, and what is beautiful is left over for intellectual use.

It was plain to see but also easily recognizable as infantile that you presumed great secrets in me and were very curious about them. Just as I shared with you all the scientific matters, I also concealed from you very little of a personal nature, and the matter with the national gift [Nationalgeschenk][2] was, I think, indiscreet enough. My dreams at the time were, as I indicated to you, entirely concerned with the Fliess matter, with which, owing to the nature of the thing, it was difficult to get you to sympathize.

So, on closer inspection you will find that our coming to terms doesn’t need to be as momentous as you perhaps thought at first. I would rather direct you to the present and tell you that your name is missing from the list of members of the Vienna Society in the first issue of the Korrespondenzblatt, which you should complain about; and that the first evening yesterday went very well and brought six new recommendations for members.[3] Now that Jung has stirred as president and has circulated bylaws, the Korrespondenzblatt, and a recruitment pamphlet, one gets the impression that the organization has been a success. One will then remember what a great part you played in this work.

Did I already write to you that I finally went to Bleuler myself with a request for clarification of his action and with a detailed explanation of my motivation in founding the Association? Response still forthcoming.

And that I translated Putnam’s paper for the Zentralblatt, which I have to have published without my name as a courtesy?

But I have certainly not yet written that I worked through Schreber, found confirmation for the kernel of our assumptions about paranoia, and have taken from this all kinds of opportunities for serious interpretations. I have asked Stegmann[4] to find out all kinds of personal things about old Schreber.[5] How much I can say about this publicly depends on these reports.

What would you think of old Dr. Schreber had worked “miracles” as a physician? But was otherwise a tyrant at home who “shouted” at his son and understood him as little as the “lower God” understood our paranoiac?[6] Contributions to the interpretation of Schreber will be eagerly acknowledged.

Cordially,
Freud

From The Correspondence of S. Freud and Sándor Ferenczi: Vol. 1, 1908-1914.

[1] See letter 131, n. 2.

[2] According to Jones [II, 83, n. I, and pp. 389-390], Freud meant income from consultations, which he used for the acquisition of antiquities.

[3] At the session of October 5 applications for membership were received from Guido Holzknecht [1872–1931], a roentgenologist and friend of Paul Federn; Hanns Sachs; Herbert Silberer; Paul Klemperer (1887–1964), cousin of Paul Federn, at that time still a student, later a professor at Columbia University and noted pathologist; Federn’s friend Gustav Grüner (1884–1941), Karl Koller’s nephew; the pediatrician Richard Wagner (1887–1974); and the economist Leopold Rechnitzer (1851–1916). They were all unanimously accepted at the next session. [Minutes III, 2, 8].

[4] See letter 64, n. 5.

[5] Dr. Daniel Gottlob Moritz Schreber (1808–1861), father of the renowned paranoiac and the man who gave his name to the Schrebergärten and Schreber Societies, which promoted the cultivation of private gardens and are still popular today in Germany and Austria, was at that time a well-known author of popular books on health and gymnastics. He favored methods of education that aimed at establishing complete control over the child, and he played a decisive role in the psychotic world of his son. See, e.g., William G. Niederland, Der Fall Schreber (Frankfurt, 1978); Morton Schatzmann, Die Angst vor dem Vater, Langzeitwirkungen einer Erziehungssmethode (Reinbeck, 1974); Han Israels, Schreber: Vater und Sohn. Eine Biographie (Munich, 1989); and the introduction and appendix to Daniel Paul Schreber, Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken (rpt. Frankfurt, 1973).

[6] See letter 173, n. 10.

From The Diary of Alice James.

[1] Renan’s La Vie de Saint Paul was published in 1869.

[2] The widowed Duke of Westminster, Hugh-Lupus Grosvenor (1825–1899), had married Catherine Cavendish, daughter of the 2nd Baron Chesham in 1882. He owned about 30,000 acres in Cheshire and Flintshire and 600 acres in London, also Grosvenor House Gallery and many race horses.

[3] Henry James had traveled to the Passion Play with his American friends, the Daniel Curtises, whom he had visited in the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice.

Dear Frank:

I was damn glad to get your letter. And encouraged to learn from the enclosed clipping that I’m a Mexican. Because I’m lighting out for a trip through Spain in a few days and maybe my native tongue will return from that hidden past. Which would be a help! But I’m afraid not. Did you note that Carlotta O’Neill of Madrid reminded her interviewer that the O’Neils were descendants of Kings? Ah! That’s the true touch of the clan! It takes an O’Neill to be proud of royal blood these days! And to be frank and open about it and not sail under fake proletarian colors! But you wouldn’t understand our regal dignity—being only a Shay, who were never much, God help them, but dukes or earls or trifles like that!

Funny coincidence: On the same mail with your letter came one from Cape Town, forwarded through Jonathan Cape. It was from some harp who works for the railroad down there and who claims I am his missing brother, born in Cape Colony. He sends me a photo of our mother to prove it—also a photo of me when I was young and ugly. That his name isn’t even O’Neill doesn’t bother this bird a bit—because he shows that mine isn’t either! I was romantic and sensitive and proud as a youth, he tells me, and I threw up a good job to team up in a music hall act with a guy named O’Neill. Then he did. So, of course, as a good White Rat to a dead pal, I took his name. And my real name is Jim, not Eugene! I was, it appears, a great name snatcher and I copped Eugene after the death of a beloved younger brother, Eugene!

And so on far into the night of a seven page letter in which I have a lurid history until I finally stop writing home altogether years ago. Can you beat it? And he ends up by saying he is sorry to see by the African journals that I am dying of consumption! Perhaps the idea is that I should remember my origin in the will! At any rate, this bird seems in deadly earnest with his theory and I know he is going to think I am a renegade liar and cur when he gets a letter disillusioning him. It’s a nutty one, what?—I thought it might amuse you.

I’m sorry to hear that Provincetown has gone bad on the old bunch. Rumor had reached me that things had changed up there so that it was no longer the same place. Well, one could see that on the cards the last two years I was there. But, as you say, there is still Truro. Is the Tiger Piss Inn still flourishing? I haven’t had a drink in nearly five years! So help me! Booze was getting sick of me. After a long huddle with my liver and lights I decided to throw in the sponge—and mean it. Life since then has lacked the uproarious but I must admit I feel better.

I’m just finishing up the hardest job I’ve ever tackled. Expect it will be in final shape by the first of the year. Touraine is a grand place for quiet and work and I’ve been driving along at this for a year and a half now with damn few interruptions—which is a continuous labor record for me. I hope it’s good stuff. Some days it seems so and others it don’t. Quién sabe? (That Mexican touch!) At any rate, it’s an ambitious stab and has been exciting to shoot at.

Outside of that, I’m well and happy, and that’s about all the news. We will be coming back a year from this fall and expect to get a place in Maryland or Virginia—on tidewater. From what I hear that section is the best spot left in America to dig in and settle down. Europe is fine & this Touraine delightful—but not for too long. One gets fed up—and patriotic. I don’t see expatriation as any answer to anything.

Give my best to Susan, Mary, Harry & the Guerins when you see them. I will look forward to getting your and Eben’s book[1], Frank! So don’t forget to send it. And herewith my loudest cheers for its success!

Thank Dos Passos[2] for that photo. Damn nice of him! I’ve meant to write him but didn’t know if he was in U.S. or where. My best to Mike and Phyllis!

And all the reaks in the locker to you.

As ever,
Gene

From Selected Letters of Eugene O’Neill.

[1] Here’s Audacity! America’s Legendary Heroes (New York: Macaulay, 1930), illustrated by Eben Given.

[2] John Dos Passos (1896–1970), American novelist and playwright, whom O’Neill probably first met in Greenwich Village and later knew in Provincetown.

This is what took place yesterday.

Together with Kann I left The Hague in the morning for Amsterdam, where I had asked my letters to be forwarded. I did not expect, or only vaguely, that Eulenburg would reply.

At the Doelen Hotel I was told that a gentleman had called to see me two days ago. As no one but Eulenberg and my family knew that I would be staying at the Doelen in Amsterdam, I immediately guessed something.

The surmise became a certainty when I received Eulenburg’s note, the companion and herald of his long letter. I drove at once to the German Consulate where I was received without the morgue officielle. The secretary told me that I had been expected since yesterday. But could I prove my identity?—”for we can pay with our necks.” I established my identity in a psychological rather than documentary fashion, for I had no official papers with me. My passport was at The Hague. Still, I managed to inspire them with faith in who I was. The vice-consul acted even more gracious when he handed me Eulenberg’s letter.

I read it while driving away in the carriage, and at first I was fairly stunned. The tremendous achievement which it represented set up, in the beginning, an unpleasant train of thought. I saw at once the grave consequences it would entail for me at the “Neue Freie Presse.” If, after the expiration of my leave, I went to Palestine instead of back to the office, it might cost me my job. On the other hand, I cannot disregard the Kaiser’s wish—tantamount to a command. Eulenberg wrote that the Kaiser would be disappointed if he did not see me in Jerusalem. There is no room, then, for hesitation. C’est l’engrenage. I cannot help myself. I must put even my position at stake.

Wolffsohn was waiting for me at The Hague. I didn’t for the time being tell him or Kann what the letter contained. J’étais littéralement bouleversé. I rode my bicycle, alone, to Scheveningen and restored myself through the physical exercise and the beauty of the evening sea. A sunset amid reddening clouds: some sort of cloud-drama, obscure in tenor and action, that played itself out, between the pale sky and glimmering sea, in bloody catastrophes, unintelligible but gripping.

During the day I had seen many other beautiful things. The brownish-green, lightly fragrant landscape between The Hague and Amsterdam; the deep green of the shrubs, the brown, oily, languid canals, the revolving sails of the wind-mills—a whole enchanting world of subdued color. At Amsterdam, the exhibit of the collected Rembrandts, including “The Night Watch,” which was well hung this time and glowed with color. Also paintings by Maris, curiously reminiscent of Corot and Lhermitte. The Jewish quarter, however, furnished the prettiest picture. Three Jewish children—a tiny boy between two girls—went swaying arm in arm along the sidewalk, pretending they were tipsy, and lisping the Dutch national anthem. It was Saturday, the shops were closed, the Jews in their Sabbath dress; and I said to Kann: Ten years from now, the children in the Jodenbreetstraat and all in the Jewish quarters in the world will be singing the Zionist anthem….

From The Diaries of Theodor Herzl.

After one’s heart gives a jump comes a feeling of great sadness! A sound of galloping and up comes a Scout on a horse: Colonel Bassini! Colonel Cossovich! Then trumpets blow. How raucous is the note from the picket guard and how ill-omened! But the reveillé that trills forth like a mountain lark from our courtyard would awaken the dead. This is the trumpeter Viscovo and he pours his whole soul into it. When he puts his instrument to his mouth he seems to lose his identity and float away in music. He seems to say ‘Oh to die! Oh to die like this!’ Poor little waif, picked up somewhere in Sicily as we marched along the great road that leads to a united Italy, he came to us with that frail body of his, and only sixteen! What is he searching for? Nothing more than death! Virgil must have imagined Misenus, son of Aelus, like this, him who surpassed all others in inspiring heroes with his trumpet.

1 October, Caserta, in the Courtyard of the Royal Palace

Here we are, nearly the entire Türr division, in reserve. The battle is raging on a wide perimeter that would need a complete sweep of one’s arm to indicate it. Well, none of us are dying, but we suffer like souls in Limbo. I look at the faces around me; some are deadly pale; some are gay; others are thoughtful; still others, vacant. Who knows what mine’s like?

In one corner of the courtyard there is a battalion of the Savoia regiment, now known as the King’s Brigade. The soldiers are in tents and officers stand around, fearing perhaps that some of their men may nip out and join us. They watch us, though, and envy us, for, unlike them, we are waiting for our call at any moment. But why shouldn’t they be called? What have they come here for? I see a Captain, a typical Savoyard, certainly one of those of ’48. He gazes at us with his frank eyes, in which I seem to see the thoughts of all his compatriots who have been lost to France.[1] Perhaps he is sad, for they were of the best. Now when in war the cry goes up, Savoia! Savoy cannot answer.

* * *

Here’s another captain in Victor Emmanuel’s army! He’s as young as I am and a captain already. I thought he was one of ours who, out of vanity, get themselves a uniform. But I saw that he was closely followed by some gunners, regulars from Piedmont, some of them with the Crimean medal. They have come from Naples, looking for Garibaldi, with whom they wish to enroll, they and their captain together. He is a Piedmontese nobleman called Savio.

‘Well, what are they coming for now?’ asked one of our officers. ‘Afterwards they’ll claim to have done the whole job themselves and get the honor and all the rest of it.’

‘Ah, my friend, let’s provide them with the guns and let them get on with it—you’ll see Garibaldi won’t adopt your attitude.’

Here comes a carriage from Santa Maria with a woman in it. Flushed face, vigorous gestures, who ever is she? An angel, a fury, or what? She’s talking with a Hungarian colonel, who must be telling her frightful things, for she clasps her head in her hands. What is it? Perhaps that the dead and wounded are already to be numbered in hundreds, or that disaster is about to erupt on us from Capua? Oh dear! Why isn’t she an Italian? Her name was Miss White[2] and she is now the wife of Mario, one of our best. Perhaps I have seen the oveliest head that could be shattered today by a miserable bullet fired by some soldier, oblivious of what he had done.

* * *

Now comes one of the Scouts from Maddaloni at full gallop.

‘Where’s General Türr? Where is he? Bixio is asking for help.’ Gracious, Bixio imploring help! Things must be desperate. Oh sun, that has witnessed so many terrible things on this earth. Oh God, do not let Italy perish here, today . . .

From The Diary of One of Garibaldi’s Thousand.

Dear Ludwig Lewisohn:

Your book[2] has arrived, has occupied me a good deal, and I would have written to you sooner were it not that my morbidly swollen correspondence, the product of these times, some days keeps me from my own writing. Today I received the news—or rather the confirmation of a report I had not yet brought myself to accept—that a good friend of mine, the Dutch writer and eminent critic, Menno ter Braak, took his own life when the Germans invaded. It’s heartrending. Two other important Dutch writers have likewise fallen victim to this new variety of world history. The very best are those who are destroyed—which I suppose is only natural when ultimate baseness is victorious. Much trash has found refuge in America because such people raise a ruckus, while the nobler types go under silently.

Your book, now: I read it some time ago, very quickly, almost at one sitting, and understandably with keen interest, for American as it is, it breathes in, if not out, a most European atmosphere. In literary terms it is close to the French, English, German spirit, so that I felt at home with it. In addition there was the emotion aroused by the human document—a somewhat mixed emotion, I will have to add, inclining toward the side from which, evidently, a state of being filled with one’s own ego, one’s own fate, one’s own errors and own happiness, one’s own loving and being loved, which antagonizes people—not only out of ill-will and a petty insistence on discretion, but also out of an irritated pudeur. And at least in times of great public tribulations, when there is a certain justification for that feeling. I might put it this way: The book really needs the shield and protection of posthumous publication. Let us assume that your considerable literary achievement were crowned and completed by a few more powerful works; that after you had become entirely what you are, you had departed this earth and friends had published these pages from your posthumous papers—in that case not only would there be nothing to be said against them, but they would be a real contribution. But as it is now, coming out in the midst of life, the book does constitute, if you will (I don’t “will” at all, but others do, so it seems, and I cannot entirely blame them) a kind of imposition, an act of naïveté, which to be sure is probably a condition for your productivity and without which your works (for this is scarcely a work) probably would not have been written—and yet the nakedness does, after all, have something disturbing about it.

As you see: interested, moved, but not entirely in agreement—that is how I feel. A public statement of mine on Haven would necessarily turn out somewhat tortuous, and since I have reservations about the book’s public existence, I have even more about my giving a public opinion on it. Thanks for something so personal had better remain personal. The occasion for my testifying once more to your literary gifts will come again—I prefer to wait for a new work cast more objectively, confident that you will not make us wait long.

From Letters of Thomas Mann, 1889–1955.

[1] Ludwig Lewisohn (1883–1955), American novelist, literary critic, and translator. Among his works: The Case of Mr. Crump, The Island Within, The Spirit of Modern German Literature, Story of American Literature, Anniversary. Lewisohn was one of the first American critics to hail the work of Thomas Mann.

[2] Haven (1940).

There are certain miserable People to bee executed on the morrow, for horrible Crimes by them committed; A Man, for a Rape; and Two Negroes, for Burning of Houses, and Persons in them.[1]

What use am I to make of this?

I. Lett mee, with deep Humiliation reflect on the Vileness of my own Heart. It was the holy Bradford’s[2] Custome when hee heard of any atrocious Iniquity perpetrated, hee would lay his Hand on his Breast, and say, There is that in this Heart of mine, which would make mee as vile as the Vilest, if sovereign Grace did not prevent it. Alas, I have the Seed of all Corruption in mee. My Heart naturally departs from God; it is not any Vertue of my own, that keeps me from the most enormous Villanies. Oh! the Plague of my own Heart! Yea, and am I not guilty of Unbeleef? wherein there is as horrid Sin, as in the most horible Abominations that the Sword of civil Justice takes Vengeance for. O that I could abhor myself in Dust and Ashes; and when I see Malefactors hanged and burned, I may judge myself unworthy to breath in God’s Air, yea worthy to bee condemned unto everlasting Fire, with the Divel and his Angels.

II. Lett mee bee exceedingly Thankful, for the restraining Grace of God, which I may look back upon. Lord, why have not the Outbreakings of my corrupt Nature, been as hideous as any whatsoever! My Nature is as corrupt, as any Man’s in the World. Furious Temptations, to the worst of Wickednesses, at the very Thoughts whereof my Heart shivers, have sometimes assaulted mee; and I have been upon the very Brink of such Confusion, as perhaps never any poor Creature fell into. What was it that then upheld mee? Lord! Thou hast restrained mee, and Thou shalt have the Glory of this Goodness forever.

III. Let mee observer the Wayes of sinful Apostasy, that have carried any unhappy Wretches unto a fatal Miscarriage and a final Overthrow: and now avoid the same in myself, with all the Care imaginable. Yea, and solemnly warn othres, as far as God gives Opportunitie, to take heed of the like Undoings.

The bitter Anguishes raised in my Soul, by violent and enslaving Temptations, to Sins that had heretofore given mee the worst of Wounds imaginable, these were in this Month very singularly exercising to mee.

I had no Remedy, but continualy to fly and cry unto the Lord Jesus Christ; which I did, as a most wretched Man, for my Deliverance.

But, I desire, to walk humbly before the Lord, all my Dayes, in the Remembrance of the lothsome Corruptions, which my Soul has been from my Youth Polluted withal.[3] Lord, Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?

Altho’ I have been kept from such Out-breakings of Sin, in Actions towards others, as have undone many in the World, yett I have certainly been one of the filthiest Creatures upon Earth.

If ever the Lord make any Use of mee to glorify His Name, after I have been such a polluted Sinner, the free, rich sovereign Grace of God, will have as glorious a Triumph as ever any poor Sinner could afford unto it.

From Diary of Cotton Mather: Volume One, 1681–1709.

[1] An account of this “overmuch wicked” man, William Cheny, is in the Magnalia, Bk. VI. 40. The negroes were Marja (negress), servant of Joshua Lambe, of Roxbury, and Jack, a servant, of Samuel Wolcott, of Wethersfield. Records Court of Assistants, I. 198.

[2] William Bradford, of Plymouth Plantation. The saying has been attributed to others, e.g. John Bunyan.

[3] His brother, Nathaniel, said: “Of the manifold sins which then [in boyhood] I was guilty of, none so sticks upon me as that, being very young, I was whitling on the Sabbath-day; and for fear of being seen, I did it behind the door. A great reproach of God! a specimen of that atheism that I brought into the world with me!” Magnalia, Bk. IV. 216. The extract illustrates the unfortunate moral surroundings of a child under the teachings of the day and the extraordinary application of the word atheism.