Aylmer Maude

There­fore I hated life; be­cause the work that is wrought un­der the sun is griev­ous unto me: for all is van­ity and vex­a­tion of spirit.

In con­tra­dis­tinc­tion to us, who the wiser we are the less we un­der­stand the mean­ing of life, and see some evil irony in the fact that we suf­fer and die, these folk live and suf­fer, and they ap­proach death and suf­fer­ing with tran­quil­lity and in most cases gladly.

I was bap­tized and brought up in the Ortho­dox Chris­tian faith. I was taught it in child­hood and through­out my boy­hood and youth. But when I aban­doned the second course of the uni­ver­sity at the age of eight­een I no longer be­lieved any of the things I had been taught.

Judging by cer­tain memor­ies, I never ser­i­ously be­lieved them, but had merely re­lied on what I was taught and on what was pro­fessed by the grown-up people around me, and that re­li­ance was very un­stable.