Then there's another problem. When my mind gets excited by big ideas, I start showing off with fancy words. The higher my thoughts soar, the more I want to express them in grand language. My writing rises to match what I think is the dignity of my subject. When this happens, I forget my plan to stay calm and moderate. I reach higher than usual, using language that doesn't sound like me. I won't give you more examples, but this weakness follows me everywhere — the weakness of a mind that means well but gets carried away. I'm afraid I'll gradually sink to this level, or worse, that I'll always be hanging on the edge of falling. Maybe there's more wrong with me than I even realize. We're naturally kind to ourselves when we judge our own problems. Our bias always clouds our judgment.
Then again, when the mind is elevated by the greatness of its thoughts, it becomes ostentatious in its use of words, the loftier its aspirations, the more loftily it desires to express them, and its speech rises to the dignity of its subject. At such times I forget my mild and moderate determination and soar higher than is my wont, using a language that is not my own. Not to multiply examples, I am in all things attended by this weakness of a well-meaning mind, to whose level I fear that I shall be gradually brought down, or, what is even more worrying, that I may always hang as though about to fall, and that there may be more the matter with me than I myself perceive: for we take a friendly view of our own private affairs, and partiality always obscures our judgment.