The first time that I perceived that I was two was at the death of my brother Henri, when my father cried out so dramatically ‘He is dead, he is dead!’ While my first self wept, my second self thought, ‘How truly given was that cry, how fine it would be at the theatre.’ I was then fourteen years old.

This terrible duality has often given me matter for reflection. Oh, this terrible second me, always seated whilst the other is on foot, acting, living, suffering, bestirring itself. This second me that I have never been able to intoxicate, to make shed tears, or put to sleep. And how it sees into things, and how it mocks!

— Alphonse Daudet
Quoted by William James in
The Varieties of Religious Experience