It would be wonderful if St. Augustine's kind of confessional self-scrutiny (or that of St. John of the Cross in his Dark Night of the Soul) would obtain among more of us in these last few years of the twentieth century. ... If such were to be the case, if more of us could be tougher with ourselves as self-observers, as self critics, we might be spared some of the truly outrageous spectacles that come our way.