{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8545/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8545","id":"gutenberg_8545","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8545","summary":null,"tags":["Amiel, Henri Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric, 1821-1881 -- Diaries","Authors, Swiss -- 19th century -- Diairies","Category: Biographies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Tonya Allen,\nCharles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAMIEL\u2019S JOURNAL\n\nBy Henri-Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Amiel\n\nThe Journal Intime of Henri-Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Amiel\n\nTranslated, With an Introduction and Notes by Mrs. Humphrey Ward\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.\n\n\nIn this second edition of the English translation of Amiel\u2019s \u201cJournal\nIntime,\u201d I have inserted a good many new passages, taken from the last\nFrench edition (_Cinqui\u00e9me \u00e9dition, revue et augment\u00e9e_.) But I have not\ntranslated all the fresh material to be found in that edition nor have\nI omitted certain sections of the Journal which in these two recent\nvolumes have been omitted by their French editors. It would be of no\ninterest to give my reasons for these variations at length. They depend\nupon certain differences between the English and the French public,\nwhich are more readily felt than explained. Some of the passages which I\nhave left untranslated seemed to me to overweight the introspective\nside of the Journal, already so full--to overweight it, at any rate, for\nEnglish readers. Others which I have retained, though they often relate\nto local names and books, more or less unfamiliar to the general public,\nyet seemed to me valuable as supplying some of that surrounding detail,\nthat setting, which helps one to understand a life. Besides, we English\nare in many ways more akin to Protestant and Puritan Geneva than the\nFrench readers to whom the original Journal primarily addresses itself,\nand some of the entries I have kept have probably, by the nature of\nthings, more savor for us than for them.\n\nM. A. W.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThis translation of Amiel\u2019s \u201cJournal Intime\u201d is primarily addressed to\nthose whose knowledge of French, while it may be sufficient to carry\nthem with more or less complete understanding through a novel or a\nnewspaper, is yet not enough to allow them to understand and appreciate\na book containing subtle and complicated forms of expression. I believe\nthere are many such to be found among the reading public, and among\nthose who would naturally take a strong interest in such a life and mind\nas Amiel\u2019s, were it not for the barrier of language. It is, at any rate,\nin the hope that a certain number of additional readers may be thereby\nattracted to the \u201cJournal Intime\u201d that this translation of it has been\nundertaken.\n\nThe difficulties of the translation have been sometimes considerable,\nowing, first of all, to those elliptical modes of speech which a man\nnaturally employs when he is writing for himself and not for the public,\nbut which a translator at all events is bound in some degree to expand.\nEvery here and there Amiel expresses himself in a kind of shorthand,\nperfectly intelligible to a Frenchman, but for which an English\nequivalent, at once terse and clear, is hard to find. Another difficulty\nhas been his constant use of a technical philosophical language, which,\naccording to his French critics, is not French--even philosophical\nFrench--but German. Very often it has been impossible to give any\nother than a literal rendering of such passages, if the thought of the\noriginal was to be preserved; but in those cases where a choice was\nopen to me, I have preferred the more literary to the more technical\nexpression; and I have been encouraged to do so by the fact that Amiel,\nwhen he came to prepare for publication a certain number of \u201cPens\u00e9es,\u201d\n extracted from the Journal, and printed at the end of a volume of poems\npublished in 1853, frequently softened his phrases, so that sentences\nwhich survive in the Journal in a more technical form are to be found in\na more literary form in the \u201cGrains de Mil.\u201d\n\nIn two or three cases--not more, I think--I have allowed myself to\ntranspose a sentence bodily, and in a few instances I have added some\nexplanatory words to the text, which wherever the addition was of any\nimportance, are indicated by square brackets.\n\nMy warmest thanks are due to my friend and critic, M. Edmond Scherer,\nfrom whose valuable and interesting study, prefixed to the French\nJournal, as well as from certain materials in his possession which\nhe has very kindly allowed me to make use of, I have drawn by far the\ngreater part of the biographical material embodied in the Introduction.\nM. Scherer has also given me help and advice through the whole process\nof translation--advice which his scholarly knowledge of English has made\nespecially worth having.\n\nIn the translation of the more technical philosophical passages I have\nbeen greatly helped by another friend, Mr. Bernard Bosanquet, Fellow of\nUniversity College, Oxford, the translator of Lotze, of whose care and\npains in the matter I cherish a grateful remembrance.\n\nBut with all the help that has been so freely given me, not only by\nthese friends but by others, I confide the little book to the public\nwith many a misgiving! May it at least win a few more friends and\nreaders here and there for one who lived alone, and died sadly persuaded\nthat his life had been a barren mistake; whereas, all the while--such\nis the irony of things--he had been in reality working out the mission\nassigned him in the spiritual economy, and faithfully obeying the secret\nmandate which had impressed itself upon his youthful consciousness:\n\u201c_Let the living live; and you, gather together your thoughts, leave\nbehind you a legacy of feeling and ideas; you will be most useful so_.\u201d\n\nMARY A. WARD.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nIt was in the last days of December, 1882, that the first volume of\nHenri Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Amiel\u2019s \u201cJournal Intime\u201d was published at Geneva. The\nbook, of which the general literary world knew nothing prior to its\nappearance, contained a long and remarkable Introduction from the pen of\nM. Edmond Scherer, the well-known French critic, who had been for many\nyears one of Amiel\u2019s most valued friends, and it was prefaced also by\na little _Avertissement_, in which the \u201cEditors\u201d--that is to say, the\nGenevese friends to whom the care and publication of the Journal had\nbeen in the first instance entrusted--described in a few reserved and\nsober words the genesis and objects of the publication. Some thousands\nof sheets of Journal, covering a period of more than thirty years, had\ncome into the hands of Amiel\u2019s literary heirs. \u201cThey were written,\u201d said\nthe _Avertissement_, \u201cwith several ends in view. Amiel recorded in them\nhis various occupations, and the incidents of each day. He preserved in\nthem his psychological observations, and the impressions produced on\nhim by books. But his Journal was, above all, the confidant of his\nmost private and intimate thoughts; a means whereby the thinker became\nconscious of his own inner life; a safe shelter wherein his questionings\nof fate and the future, the voice of grief, of self-examination and\nconfession, the soul\u2019s cry for inward peace, might make themselves\nfreely heard.\n\n\u201c... In the directions concerning his papers which he left behind him,\nAmiel expressed the wish that his literary executors should publish\nthose parts of the Journal which might seem to them to possess either\ninterest as thought or value as experience. The publication of this\nvolume is the fulfillment of this desire. The reader will find in it,\n_not a volume of Memoirs_, but the confidences of a solitary thinker,\nthe meditations of a philosopher for whom the things of the soul were\nthe sovereign realities of existence.\u201d\n\nThus modestly announced, the little volume made its quiet _d\u00e9but_. It\ncontained nothing, or almost nothing, of ordinary biographical material.\nM. Scherer\u2019s Introduction supplied such facts as were absolutely\nnecessary to the understanding of Amiel\u2019s intellectual history, but\nnothing more. Everything of a local or private character that could\nbe excluded was excluded. The object of the editors in their choice of\npassages for publication was declared to be simply \u201cthe reproduction\nof the moral and intellectual physiognomy of their friend,\u201d while M.\nScherer expressly disclaimed any biographical intentions, and limited\nhis Introduction as far as possible to \u201ca study of the character\nand thought of Amiel.\u201d The contents of the volume, then, were\npurely literary and philosophical; its prevailing tone was a tone of\nintrospection, and the public which can admit the claims and overlook\nthe inherent defects of introspective literature has always been a\nsmall one. The writer of the Journal had been during his lifetime wholly\nunknown to the general European public. In Geneva itself he had been\ncommonly regarded as a man who had signally disappointed the hopes and\nexpectations of his friends, whose reserve and indecision of character\nhad in many respects spoiled his life, and alienated the society around\nhim; while his professional lectures were generally pronounced dry and\nunattractive, and the few volumes of poems which represented almost\nhis only contributions to literature had nowhere met with any real\ncordiality of reception. Those concerned, therefore, in the publication\nof the first volume of the Journal can hardly have had much expectation\nof a wide success. Geneva is not a favorable starting-point for a\nFrench book, and it may well have seemed that not even the support of M.\nScherer\u2019s name would be likely to carry the volume beyond a small local\ncircle.\n\nBut \u201cwisdom is justified of her children!\u201d It is now nearly three years\nsince the first volume of the \u201cJournal Intime\u201d appeared; the impression\nmade by it was deepened and extended by the publication of the second\nvolume in 1884; and it is now not too much to say that this remarkable\nrecord of a life has made its way to what promises to be a permanent\nplace in literature. Among those who think and read it is beginning to\nbe generally recognized that another book has been added to the books\nwhich live--not to those, perhaps, which live in the public view, much\ndiscussed, much praised, the objects of feeling and of struggle, but\nto those in which a germ of permanent life has been deposited silently,\nalmost secretly, which compel no homage and excite no rivalry, and\nwhich owe the place that the world half-unconsciously yields to them to\nnothing but that indestructible sympathy of man with man, that eternal\nanswering of feeling to feeling, which is one of the great principles,\nperhaps the greatest principle, at the root of literature. M. Scherer\nnaturally was the first among the recognized guides of opinion to\nattempt the placing of his friend\u2019s Journal. \u201cThe man who, during his\nlifetime, was incapable of giving us any deliberate or conscious work\nworthy of his powers, has now left us, after his death, a book which\nwill not die. For the secret of Amiel\u2019s malady is sublime, and the\nexpression of it wonderful.\u201d So ran one of the last paragraphs of the\nIntroduction, and one may see in the sentences another instance of that\ncourage, that reasoned rashness, which distinguishes the good from the\nmediocre critic. For it is as true now as it was in the days when La\nBruy\u00e8re rated the critics of his time for their incapacity to praise,\nand praise at once, that \u201cthe surest test of a man\u2019s critical power is\nhis judgment of contemporaries.\u201d M. Renan, I think, with that exquisite\nliterary sense of his, was the next among the authorities to mention\nAmiel\u2019s name with the emphasis it deserved. He quoted a passage from\nthe Journal in his Preface to the \u201cSouvenirs d\u2019Enfance et de Jeunesse,\u201d\n describing it as the saying \u201c_d\u2019un penseur distingu\u00e9, M. Amiel de\nGen\u00e8ve_.\u201d Since then M. Renan has devoted two curious articles to the\ncompleted Journal in the _Journal des Desbats_. The first object of\nthese reviews, no doubt, was not so much the critical appreciation of\nAmiel as the development of certain paradoxes which have been haunting\nvarious corners of M. Renan\u2019s mind for several years past, and to which\nit is to be hoped he has now given expression with sufficient emphasis\nand _brusquerie_ to satisfy even his passion for intellectual adventure.\nStill, the rank of the book was fully recognized, and the first article\nespecially contained some remarkable criticisms, to which we shall find\noccasion to recur. \u201cIn these two volumes of _pens\u00e9es_,\u201d said M. Renan,\n\u201cwithout any sacrifice of truth to artistic effect, we have both the\nperfect mirror of a modern mind of the best type, matured by the best\nmodern culture, and also a striking picture of the sufferings which\nbeset the sterility of genius. These two volumes may certainly be\nreckoned among the most interesting philosophical writings which have\nappeared of late years.\u201d\n\nM. Caro\u2019s article on the first volume of the Journal, in the _Revue\ndes Deux Mondes_ for February, 1883, may perhaps count as the first\nintroduction of the book to the general cultivated public. He gave a\ncareful analysis of the first half of the Journal--resumed eighteen\nmonths later in the same periodical on the appearance of the second\nvolume--and, while protesting against what he conceived to be the\ngeneral tendency and effect of Amiel\u2019s mental story, he showed himself\nfully conscious of the rare and delicate qualities of the new\nwriter. \u201c_La r\u00eaverie a r\u00e9ussi \u00e0 notre auteur_,\u201d he says, a little\nreluctantly--for M. Caro has his doubts as to the legitimacy of\n_r\u00eaverie_; \u201c_Il en aufait une oeuvure qui restera_.\u201d The same final\njudgment, accompanied by a very different series of comments, was\npronounced on the Journal a year later by M. Paul Bourget, a young and\nrising writer, whose article is perhaps chiefly interesting as showing\nthe kind of effect produced by Amiel\u2019s thought on minds of a type\nessentially alien from his own. There is a leaven of something positive\nand austere, of something which, for want of a better name, one calls\nPuritanism, in Amiel, which escapes the author of \u201cUne Cruelle Enigme.\u201d\n But whether he has understood Amiel or no, M. Bourget is fully alive\nto the mark which the Journal is likely to make among modern records\nof mental history. He, too, insists that the book is already famous and\nwill remain so; in the first place, because of its inexorable realism\nand sincerity; in the second, because it is the most perfect example\navailable of a certain variety of the modern mind.\n\nAmong ourselves, although the Journal has attracted the attention of\nall who keep a vigilant eye on the progress of foreign literature, and\nalthough one or two appreciative articles have appeared on it in the\nmagazines, the book has still to become generally known. One remarkable\nEnglish testimony to it, however, must be quoted. Six months after the\npublication of the first volume, the late Mark Pattison, who since then\nhas himself bequeathed to literature a strange and memorable fragment\nof autobiography, addressed a letter to M. Scherer as the editor of the\n\u201cJournal Intime,\u201d which M. Scherer has since published, nearly a year\nafter the death of the writer. The words have a strong and melancholy\ninterest for all who knew Mark Pattison; and they certainly deserve\na place in any attempt to estimate the impression already made on\ncontemporary thought by the \u201cJournal Intime.\u201d\n\n\u201cI wish to convey to you, sir,\u201d writes the rector of Lincoln, \u201cthe\nthanks of one at least of the public for giving the light to this\nprecious record of a unique experience. I say unique, but I can vouch\nthat there is in existence at least one other soul which has lived\nthrough the same struggles, mental and moral, as Amiel. In your pathetic\ndescription of the _volont\u00e9 qui voudrait vouloir, mais impuissante \u00e0 se\nfournir \u00e0 elle-m\u00eame des motifs_--of the repugnance for all action--the\nsoul petrified by the sentiment of the infinite, in all this I recognize\nmyself. _Celui qui a d\u00e9chiffr\u00e9 le secret de la vie finie, qui en a lu\nle mot, est sorti du monde des vivants, il est mort de fait_. I can feel\nforcibly the truth of this, as it applies to myself!\n\n\u201cIt is not, however, with the view of thrusting my egotism upon you\nthat I have ventured upon addressing you. As I cannot suppose that so\npeculiar a psychological revelation will enjoy a wide popularity, I\nthink it a duty to the editor to assure him that there are persons in\nthe world whose souls respond, in the depths of their inmost nature,\nto the cry of anguish which makes itself heard in the pages of these\nremarkable confessions.\u201d\n\nSo much for the place which the Journal--the fruit of so many years of\npainful thought and disappointed effort; seems to be at last securing\nfor its author among those contemporaries who in his lifetime knew\nnothing of him. It is a natural consequence of the success of the\nbook that the more it penetrates, the greater desire there is to know\nsomething more than its original editors and M. Scherer have yet told us\nabout the personal history of the man who wrote it--about his education,\nhis habits, and his friends. Perhaps some day this wish may find its\nsatisfaction. It is an innocent one, and the public may even be said\nto have a kind of right to know as much as can be told it of the\npersonalities which move and stir it. At present the biographical\nmaterial available is extremely scanty, and if it were not for the\nkindness of M. Scherer, who has allowed the present writer access to\ncertain manuscript material in his possession, even the sketch which\nfollows, vague and imperfect as it necessarily is, would have been\nimpossible.\n\n[Footnote: Four or five articles on the subject of Amiel\u2019s life have\nbeen contributed to the _R\u00e9vue Internationale_ by Mdlle. Berthe Vadier\nduring the passage of the present book through the press. My knowledge\nof them, however, came too late to enable me to make use of them for the\npurposes of the present introduction.]\n\nHenri Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Amiel was born at Geneva in September, 1821. He belonged\nto one of the emigrant families, of which a more or less steady supply\nhad enriched the little republic during the three centuries following\nthe Reformation. Amiel\u2019s ancestors, like those of Sismondi, left\nLanguedoc for Geneva after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His\nfather must have been a youth at the time when Geneva passed into the\npower of the French republic, and would seem to have married and settled\nin the halcyon days following the restoration of Genevese independence\nin 1814. Amiel was born when the prosperity of Geneva was at its height,\nwhen the little state was administered by men of European reputation,\nand Genevese society had power to attract distinguished visitors and\nadmirers from all parts. The veteran Bonstetten, who had been the friend\nof Gray and the associate of Voltaire, was still talking and enjoying\nlife in his _appartement_ overlooking the woods of La B\u00e2tie. Rossi and\nSismondi were busy lecturing to the Genevese youth, or taking part in\nGenevese legislation; an active scientific group, headed by the Pictets,\nDe la Rive, and the botanist Auguste-Pyrame de Candolle, kept the\ncountry abreast of European thought and speculation, while the mixed\nnationality of the place--the blending in it of French keenness with\nProtestant enthusiasms and Protestant solidity--was beginning to find\ninimitable and characteristic expression in the stories of T\u00f6pffer.\nThe country was governed by an aristocracy, which was not so much an\naristocracy of birth as one of merit and intellect, and the moderate\nconstitutional ideas which represented the Liberalism of the\npost-Waterloo period were nowhere more warmly embraced or more\nintelligently carried out than in Geneva.\n\nDuring the years, however, which immediately followed Amiel\u2019s birth,\nsome signs of decadence began to be visible in this brilliant Genevese\nsociety. The generation which had waited for, prepared, and controlled,\nthe Restoration of 1814, was falling into the background, and the\nyounger generation, with all its respectability, wanted energy, above\nall, wanted leaders. The revolutionary forces in the state, which had\nmade themselves violently felt during the civil turmoils of the period\npreceding the assembly of the French States General, and had afterward\nproduced the miniature Terror which forced Sismondi into exile, had been\nfor awhile laid to sleep by the events of 1814. But the slumber was a\nshort one at Geneva as elsewhere, and when Rossi quitted the republic\nfor France in 1833, he did so with a mind full of misgivings as to the\npolitical future of the little state which had given him--an exile and a\nCatholic--so generous a welcome in 1819. The ideas of 1830 were shaking\nthe fabric and disturbing the equilibrium of the Swiss Confederation\nas a whole, and of many of the cantons composing it. Geneva was still\napparently tranquil while her neighbors were disturbed, but no one\nlooking back on the history of the republic, and able to measure the\nstrength of the Radical force in Europe after the fall of Charles X.,\ncould have felt much doubt but that a few more years would bring Geneva\nalso into the whirlpool of political change.\n\nIn the same year--1833--that M. Rossi had left Geneva, Henri Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric\nAmiel, at twelve years old, was left orphaned of both his parents. They\nhad died comparatively young--his mother was only just over thirty, and\nhis father cannot have been much older. On the death of the mother\nthe little family was broken up, the boy passing into the care of one\nrelative, his two sisters into that of another. Certain notes in\nM. Scherer\u2019s possession throw a little light here and there upon a\nchildhood and youth which must necessarily have been a little bare and\nforlorn. They show us a sensitive, impressionable boy, of health rather\ndelicate than robust, already disposed to a more or less melancholy\nand dreamy view of life, and showing a deep interest in those religious\nproblems and ideas in which the air of Geneva has been steeped since the\ndays of Calvin. The religious teaching which a Genevese lad undergoes\nprior to his admission to full church membership, made a deep impression\non him, and certain mystical elements of character, which remained\nstrong in him to the end, showed themselves very early. At the college\nor public school of Geneva, and at the acad\u00e9mie, he would seem to have\ndone only moderately as far as prizes and honors were concerned. We\nare told, however, that he read enormously, and that he was, generally\nspeaking, inclined rather to make friends with men older than himself\nthan with his contemporaries. He fell specially under the influence of\nAdolphe Pictet, a brilliant philologist and man of letters belonging\nto a well-known Genevese family, and in later life he was able, while\nreviewing one of M. Pictet\u2019s books, to give grateful expression to his\nsense of obligation.\n\nWriting in 1856 he describes the effect produced in Geneva by M.\nPictet\u2019s Lectures on Aesthetics in 1840--the first ever delivered in a\ntown in which the Beautiful had been for centuries regarded as the rival\nand enemy of the True. \u201cHe who is now writing,\u201d says Amiel, \u201cwas then\namong M. Pictet\u2019s youngest hearers. Since then twenty experiences of the\nsame kind have followed each other in his intellectual experience, yet\nnone has effaced the deep impression made upon him by these lectures.\nComing as they did at a favorable moment, and answering many a positive\nquestion and many a vague aspiration of youth, they exercised a decisive\ninfluence over his thought; they were to him an important step in that\ncontinuous initiation which we call life, they filled him with fresh\nintuitions, they brought near to him the horizons of his dreams. And, as\nalways happens with a first-rate man, what struck him even more than the\nteaching was the teacher. So that this memory of 1840 is still dear and\nprecious to him, and for this double service, which is not of the kind\none forgets, the student of those days delights in expressing to the\nprofessor of 1840 his sincere and filial gratitude.\u201d\n\nAmiel\u2019s first literary production, or practically his first, seems to\nhave been the result partly of these lectures, and partly of a visit\nto Italy which began in November, 1841. In 1842, a year which was spent\nentirely in Italy and Sicily, he contributed three articles on M. Rio\u2019s\nbook, \u201cL\u2019Art Chr\u00e9tien,\u201d to the _Biblioth\u00e8que Universelle de Gen\u00e8ve_.\nWe see in them the young student conscientiously writing his first\nreview--writing it at inordinate length, as young reviewers are apt to\ndo, and treating the subject _ab ovo_ in a grave, pontifical way, which\nis a little na\u00efve and inexperienced indeed, but still promising, as all\nseriousness of work and purpose is promising. All that is individual in\nit is first of all the strong Christian feeling which much of it shows,\nand secondly, the tone of melancholy which already makes itself felt\nhere and there, especially in one rather remarkable passage. As to the\nChristian feeling, we find M. Rio described as belonging to \u201cthat noble\nschool of men who are striving to rekindle the dead beliefs of France,\nto rescue Frenchmen from the camp of materialistic or pantheistic ideas,\nand rally them round that Christian banner which is the banner of\ntrue progress and true civilization.\u201d The Renaissance is treated as a\ndisastrous but inevitable crisis, in which the idealism of the Middle\nAges was dethroned by the naturalism of modern times--\u201cThe Renaissance\nperhaps robbed us of more than it gave us\u201d--and so on. The tone of\ncriticism is instructive enough to the student of Amiel\u2019s mind, but the\nproduct itself has no particular savor of its own. The occasional note\nof depression and discouragement, however, is a different thing; here,\nfor those who know the \u201cJournal Intime,\u201d there is already something\ncharacteristic, something which foretells the future. For instance,\nafter dwelling with evident zest on the nature of the metaphysical\nproblems lying at the root of art in general, and Christian art in\nparticular, the writer goes on to set the difficulty of M. Rio\u2019s\ntask against its attractiveness, to insist on the intricacy of the\ninvestigations involved, and on the impossibility of making the two\ninstruments on which their success depends--the imaginative and the\nanalytical faculty--work harmoniously and effectively together. And\nsupposing the goal achieved, supposing a man by insight and patience has\nsucceeded in forcing his way farther than any previous explorer into the\nrecesses of the Beautiful or the True, there still remains the\nenormous, the insuperable difficulty of expression, of fit and adequate\ncommunication from mind to mind; there still remains the question\nwhether, after all, \u201che who discovers a new world in the depths of the\ninvisible would not do wisely to plant on it a flag known to himself\nalone, and, like Achilles, \u2018devour his heart in secret;\u2019 whether the\ngreatest problems which have ever been guessed on earth had not better\nhave remained buried in the brain which had found the key to them,\nand whether the deepest thinkers--those whose hand has been boldest in\ndrawing aside the veil, and their eye keenest in fathoming the mysteries\nbeyond it--had not better, like the prophetess of Ilion, have kept for\nheaven, and heaven only, secrets and mysteries which human tongue cannot\ntruly express, nor human intelligence conceive.\u201d\n\nCurious words for a beginner of twenty-one! There is a touch, no doubt,\nof youth and fatuity in the passage; one feels how much the vague\nsonorous phrases have pleased the writer\u2019s immature literary sense; but\nthere is something else too--there is a breath of that same speculative\npassion which burns in the Journal, and one hears, as it were, the first\naccents of a melancholy, the first expression of a mood of mind, which\nbecame in after years the fixed characteristic of the writer. \u201cAt twenty\nhe was already proud, timid, and melancholy,\u201d writes an old friend;\nand a little farther on, \u201cDiscouragement took possession of him _very\nearly_.\u201d\n\nHowever, in spite of this inbred tendency, which was probably hereditary\nand inevitable, the years which followed these articles, from 1842\nto Christmas, 1848, were years of happiness and steady intellectual\nexpansion. They were Amiel\u2019s _Wanderjahre_, spent in a free, wandering\nstudent life, which left deep marks on his intellectual development.\nDuring four years, from 1844 to 1848, his headquarters were at\nBerlin; but every vacation saw him exploring some new country or fresh\nintellectual center--Scandinavia in 1845, Holland in 1846, Vienna,\nMunich, and T\u00fcbingen in 1848, while Paris had already attracted him in\n1841, and he was to make acquaintance with London ten years later, in\n1851. No circumstances could have been more favorable, one would have\nthought, to the development of such a nature. With his extraordinary\npower of \u201cthrowing himself into the object\u201d--of effacing himself and\nhis own personality in the presence of the thing to be understood and\nabsorbed--he must have passed these years of travel and acquisition in\na state of continuous intellectual energy and excitement. It is in no\nspirit of conceit that he says in 1857, comparing himself with Maine de\nBiran, \u201cThis nature is, as it were, only one of the men which exist\nin me. My horizon is vaster; I have seen much more of men, things,\ncountries, peoples, books; I have a greater mass of experiences.\u201d This\nfact, indeed, of a wide and varied personal experience, must never be\nforgotten in any critical estimate of Amiel as a man or writer. We\nmay so easily conceive him as a sedentary professor, with the ordinary\nprofessorial knowledge, or rather ignorance, of men and the world,\nfalling into introspection under the pressure of circumstance, and for\nwant, as it were, of something else to think about. Not at all. The\nman who has left us these microscopic analyses of his own moods and\nfeelings, had penetrated more or less into the social and intellectual\nlife of half a dozen European countries, and was familiar not only with\nthe books, but, to a large extent also, with the men of his generation.\nThe meditative and introspective gift was in him, not the product, but\nthe mistress of circumstance. It took from the outer world what that\nworld had to give, and then made the stuff so gained subservient to its\nown ends.\n\nOf these years of travel, however, the four years spent at Berlin were\nby far the most important. \u201cIt was at Heidelberg and Berlin,\u201d says M.\nScherer, \u201cthat the world of science and speculation first opened on the\ndazzled eyes of the young man. He was accustomed to speak of his four\nyears at Berlin as \u2018his intellectual phase,\u2019 and one felt that he\ninclined to regard them as the happiest period of his life. The spell\nwhich Berlin laid upon him lasted long.\u201d Probably his happiness in\nGermany was partly owing to a sense of reaction against Geneva. There\nare signs that he had felt himself somewhat isolated at school and\ncollege, and that in the German world his special individuality, with\nits dreaminess and its melancholy, found congenial surroundings far more\nreadily than had been the case in the drier and harsher atmosphere of\nthe Protestant Rome. However this may be, it is certain that German\nthought took possession of him, that he became steeped not only in\nGerman methods of speculation, but in German modes of expression, in\nGerman forms of sentiment, which clung to him through life, and vitally\naffected both his opinions and his style. M. Renan and M. Bourget shake\ntheir heads over the Germanisms, which, according to the latter, give a\ncertain \u201cbarbarous\u201d air to many passages of the Journal. But both admit\nthat Amiel\u2019s individuality owes a great part of its penetrating force\nto that intermingling of German with French elements, of which there\nare such abundant traces in the \u201cJournal Intime.\u201d Amiel, in fact, is\none more typical product of a movement which is certainly of enormous\nimportance in the history of modern thought, even though we may not be\nprepared to assent to all the sweeping terms in which a writer like\nM. Taine describes it. \u201cFrom 1780 to 1830,\u201d says M. Taine, \u201cGermany\nproduced all the ideas of our historical age, and during another\nhalf-century, perhaps another century, _notre grande affaire sera de les\nrepenser_.\u201d He is inclined to compare the influence of German ideas on\nthe modern world to the ferment of the Renaissance. No spiritual force\n\u201cmore original, more universal, more fruitful in consequences of every\nsort and bearing, more capable of transforming and remaking everything\npresented to it, has arisen during the last three hundred years. Like\nthe spirit of the Renaissance and of the classical age, it attracts into\nits orbit all the great works of contemporary intelligence.\u201d Quinet,\npursuing a somewhat different line of thought, regards the worship of\nGerman ideas inaugurated in France by Madame de Sta\u00ebl as the natural\nresult of reaction from the eighteenth century and all its ways. \u201cGerman\nsystems, German hypotheses, beliefs, and poetry, all were eagerly\nwelcomed as a cure for hearts crushed by the mockery of Candide and the\nmaterialism of the Revolution.... Under the Restoration France continued\nto study German philosophy and poetry with profound veneration and\nsubmission. We imitated, translated, compiled, and then again we\ncompiled, translated, imitated.\u201d The importance of the part played by\nGerman influence in French Romanticism has indeed been much disputed,\nbut the debt of French metaphysics, French philology, and French\nhistorical study, to German methods and German research during the last\nhalf-century is beyond dispute. And the movement to-day is as strong\nas ever. A modern critic like M. Darmstetter regards it as a misfortune\nthat the artificial stimulus given by the war to the study of German\nhas, to some extent, checked the study of English in France. He thinks\nthat the French have more to gain from our literature--taking literature\nin its general and popular sense--than from German literature. But he\nraises no question as to the inevitable subjection of the French to\nthe German mind in matters of exact thought and knowledge. \u201cTo study\nphilology, mythology, history, without reading German,\u201d he is as ready\nto confess as any one else, \u201cis to condemn one\u2019s self to remain in every\ndepartment twenty years behind the progress of science.\u201d\n\nOf this great movement, already so productive, Amiel is then a fresh and\nremarkable instance. Having caught from the Germans not only their\nlove of exact knowledge but also their love of vast horizons, their\ninsatiable curiosity as to the whence and whither of all things, their\nsense of mystery and immensity in the universe, he then brings those\nelements in him which belong to his French inheritance--and something\nindividual besides, which is not French but Genevese--to bear on his\nnew acquisitions, and the result is of the highest literary interest and\nvalue. Not that he succeeds altogether in the task of fusion. For\none who was to write and think in French, he was perhaps too long in\nGermany; he had drunk too deeply of German thought; he had been too\nmuch dazzled by the spectacle of Berlin and its imposing intellectual\nactivities. \u201cAs to his _literary_ talent,\u201d says M. Scherer, after\ndwelling on the rapid growth of his intellectual powers under German\ninfluence, \u201cthe profit which Amiel derived from his stay at Berlin is\nmore doubtful. Too long contact with the German mind had led to the\ndevelopment in him of certain strangenesses of style which he had\nafterward to get rid of, and even perhaps of some habits of thought\nwhich he afterward felt the need of checking and correcting.\u201d This\nis very true. Amiel is no doubt often guilty, as M. Caro puts it, of\nattempts \u201cto write German in French,\u201d and there are in his thought\nitself veins of mysticism, elements of _Schw\u00e4rmerei_, here and there, of\nwhich a good deal must be laid to the account of his German training.\n\nM. Renan regrets that after Geneva and after Berlin he never came to\nParis. Paris, he thinks, would have counteracted the Hegelian influences\nbrought to hear upon him at Berlin, [Footnote: See a not, however,\non the subject of Amiel\u2019s philosophical relationships, printed as an\nAppendix to the present volume.] would have taught him cheerfulness, and\ntaught him also the art of writing, not beautiful fragments, but a book.\nPossibly--but how much we should have lost! Instead of the Amiel we\nknow, we should have had one accomplished French critic the more.\nInstead of the spiritual drama of the \u201cJournal Intime,\u201d some further\nadditions to French _belles lettres_; instead of something to love,\nsomething to admire! No, there is no wishing the German element in Amiel\naway. Its invading, troubling effect upon his thought and temperament\ngoes far to explain the interest and suggestiveness of his mental\nhistory. The language he speaks is the language of that French criticism\nwhich--we have Sainte-Beuve\u2019s authority for it--is best described by the\nmotto of Montaigne, \u201c_Un peu de chaque chose et rien de l\u2019ensemble, \u00e0 la\nfran\u00e7aise_,\u201d and the thought he tries to express in it is thought torn\nand strained by the constant effort to reach the All, the totality of\nthings: \u201cWhat I desire is the sum of all desires, and what I seek\nto know is the sum of all different kinds of knowledge. Always the\ncomplete, the absolute, the _teres atque rotundum_.\u201d And it was this\nantagonism, or rather this fusion of traditions in him, which went far\nto make him original, which opened to him, that is to say, so many new\nlights on old paths, and stirred in him such capacities of fresh and\nindividual expression.\n\nWe have been carried forward, however, a little too far by this general\ndiscussion of Amiel\u2019s debts to Germany. Let us take up the biographical\nthread again. In 1848 his Berlin apprenticeship came to an end, and\nhe returned to Geneva. \u201cHow many places, how many impressions,\nobservations, thoughts--how many forms of men and things--have passed\nbefore me and in me since April, 1843,\u201d he writes in the Journal, two or\nthree months after his return. \u201cThe last seven years have been the most\nimportant of my life; they have been the novitiate of my intelligence,\nthe initiation of my being into being.\u201d The first literary evidence of\nhis matured powers is to be found in two extremely interesting papers on\nBerlin, which he contributed to the _Biblioth\u00e8que Universelle_ in 1848,\napparently just before he left Germany. Here for the first time we have\nthe Amiel of the \u201cJournal Intime.\u201d The young man who five years before\nhad written his painstaking review of M. Rio is now in his turn a\nmaster. He speaks with dignity and authority, he has a graphic, vigorous\nprose at command, the form of expression is condensed and epigrammatic,\nand there is a mixture of enthusiasm and criticism in his description of\nthe powerful intellectual machine then working in the Prussian capital\nwhich represents a permanent note of character, a lasting attitude\nof mind. A great deal, of course, in the two papers is technical and\nstatistic, but what there is of general comment and criticism is so good\nthat one is tempted to make some melancholy comparisons between them and\nanother article in the _Biblioth\u00e8que_, that on Adolphe Pictet, written\nin 1856, and from which we have already quoted. In 1848 Amiel was for\nawhile master of his powers and his knowledge; no fatal divorce had yet\ntaken place in him between the accumulating and producing faculties; he\nwrites readily even for the public, without labor, without affectations.\nEight years later the reflective faculty has outgrown his control;\ncomposition, which represents the practical side of the intellectual\nlife, has become difficult and painful to him, and he has developed what\nhe himself calls \u201ca wavering manner, born of doubt and scruple.\u201d\n\nHow few could have foreseen the failure in public and practical life\nwhich lay before him at the moment of his reappearance at Geneva in\n1848! \u201cMy first meeting with him in 1849 is still vividly present to\nme,\u201d says M. Scherer. \u201cHe was twenty-eight, and he had just come from\nGermany laden with science, but he wore his knowledge lightly, his looks\nwere attractive, his conversation animated, and no affectation spoiled\nthe favorable impression he made on the bystander--the whole effect,\nindeed, was of something brilliant and striking. In his young alertness\nAmiel seemed to be entering upon life as a conqueror; one would have\nsaid the future was all his own.\u201d\n\nHis return, moreover, was marked by a success which seemed to secure\nhim at once an important position in his native town. After a public\ncompetition he was appointed, in 1849, professor of esthetics and French\nliterature at the Academy of Geneva, a post which he held for four\nyears, exchanging it for the professorship of moral philosophy in 1854.\nThus at twenty-eight, without any struggle to succeed, he had gained,\nit would have seemed, that safe foothold in life which should be all\nthe philosopher or the critic wants to secure the full and fruitful\ndevelopment of his gifts. Unfortunately the appointment, instead of the\nfoundation and support, was to be the stumbling block of his career.\nGeneva at the time was in a state of social and political ferment. After\na long struggle, beginning with the revolutionary outbreak of November,\n1841, the Radical party, led by James Fazy, had succeeded in ousting the\nConservatives--that is to say, the governing class, which had ruled the\nrepublic since the Restoration--from power. And with the advent of the\ndemocratic constitution of 1846, and the exclusion of the old Genevese\nfamilies from the administration they had so long monopolized, a number\nof subsidiary changes were effected, not less important to the ultimate\nsuccess of Radicalism than the change in political machinery introduced\nby the new constitution. Among them was the disappearance of almost the\nwhole existing staff of the academy, then and now the center of Genevese\neducation, and up to 1847 the stronghold of the moderate ideas of 1814,\nfollowed by the appointment of new men less likely to hamper the Radical\norder of things.\n\nOf these new men Amiel was one. He had been absent from Geneva during\nthe years of conflict which had preceded Fazy\u2019s triumph; he seems to\nhave had no family or party connections with the leaders of the defeated\nside, and as M. Scherer points out, he could accept a non-political post\nat the hands of the new government, two years after the violent\nmeasures which had marked its accession, without breaking any pledges or\nsacrificing any convictions. But none the less the step was a fatal one.\nM. Renan is so far in the right. If any timely friend had at that moment\nsucceeded in tempting Amiel to Paris, as Guizot tempted Rossi in 1833,\nthere can be little question that the young professor\u2019s after life would\nhave been happier and saner. As it was, Amiel threw himself into the\ncompetition for the chair, was appointed professor, and then found\nhimself in a hopelessly false position, placed on the threshold of life,\nin relations and surroundings for which he was radically unfitted, and\ncut off by no fault of his own from the _milieu_ to which he rightly\nbelonged, and in which his sensitive individuality might have expanded\nnormally and freely. For the defeated upper class very naturally shut\ntheir doors on the nominees of the new _r\u00e9gime_, and as this class\nrepresented at that moment almost everything that was intellectually\ndistinguished in Geneva, as it was the guardian, broadly speaking,\nof the scientific and literary traditions of the little state, we can\neasily imagine how galling such a social ostracism must have been to the\nyoung professor, accustomed to the stimulating atmosphere, the common\nintellectual interests of Berlin, and tormented with perhaps more than\nthe ordinary craving of youth for sympathy and for affection. In a great\ncity, containing within it a number of different circles of life, Amiel\nwould easily have found his own circle, nor could political discords\nhave affected his social comfort to anything like the same extent. But\nin a town not much larger than Oxford, and in which the cultured class\nhad hitherto formed a more or less homogeneous and united whole, it was\nalmost impossible for Amiel to escape from his grievance and establish a\nsufficient barrier of friendly interests between himself and the society\nwhich ignored him. There can be no doubt that he suffered, both in\nmind and character, from the struggle the position involved. He had\nno natural sympathy with radicalism. His taste, which was extremely\nfastidious, his judgment, his passionate respect for truth, were all\noffended by the noise, the narrowness, the dogmatism of the triumphant\ndemocracy. So that there was no making up on the one side for what he\nhad lost on the other, and he proudly resigned himself to an isolation\nand a reserve which, reinforcing, as they did, certain native weaknesses\nof character, had the most unfortunate effect upon his life.\n\nIn a passage of the Journal written nearly thirty years after his\nelection he allows himself a few pathetic words, half of accusation,\nhalf of self-reproach, which make us realize how deeply this\nuntowardness of social circumstance had affected him. He is discussing\none of Madame de Sta\u00ebl\u2019s favorite words, the word _consideration_. \u201cWhat\nis _consideration_?\u201d he asks. \u201cHow does a man obtain it? how does it\ndiffer from fame, esteem, admiration?\u201d And then he turns upon himself.\n\u201cIt is curious, but the idea of consideration has been to me so little\nof a motive that I have not even been conscious of such an idea.\nBut ought I not to have been conscious of it?\u201d he asks himself\nanxiously--\u201cought I not to have been more careful to win the good\nopinion of others, more determined to conquer their hostility or\nindifference? It would have been a joy to me to be smiled upon, loved,\nencouraged, welcomed, and to obtain what I was so ready to give,\nkindness and goodwill. But to hunt down consideration and reputation--to\nforce the esteem of others--seemed to me an effort unworthy of myself,\nalmost a degradation. A struggle with unfavorable opinion has seemed to\nme beneath me, for all the while my heart has been full of sadness\nand disappointment, and I have known and felt that I have been\nsystematically and deliberately isolated. Untimely despair and the\ndeepest discouragement have been my constant portion. Incapable of\ntaking any interest in my talents for their own sake, I let everything\nslip as soon as the hope of being loved for them and by them had\nforsaken me. A hermit against my will, I have not even found peace in\nsolitude, because my inmost conscience has not been any better satisfied\nthan my heart.\u201d\n\nStill one may no doubt easily exaggerate this loneliness of Amiel\u2019s.\nHis social difficulties represent rather a dull discomfort in his life,\nwhich in course of time, and in combination with a good many other\ncauses, produced certain unfavorable results on his temperament and on\nhis public career, than anything very tragic and acute. They were real,\nand he, being what he was, was specially unfitted to cope with and\nconquer them. But he had his friends, his pleasures, and even to some\nextent his successes, like other men. \u201cHe had an elasticity of mind,\u201d\n says M. Scherer, speaking of him as he knew him in youth, \u201cwhich\nreacted against vexations from without, and his cheerfulness was readily\nrestored by conversation and the society of a few kindred spirits. We\nwere accustomed, two or three friends and I, to walk every Thursday to\nthe Sal\u00e8ve, Lamartine\u2019s _Sal\u00e8ve aux flancs azur\u00e9s_; we dined there, and\ndid not return till nightfall.\u201d They were days devoted to _d\u00e9bauches\nplatoniciennes_, to \u201cthe free exchange of ideas, the free play of\nfancy and of gayety. Amiel was not one of the original members of\nthese Thursday parties; but whenever he joined us we regarded it as a\nf\u00eate-day. In serious discussion he was a master of the unexpected,\nand his energy, his _entrain_, affected us all. If his grammatical\nquestions, his discussions of rhymes and synonyms, astonished us at\ntimes, how often, on the other hand, did he not give us cause to admire\nthe variety of his knowledge, the precision of his ideas, the charm\nof his quick intelligence! We found him always, besides, kindly and\namiable, a nature one might trust and lean upon with perfect security.\nHe awakened in us but one regret; _we could not understand how it was a\nman so richly gifted produced nothing, or only trivialities_.\u201d\n\nIn these last words of M. Scherer\u2019s we have come across the determining\nfact of Amiel\u2019s life in its relation to the outer world--that \u201csterility\nof genius,\u201d of which he was the victim. For social ostracism and\npolitical anxiety would have mattered to him comparatively little if he\ncould but have lost himself in the fruitful activities of thought, in\nthe struggles and the victories of composition and creation. A German\nprofessor of Amiel\u2019s knowledge would have wanted nothing beyond his\n_Fach_, and nine men out of ten in his circumstances would have made\nthemselves the slave of a _magnum opus_, and forgotten the vexations\nof everyday life in the \u201c_douces joies de la science_.\u201d But there\nwere certain characteristics in Amiel which made it impossible--which\nneutralized his powers, his knowledge, his intelligence, and condemned\nhim, so far as his public performance was concerned, to barrenness and\nfailure. What were these characteristics, this element of unsoundness\nand disease, which M. Caro calls \u201c_la maladie de l\u2019id\u00e9al_?\u201d\n\nBefore we can answer the question we must go back a little and try\nto realize the intellectual and moral equipment of the young man of\ntwenty-eight, who seemed to M. Scherer to have the world at his feet.\nWhat were the chief qualities of mind and heart which Amiel brought back\nwith him from Berlin? In the first place, an omnivorous desire to\nknow: \u201cAmiel,\u201d says M. Scherer, \u201cread everything.\u201d In the second,\nan extraordinary power of sustained and concentrated thought, and a\npassionate, almost a religious, delight in the exercise of his power.\nKnowledge, science, stirred in him no mere sense of curiosity or cold\ncritical instinct--\u201che came to his desk as to an altar.\u201d \u201cA friend who\nknew him well,\u201d says M. Scherer, \u201cremembers having heard him speak with\ndeep emotion of that lofty serenity of mood which he had experienced\nduring his years in Germany whenever, in the early morning before dawn,\nwith his reading-lamp beside him, he had found himself penetrating once\nmore into the region of pure thought, \u2018conversing with ideas, enjoying\nthe inmost life of things.\u2019\u201d \u201cThought,\u201d he says somewhere in the\nJournal, \u201cis like opium. It can intoxicate us and yet leave us broad\nawake.\u201d To this intoxication of thought he seems to have been always\nspecially liable, and his German experience--unbalanced, as such an\nexperience generally is with a young man, by family life, or by any\nhealthy commonplace interests and pleasures--developed the intellectual\npassion in him to an abnormal degree. For four years he had devoted\nhimself to the alternate excitement and satisfaction of this passion.\nHe had read enormously, thought enormously, and in the absence of\nany imperative claim on the practical side of him, the accumulative,\nreflective faculties had grown out of all proportion to the rest of the\npersonality. Nor had any special subject the power to fix him. Had he\nbeen in France, what Sainte-Beuve calls the French \u201c_imagination de\nd\u00e9tail_\u201d would probably have attracted his pliant, responsive nature,\nand he would have found happy occupation in some one of the innumerable\ndepartments of research on which the French have been patiently spending\ntheir analytical gift since that general widening of horizons which\naccompanied and gave value to the Romantic movement. But instead he was\nat Berlin, in the center of that speculative ferment which followed the\ndeath of Hegel and the break-up of the Hegelian idea into a number of\ndifferent and conflicting sections of philosophical opinion. He was\nunder the spell of German synthesis, of that traditional, involuntary\neffort which the German mind makes, generation after generation, to\nfind the unity of experience, to range its accumulations from life\nand thought under a more and more perfect, a more and more exhaustive,\nformula. Not this study or that study, not this detail or that, but the\nwhole of things, the sum of Knowledge, the Infinite, the Absolute, alone\nhad value or reality. In his own words: \u201cThere is no repose for the mind\nexcept in the absolute; for feeling except in the infinite; for the soul\nexcept in the divine. Nothing finite is true, is interesting, is worthy\nto fix my attention. All that is particular is exclusive, and all that\nis exclusive repels me. There is nothing non-exclusive but the All; my\nend is communion with Being through the whole of Being.\u201d\n\nIt was not, indeed, that he neglected the study of detail; he had a\nstrong natural aptitude for it, and his knowledge was wide and real; but\ndetail was ultimately valuable to him, not in itself, but as food for a\nspeculative hunger, for which, after all, there is no real satisfaction.\nAll the pleasant paths which traverse the kingdom of Knowledge, in which\nso many of us find shelter and life-long means of happiness, led Amiel\nstraight into the wilderness of abstract speculation. And the longer\nhe lingered in the wilderness, unchecked by any sense of intellectual\nresponsibility, and far from the sounds of human life, the stranger\nand the weirder grew the hallucinations of thought. The Journal gives\nmarvelous expression to them: \u201cI can find no words for what I feel. My\nconsciousness is withdrawn into itself; I hear my heart beating, and my\nlife passing. It seems to me that I have become a statue on the banks\nof the river of time, that I am the spectator of some mystery, and\nshall issue from it old, or no longer capable of age.\u201d Or again: \u201cI am\na spectator, so to speak, of the molecular whirlwind which men call\nindividual life; I am conscious of an incessant metamorphosis, an\nirresistible movement of existence, which is going on within me--and\nthis phenomenology of myself serves as a window opened upon the mystery\nof the world. I am, or rather my sensible consciousness is, concentrated\nupon this ideal standing-point, this invisible threshold, as it were,\nwhence one hears the impetuous passage of time, rushing and foaming\nas it flows out into the changeless ocean of eternity. After all the\nbewildering distractions of life--after having drowned myself in a\nmultiplicity of trifles and in the caprices of this fugitive existence,\nyet without ever attaining to self-intoxication or self-delusion--I come\nagain upon the fathomless abyss, the silent and melancholy cavern, where\ndwell \u2018_Die M\u00fctter_,\u2019 where sleeps that which neither lives nor dies,\nwhich has neither movement nor change, nor extension, nor form, and\nwhich lasts when all else passes away.\u201d\n\nWonderful sentences! \u201c_Prodiges de la pens\u00e9e speculative, d\u00e9crits\ndans une langue non moins prodigieuse_,\u201d as M. Scherer says of the\ninnumerable passages which describe either this intoxication of the\ninfinite, or the various forms and consequences of that deadening of\npersonality which the abstract processes of thought tend to produce.\nBut it is easy to understand that a man in whom experiences of this kind\nbecome habitual is likely to lose his hold upon the normal interests\nof life. What are politics or literature to such a mind but fragments\nwithout real importance--dwarfed reflections of ideal truths for which\nneither language nor institutions provide any adequate expression! How\nis it possible to take seriously what is so manifestly relative and\ntemporary as the various existing forms of human activity? Above all,\nhow is it possible to take one\u2019s self seriously, to spend one\u2019s thought\non the petty interests of a petty individuality, when the beatific\nvision of universal knowledge, of absolute being, has once dawned on\nthe dazzled beholder? The charm and the savor of everything relative and\nphenomenal is gone. A man may go on talking, teaching, writing--but the\nspring of personal action is broken; his actions are like the actions of\na somnambulist.\n\nNo doubt to some extent this mood is familiar to all minds endowed with\nthe true speculative genius. The philosopher has always tended to become\nunfit for practical life; his unfitness, indeed, is one of the comic\nmotives, so to speak, of literature. But a mood which, in the great\nmajority of thinkers, is intermittent, and is easily kept within bounds\nby the practical needs, the mere physical instincts of life, was in\nAmiel almost constant, and the natural impulse of the human animal\ntoward healthy movement and a normal play of function, never very strong\nin him, was gradually weakened and destroyed by an untoward combination\nof circumstances. The low health from which he suffered more or less\nfrom his boyhood, and then the depressing influences of the social\ndifficulties we have described, made it more and more difficult for the\nrest of the organism to react against the tyranny of the brain. And as\nthe normal human motives lost their force, what he calls \u201cthe Buddhist\ntendency in me\u201d gathered strength year by year, until, like some strange\nmisgrowth, it had absorbed the whole energies and drained the innermost\nlife-blood of the personality which had developed it. And the result\nis another soul\u2019s tragedy, another story of conflict and failure, which\nthrows fresh light on the mysterious capacities of human nature, and\nwarns us, as the letters of Obermann in their day warned the generation\nof George Sand, that with the rise of new intellectual perceptions\nnew spiritual dangers come into being, and that across the path of\ncontinuous evolution which the modern mind is traversing there lies many\na _selva oscura_, many a lonely and desolate tract, in which loss and\npain await it. The story of the \u201cJournal Intime\u201d is a story to make us\nthink, to make us anxious; but at the same time, in the case of a nature\nlike Amiel\u2019s, there is so much high poetry thrown off from the long\nprocess of conflict, the power of vision and of reproduction which the\nintellect gains at the expense of the rest of the personality is in many\nrespects so real and so splendid, and produces results so stirring often\nto the heart and imagination of the listener, that in the end we put\ndown the record not so much with a throb of pity as with an impulse of\ngratitude. The individual error and suffering is almost forgotten; all\nthat we can realize is the enrichment of human feeling, the quickened\nsense of spiritual reality bequeathed to us by the baffled and solitary\nthinker whose _via dolorosa_ is before us.\n\nThe manner in which this intellectual idiosyncrasy we have been\ndescribing gradually affected Amiel\u2019s life supplies abundant proof of\nits actuality and sincerity. It is a pitiful story. Amiel might have\nbeen saved from despair by love and marriage, by paternity, by strenuous\nand successful literary production; and this mental habit of his--this\ntyranny of ideal conceptions, helped by the natural accompaniment of\nsuch a tyranny, a critical sense of abnormal acuteness--stood between\nhim and everything healing and restoring. \u201cI am afraid of an imperfect,\na faulty synthesis, and I linger in the provisional, from timidity and\nfrom loyalty.\u201d \u201cAs soon as a thing attracts me I turn away from it; or\nrather, I cannot either be content with the second-best, or discover\nanything which satisfies my aspiration. The real disgusts me, and I\ncannot find the ideal.\u201d And so one thing after another is put away.\nFamily life attracted him perpetually. \u201cI cannot escape,\u201d he writes,\n\u201cfrom the ideal of it. A companion, of my life, of my work, of my\nthoughts, of my hopes; within a common worship--toward the world outside\nkindness and beneficence; education to undertake; the thousand and\none moral relations which develop round the first--all these ideas\nintoxicate me sometimes.\u201d But in vain. \u201cReality, the present, the\nirreparable, the necessary, repel and even terrify me. I have too much\nimagination, conscience, and penetration and not enough character.\n_The life of thought alone seems to me to have enough elasticity and\nimmensity, to be free enough from the irreparable; practical life makes\nme afraid._ I am distrustful of myself and of happiness because I know\nmyself. The ideal poisons for me all imperfect possession. And I abhor\nuseless regrets and repentance.\u201d\n\nIt is the same, at bottom, with his professional work. He protects the\nintellectual freedom, as it were, of his students with the same\njealousy as he protects his own. There shall be no oratorical device,\nno persuading, no cajoling of the mind this way or that. \u201cA professor\nis the priest of his subject, and should do the honors of it gravely and\nwith dignity.\u201d And so the man who in his private Journal is master of an\neloquence and a poetry, capable of illuminating the most difficult and\nabstract of subjects, becomes in the lecture-room a dry compendium\nof universal knowledge. \u201cLed by his passion for the whole,\u201d says M.\nScherer, \u201cAmiel offered his hearers, not so much a series of positive\nteachings, as an index of subjects, a framework--what the Germans call\na _Schematismus_. The skeleton was admirably put together, and excellent\nof its kind, and lent itself admirably to a certain kind of analysis\nand demonstration; but it was a skeleton--flesh, body, and life were\nwanting.\u201d\n\nSo that as a professor he made no mark. He was conscientiousness itself\nin whatever he conceived to be his duty. But with all the critical and\nphilosophical power which, as we know from the Journal, he might have\nlavished on his teaching, had the conditions been other than they were,\nthe study of literature, and the study of philosophy as such, owe him\nnothing. But for the Journal his years of training and his years of\nteaching would have left equally little record behind them. \u201cHis pupils\nat Geneva,\u201d writes one who was himself among the number, [Footnote: M.\nAlphonse Rivier, now Professor of International Law at the University\nof Brussels.] \u201cnever learned to appreciate him at his true worth. We did\njustice no doubt to a knowledge as varied as it was wide, to his vast\nstores of reading, to that cosmopolitanism of the best kind which he had\nbrought back with him from his travels; we liked him for his indulgence,\nhis kindly wit. But I look back without any sense of pleasure to his\nlectures.\u201d\n\nMany a student, however, has shrunk from the burden and risks of family\nlife, and has found himself incapable of teaching effectively what\nhe knows, and has yet redeemed all other incapacities in the field of\nliterary production. And here indeed we come to the strangest feature in\nAmiel\u2019s career--his literary sterility. That he possessed literary\npower of the highest order is abundantly proved by the \u201cJournal Intime.\u201d\n Knowledge, insight, eloquence, critical power--all were his. And\nthe impulse to produce, which is the natural, though by no means the\ninvariable, accompaniment of the literary gift, must have been fairly\nstrong in him also. For the \u201cJournal Intime\u201d runs to 17,000 folio pages\nof MS., and his half dozen volumes of poems, though the actual quantity\nis not large, represent an amount of labor which would have more than\ncarried him through some serious piece of critical or philosophical\nwork, and so enabled him to content the just expectations of his world.\nHe began to write early, as is proved by the fact that at twenty he was\na contributor to the best literary periodical which Geneva possessed. He\nwas a charming correspondent, and in spite of his passion for abstract\nthought, his intellectual interest, at any rate, in all the activities\nof the day--politics, religious organizations, literature, art--was of\nthe keenest kind. And yet at the time of his death all that this\nfine critic and profound thinker had given to the world, after a life\nentirely spent in the pursuit of letters, was, in the first place, a\nfew volumes of poems which had had no effect except on a small number\nof sympathetic friends; a few pages of _pens\u00e9es_ intermingled with the\npoems, and, as we now know, extracted from the Journal; and four or five\nscattered essays, the length of magazine articles, on Mme. de Sta\u00ebl,\nRousseau, the history of the Academy of Geneva, the literature of\nFrench-speaking Switzerland, and so on! And more than this, the\nproduction, such as it was, had been a production born of effort and\ndifficulty; and the labor squandered on poetical forms, on metrical\nexperiments and intricate problems of translation, as well as the\noccasional affectations of the prose style, might well have convinced\nthe critical bystander that the mind of which these things were the\noffspring could have no real importance, no profitable message, for the\nworld.\n\nThe whole \u201cJournal Intime\u201d is in some sense Amiel\u2019s explanation of these\nfacts. In it he has made full and bitter confession of his weakness, his\nfailure; he has endeavored, with an acuteness of analysis no other hand\ncan rival, to make the reasons of his failure and isolation clear\nboth to himself and others. \u201cTo love, to dream, to feel, to learn, to\nunderstand--all these are possible to me if only I may be dispensed from\nwilling--I have a sort of primitive horror of ambition, of struggle,\nof hatred, of all which dissipates the soul and makes it dependent on\nexternal things and aims. The joy of becoming once more conscious\nof myself, of listening to the passage of time and the flow of the\nuniversal life, is sometimes enough to make me forget every desire and\nto quench in me both the wish to produce and the power to execute.\u201d It\nis the result of what he himself calls _\u201cl\u2019\u00e9blouissement de l\u2019infini_.\u201d\n He no sooner makes a step toward production, toward action and the\nrealization of himself, than a vague sense of peril overtakes him.\nThe inner life, with its boundless horizons and its indescribable\nexaltations, seems endangered. Is he not about to place between himself\nand the forms of speculative truth some barrier of sense and matter--to\ngive up the real for the apparent, the substance for the shadow? One is\nreminded of Clough\u2019s cry under a somewhat similar experience:\n\n  \u201cIf this pure solace should desert my mind,\n  What were all else? I dare not risk the loss.\n  To the old paths, my soul!\u201d\n\nAnd in close combination with the speculative sense, with the tendency\nwhich carries a man toward the contemplative study of life and nature\nas a whole, is the critical sense--the tendency which, in the realm of\naction and concrete performance, carries him, as Amiel expresses it,\n_\u201cdroit au d\u00e9faut,\u201d_ and makes him conscious at once of the weak point,\nthe germ of failure in a project or an action. It is another aspect of\nthe same idiosyncrasy. \u201cThe point I have reached seems to be explained\nby a too restless search for perfection, by the abuse of the critical\nfaculty, and by an unreasonable distrust of first impulses, first\nthoughts, first words. Confidence and spontaneity of life are drifting\nout of my reach, and this is why I can no longer act.\u201d For abuse of the\ncritical faculty brings with it its natural consequences--timidity of\nsoul, paralysis of the will, complete self-distrust. \u201cTo know is\nenough for me; expression seems to me often a profanity. What I lack\nis character, will, individuality.\u201d \u201cBy what mystery,\u201d he writes to M.\nScherer, \u201cdo others expect much from me? whereas I feel myself to\nbe incapable of anything serious or important.\u201d _D\u00e9fiance_ and\n_impuissance_ are the words constantly on his lips. \u201cMy friends see what\nI might have been; I see what I am.\u201d\n\nAnd yet the literary instinct remains, and must in some way be\nsatisfied. And so he takes refuge in what he himself calls scales,\nexercises, _tours de force_ in verse-translation of the most laborious\nand difficult kind, in ingenious _vers d\u2019occasion_, in metrical\nexperiments and other literary trifling, as his friends think it, of the\nsame sort. \u201cI am afraid of greatness. I am not afraid of ingenuity;\nall my published literary essays are little else than studies, games,\nexercises, for the purpose of testing myself. I play scales, as it were;\nI run up and down my instrument. I train my hand and make sure of its\ncapacity and skill. But the work itself remains unachieved. I am always\npreparing and never accomplishing, and my energy is swallowed up in a\nkind of barren curiosity.\u201d\n\nNot that he surrenders himself to the nature which is stronger than he\nall at once. His sense of duty rebels, his conscience suffers, and he\nmakes resolution after resolution to shake himself free from the mental\ntradition which had taken such hold upon him--to write, to produce, to\nsatisfy his friends. In 1861, a year after M. Scherer had left Geneva,\nAmiel wrote to him, describing his difficulties and his discouragements,\nand asking, as one may ask an old friend of one\u2019s youth, for help and\ncounsel. M. Scherer, much touched by the appeal, answered it plainly and\nfrankly--described the feeling of those who knew him as they watched\nhis life slipping away unmarked by any of the achievements of which his\nyouth had given promise, and pointed out various literary openings in\nwhich, if he were to put out his powers, he could not but succeed. To\nbegin with, he urged him to join the _Revue Germanique,_ then being\nstarted by Charles Dollfus, Renan, Littr\u00e9, and others. Amiel left the\nletter for three months unanswered and then wrote a reply which M.\nScherer probably received with a sigh of impatience. For, rightly\ninterpreted, it meant that old habits were too strong, and that the\nmomentary impulse had died away. When, a little later, \u201cLes Etrang\u00e8res,\u201d\n a collection of verse-translations, came out, it was dedicated to M.\nScherer, who did not, however, pretend to give it any very cordial\nreception. Amiel took his friend\u2019s coolness in very good part, calling\nhim his \u201cdear Rhadamanthus.\u201d \u201cHow little I knew!\u201d cries M. Scherer.\n\u201cWhat I regret is to have discovered too late by means of the Journal,\nthe key to a problem which seemed to me hardly serious, and which I now\nfeel to have been tragic. A kind of remorse seizes me that I was not\nable to understand my friend better, and to soothe his suffering by a\nsympathy which would have been a mixture of pity and admiration.\u201d\n\nWas it that all the while Amiel felt himself sure of his _revanche_\nthat he knew the value of all those sheets of Journal which were slowly\naccumulating under his hand? Did he say to himself sometimes: \u201cMy\nfriends are wrong; my gifts and my knowledge are not lost; I have given\nexpression to them in the only way possible to me, and when I die\nit will be found that I too, like other men, have performed the task\nappointed me, and contributed my quota to the human store?\u201d It is clear\nthat very early he began to regard it as possible that portions of the\nJournal should be published after his death, and, as we have seen, he\nleft certain \u201cliterary instructions,\u201d dated seven years before his last\nillness, in which his executors were directed to publish such parts\nof it as might seem to them to possess any general interest. But it\nis clear also that the Journal was not, in any sense, written for\npublication. \u201cThese pages,\u201d say the Geneva editors, \u201cwritten _au courant\nde la plume_--sometimes in the morning, but more often at the end of\nthe day, without any idea of composition or publicity--are marked by the\nrepetition, the _lacunae_, the carelessness, inherent in this kind of\nmonologue. The thoughts and sentiments expressed have no other aim than\nsincerity of rendering.\u201d\n\nAnd his estimate of the value of the record thus produced was, in\ngeneral, a low one, especially during the depression and discouragement\nof his later years. \u201cThis Journal of mine,\u201d he writes in 1876,\n\u201crepresents the material of a good many volumes; what prodigious waste\nof time, of thought, of strength! It will be useful to nobody, and even\nfor myself--it has rather helped me to shirk life than to practice\nit.\u201d And again: \u201cIs everything I have produced, taken together--my\ncorrespondence, these thousands of Journal pages, my lectures, my\narticles, my poems, my notes of different kinds--anything better than\nwithered leaves? To whom and to what have I been useful? Will my name\nsurvive me a single day, and will it ever mean anything to anybody? A\nlife of no account! When all is added up--nothing!\u201d In passages like\nthese there is no anticipation of any posthumous triumph over the\ndisapproval of his friends and the criticism of his fellow-citizens. The\nJournal was a relief, the means of satisfying a need of expression which\notherwise could find no outlet; \u201ca grief-cheating device,\u201d but nothing\nmore. It did not still the sense of remorse for wasted gifts and\nopportunities which followed poor Amiel through the painful months of\nhis last illness. Like Keats, he passed away, feeling that all was over,\nand the great game of life lost forever.\n\nIt still remains for us to gather up a few facts and impressions of\na different kind from those which we have been dwelling on, which may\nserve to complete and correct the picture we have so far drawn of\nthe author of the Journal. For Amiel is full of contradictions and\nsurprises, which, are indeed one great source of his attractiveness.\nHad he only been the thinker, the critic, the idealist we have been\ndescribing, he would never have touched our feeling as he now does; what\nmakes him so interesting is that there was in him a _fond_ of heredity,\na temperament and disposition, which were perpetually reacting against\nthe oppression of the intellect and its accumulations. In his hours of\nintellectual concentration he freed himself from all trammels of country\nor society, or even, as he insists, from all sense of personality.\nBut at other times he was the dutiful son of a country which he loved,\ntaking a warm interest in everything Genevese, especially in everything\nthat represented the older life of the town. When it was a question of\nseparating the Genevese state from the church, which had been the center\nof the national life during three centuries of honorable history, Amiel\nthe philosopher, the cosmopolitan, threw himself ardently on to the side\nof the opponents of separation, and rejoiced in their victory. A large\nproportion of his poems deal with national subjects. He was one of the\nfirst members of \u201c_L\u2019Institut Genevois_,\u201d founded in 1853, and he took a\nwarm interest in the movement started by M. Eugene Rambert toward 1870,\nfor the improvement of secondary education throughout French-speaking\nSwitzerland. One of his friends dwells with emphasis on his \u201c_sens\nprofond des nationalit\u00e9s, des langues, des villes_\u201d--on his love for\nlocal characteristics, for everything deep-rooted in the past, and\nhelping to sustain the present. He is convinced that no state can live\nand thrive without a certain number of national prejudices, without _\u00e0\npriori_ beliefs and traditions. It pleases him to see that there is a\nforce in the Genevese nationality which resists the leveling influences\nof a crude radicalism; it rejoices him that Geneva \u201chas not yet become\na mere copy of anything, and that she is still capable of deciding for\nherself. Those who say to her, \u2018Do as they do at New York, at Paris,\nat Rome, at Berlin,\u2019 are still in the minority. The _doctrinaires_ who\nwould split her up and destroy her unity waste their breath upon her.\nShe divines the snare laid for her, and turns away. I like this proof of\nvitality.\u201d\n\nHis love of traveling never left him. Paris attracted him, as it\nattracts all who cling to letters, and he gained at one time or another\na certain amount of acquaintance with French literary men. In 1852\nwe find him for a time brought into contact with Thierry, Lamennais,\nB\u00e9ranger, Mignet, etc., as well as with Romantics like Alfred de Vigny\nand Th\u00e9ophile Gautier. There are poems addressed to De Vigny and Gautier\nin his first published volume of 1854. He revisited Italy and his old\nhaunts and friends in Germany more than once, and in general kept the\ncurrent of his life fresh and vigorous by his openness to impressions\nand additions from without.\n\nHe was, as we have said, a delightful correspondent, \u201ctaking pains with\nthe smallest note,\u201d and within a small circle of friends much liked.\nHis was not a nature to be generally appreciated at its true value;\nthe motives which governed his life were too remote from the ordinary\nmotives of human conduct, and his characteristics just those which have\nalways excited the distrust, if not the scorn, of the more practical\nand vigorous order of minds. Probably, too--especially in his\nlater years--there was a certain amount of self-consciousness and\nartificiality in his attitude toward the outer world, which was the\nresult partly of the social difficulties we have described, partly of\nhis own sense of difference from his surroundings, and partly again of\nthat timidity of nature, that self-distrust, which is revealed to us in\nthe Journal. So that he was by no means generally popular, and the great\nsuccess of the Journal is still a mystery to the majority of those who\nknew him merely as a fellow-citizen and acquaintance. But his friends\nloved him and believed in him, and the reserved student, whose manners\nwere thought affected in general society, could and did make himself\ndelightful to those who understood him, or those who looked to him for\naffection. \u201cAccording to my remembrance of him,\u201d writes M. Scherer, \u201che\nwas bright, sociable, a charming companion. Others who knew him\nbetter and longer than I say the same. The mobility of his disposition\ncounteracted his tendency to exaggerations of feeling. In spite of his\nfits of melancholy, his natural turn of mind was cheerful; up to the\nend he was young, a child even, amused by mere nothings; and whoever had\nheard him laugh his hearty student\u2019s laugh would have found it difficult\nto identify him with the author of so many somber pages.\u201d M. Rivier,\nhis old pupil, remembers him as \u201cstrong and active, still handsome,\ndelightful in conversation, ready to amuse and be amused.\u201d Indeed, if\nthe photographs of him are to be trusted, there must have been something\nspecially attractive in the sensitive, expressive face, with its lofty\nbrow, fine eyes, and kindly mouth. It is the face of a poet rather than\nof a student, and makes one understand certain other little points which\nhis friends lay stress on--for instance, his love for and popularity\nwith children.\n\nIn his poems, or at any rate in the earlier ones, this lighter side\nfinds more expression, proportionally, than in the Journal. In the\nvolume called \u201cGrains de Mil,\u201d published in 1854, and containing\nverse written between the ages of eighteen and thirty, there are poems\naddressed, now to his sister, now to old Genevese friends, and now to\nfamous men of other countries whom he had seen and made friends with\nin passing, which, read side by side with the \u201cJournal Intime,\u201d bring\na certain gleam and sparkle into an otherwise somber picture. Amiel was\nnever a master of poetical form; his verse, compared to his prose, is\ntame and fettered; it never reaches the glow and splendor of expression\nwhich mark the finest passages of the Journal. It has ability,\nthought--beauty even, of a certain kind, but no plastic power, none of\nthe incommunicable magic which a George Eliot seeks for in vain, while\nit comes unasked, to deck with imperishable charm the commonplace\nmetaphysic and the simpler emotions of a Tennyson or a Burns. Still as\nAmiel\u2019s work, his poetry has an interest for those who are interested in\nhim. Sincerity is written in every line of it. Most of the thoughts and\nexperiences with which one grows familiar in the Journal are repeated\nin it; the same joys, the same aspirations, the same sorrows are visible\nthroughout it, so that in reading it one is more and more impressed\nwith the force and reality of the inner life which has left behind it\nso definite an image of itself. And every now and then the poems add a\ndetail, a new impression, which seems by contrast to give fresh value\nto the fine-spun speculations, the lofty despairs, of the Journal. Take\nthese verses, written at twenty-one, to his younger sister:\n\n  \u201cTreize ans! et sur ton front aucun baiser de m\u00e8re\n  Ne viendra, pauvre enfant, invoquer le bonheur;\n  Treize ans! et dans ce jour mil regard de ton p\u00e8re\n  Ne fera d\u2019all\u00e9gresse \u00e9panouir ton coeur.\n\n  \u201cOrpheline, c\u2019est l\u00e0 le nom dont tu t\u2019appelles,\n  Oiseau n\u00e9 dans un nid que la foudre a bris\u00e9;\n  De la couv\u00e9e, h\u00e9las! seuls, trois petits, sans ailes\n  Furent lanc\u00e9s au vent, loin du reste \u00e9cras\u00e9.\n\n  \u201cEt, sem\u00e9s par l\u2019\u00e9clair sur les monts, dans les plaines,\n  Un m\u00eame toit encor n\u2019a pu les abriter,\n  Et du foyer natal, malgr\u00e9 leurs plaintes vaines\n  Dieu, peut-\u00eatre longtemps, voudra les \u00e9carter.\n\n  \u201cPourtant console-toi! pense, dans tes alarmes,\n  Qu\u2019un double bien te reste, espoir et souvenir;\n  Une main dans le ciel pour essuyer tes larmes;\n  Une main ici-bas, enfant, pour te b\u00e9nir.\u201d\n\nThe last stanza is especially poor, and in none of them is there much\npoetical promise. But the pathetic image of a forlorn and orphaned\nchildhood, \u201c_un nid que la foudre a bris\u00e9_,\u201d which it calls up, and the\ntone of brotherly affection, linger in one\u2019s memory. And through much\nof the volume of 1863, in the verses to \u201cMy Godson,\u201d or in the charming\npoem to Loulou, the little girl who at five years old, daisy in hand,\nhad sworn him eternal friendship over Gretchen\u2019s game of \u201c_Er liebt\nmich--liebt mich nicht_,\u201d one hears the same tender note.\n\n  \u201cMerci, proph\u00e9tique fleurette,\n  Corolle \u00e0 l\u2019oracle vainqueur,\n  Car voil\u00e0 trois ans, paquerette,\n  Que tu m\u2019ouvris un petit coeur.\n\n  \u201cEt depuis trois hivers, ma belle,\n  L\u2019enfant aux grands yeux de velours\n  Maintient son petit coeur fid\u00e8le,\n  Fid\u00e8le comme aux premiers jours.\u201d\n\nHis last poetical volume, \u201cJour \u00e0 Jour,\u201d published in 1880, is far\nmore uniformly melancholy and didactic in tone than the two earlier\ncollections from which we have been quoting. But though the dominant\nnote is one of pain and austerity, of philosophy touched with emotion,\nand the general tone more purely introspective, there are many traces in\nit of the younger Amiel, dear, for very ordinary human reasons, to his\nsisters and his friends. And, in general, the pathetic interest of the\nbook for all whose sympathy answers to what George Sand calls \u201c_les\ntrag\u00e9dies que la pens\u00e9e aper\u00e7oit et que l\u2019oeil ne voit point_\u201d is very\ngreat. Amiel published it a year before his death, and the struggle with\nfailing power which the Journal reveals to us in its saddest and most\nintimate reality, is here expressed in more reserved and measured form.\nFaith, doubt, submission, tenderness of feeling, infinite aspiration,\nmoral passion, that straining hope of something beyond, which is the\nlife of the religious soul--they are all here, and the _Dernier Mot_\nwith which the sad little volume ends is poor Amiel\u2019s epitaph on\nhimself, his conscious farewell to that more public aspect of his life\nin which he had suffered much and achieved comparatively so little.\n\n  \u201cNous avons \u00e0 plaisir compliqu\u00e9 le bonheur,\n  Et par un id\u00e9al frivole et suborneur\n    Attach\u00e9 nos coeurs \u00e0 la terre;\n  Dupes des faux dehors tenus pour l\u2019important,\n  Mille choses pour nous ont du prix ... et pourtant\n    Une seule \u00e9tait n\u00e9cessaire.\n\n  \u201cSans fin nous prodiguons calculs, efforts, travaux;\n  Cependant, au milieu des succ\u00e8s, des bravos\n  En nous quelque chose soupire;\n  Multipliant nos pas et nos soins de fourmis,\n  Nous vondrions nous faire une foule d\u2019amis....\n       Pourtant un seul pouvait suffire.\n\n  \u201cVictime des d\u00e9sirs, esclave des regrets,\n  L\u2019homme s\u2019agite, et s\u2019use, et vieillit sans progr\u00e8s\n       Sur sa toile de P\u00e9n\u00e9lope;\n  Comme un sage mourant, puissions-nous dire en paix\n  J\u2019ai trop longtemps err\u00e9, cherch\u00e9; je me trompais;\n         Tout est bien, mon Dieu m\u2019enveloppe.\u201d\n\nUpon the small remains of Amiel\u2019s prose outside the Journal there is\nno occasion to dwell. The two essays on Madame de Sta\u00ebl and Rousseau\ncontain much fine critical remark, and might find a place perhaps as\nan appendix to some future edition of the Journal; and some of the\n\u201cPens\u00e9es,\u201d published in the latter half of the volume containing the\n\u201cGrains de Mils,\u201d are worthy of preservation. But in general, whatever\nhe himself published was inferior to what might justly have been\nexpected of him, and no one was more conscious of the fact than himself.\n\nThe story of his fatal illness, of the weary struggle for health which\nfilled the last seven years of his life, is abundantly told in the\nJournal--we must not repeat it here. He had never been a strong man, and\nat fifty-three he received, at his doctor\u2019s hands, his _arr\u00eat de mort_.\nWe are told that what killed him was \u201cheart disease, complicated by\ndisease of the larynx,\u201d and that he suffered \u201cmuch and long.\u201d He was\nburied in the cemetery of Clarens, not far from his great contemporary\nAlexander Vinet; and the affection of a sculptor friend provided the\nmonument which now marks his resting-place.\n\nWe have thus exhausted all the biographical material which is at present\navailable for the description of Amiel\u2019s life and relations toward the\noutside world. It is to be hoped that the friends to whom the charge of\nhis memory has been specially committed may see their way in the\nfuture, if not to a formal biography, which is very likely better left\nunattempted, at least to a volume of Letters, which would complete the\n\u201cJournal Intime,\u201d as Joubert\u2019s \u201cCorrespondence\u201d completes the \u201cPens\u00e9es.\u201d\n There must be ample material for it; and Amiel\u2019s letters would probably\nsupply us with more of that literary and critical reflection which his\nmind produced so freely and so well, as long as there was no question\nof publication, but which is at present somewhat overweighted in the\n\u201cJournal Intime.\u201d\n\nBut whether biography or correspondence is ever forthcoming or not, the\nJournal remains--and the Journal is the important matter. We shall read\nthe Letters if they appear, as we now read the Poems, for the Journal\u2019s\nsake. The man himself, as poet, teacher, and _litt\u00e9rateur_, produced no\nappreciable effect on his generation; but the posthumous record of his\ninner life has stirred the hearts of readers all over Europe, and won\nhim a niche in the House of Fame. What are the reasons for this striking\ntransformation of a man\u2019s position--a transformation which, as M.\nScherer says, will rank among the curiosities of literary history?\nIn other words, what has given the \u201cJournal Intime\u201d its sudden and\nunexpected success?\n\nIn the first place, no doubt, its poetical quality, its beauty of\nmanner--that fine literary expression in which Amiel has been able to\nclothe the subtler processes of thought, no less than the secrets of\nreligious feeling, or the aspects of natural scenery. Style is what\ngives value and currency to thought, and Amiel, in spite of all his\nGermanisms, has style of the best kind. He possesses in prose that\nindispensable magic which he lacks in poetry.\n\nHis style, indeed, is by no means always in harmony with the central\nFrench tradition. Probably a Frenchman will be inclined to apply\nSainte-Beuve\u2019s remarks on Amiel\u2019s elder countryman, Rodolphe T\u00f6pffer, to\nAmiel himself: \u201c_C\u2019est ainsi qu\u2019on \u00e9crit dans les litt\u00e9ratures qui n\u2019ont\npoint de capitale, de quartier g\u00e9n\u00e9ral classique, ou d\u2019Acad\u00e9mie; c\u2019est\nainsi qu\u2019un Allemand, qu\u2019un Am\u00e9ricain, ou m\u00eame un Anglais, use \u00e0 son gr\u00e9\nde sa langue. En France au contraire, o\u00f9 il y a une Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise\n... on doit trouver qu\u2019un tel style est une tr\u00e8s-grande nouveaut\u00e9 et le\nsucc\u00e9s qu\u2019il a obtenu un ev\u00e8nement: il a fallu bien des circonstances\npour y pr\u00e9parer_.\u201d No doubt the preparatory circumstance in Amiel\u2019s case\nhas been just that Germanization of the French mind on which M. Taine\nand M. Bourget dwell with so much emphasis. But, be this as it may,\nthere is no mistaking the enthusiasm with which some of the best living\nwriters of French have hailed these pages--instinct, as one declares,\n\u201cwith a strange and marvelous poetry;\u201d full of phrases \u201c_d\u2019une intense\nsuggestion de beaut\u00e9_;\u201d according to another. Not that the whole of the\nJournal flows with the same ease, the same felicity. There are a certain\nnumber of passages where Amiel ceases to be the writer, and becomes the\ntechnical philosopher; there are others, though not many, into which a\ncertain German heaviness and diffuseness has crept, dulling the edge of\nthe sentences, and retarding the development of the thought. When all\ndeductions have been made, however, Amiel\u2019s claim is still first and\nforemost, the claim of the poet and the artist; of the man whose\nthought uses at will the harmonies and resources of speech, and who has\nattained, in words of his own, \u201cto the full and masterly expression of\nhimself.\u201d\n\nThen to the poetical beauty of manner which first helped the book\nto penetrate, _faire sa trou\u00e9e_, as the French say, we must add its\nextraordinary psychological interest. Both as poet and as psychologist,\nAmiel makes another link in a special tradition; he adds another name\nto the list of those who have won a hearing from their fellows as\ninterpreters of the inner life, as the revealers of man to himself.\nHe is the successor of St. Augustine and Dante; he is the brother of\nObermann and Maurice de Gu\u00e9rin. What others have done for the spiritual\nlife of other generations he has done for the spiritual life of this,\nand the wealth of poetical, scientific, and psychological faculty which\nhe has brought to the analysis of human feeling and human perceptions\nplaces him--so far as the present century is concerned--at the head of\nthe small and delicately-gifted class to which he belongs. For beside\nhis spiritual experience Obermann\u2019s is superficial, and Maurice de\nGu\u00e9rin\u2019s a passing trouble, a mere quick outburst of passionate feeling.\nAmiel indeed has neither the continuous romantic beauty nor the rich\ndescriptive wealth of Senancour. The Dent du Midi, with its untrodden\nsolitude, its primeval silences and its hovering eagles, the Swiss\nlandscape described in the \u201cFragment on the Ranz des Vaches,\u201d the summer\nmoonlight on the Lake of Neufch\u00e2tel--these various pictures are the\nwork of one of the most finished artists in words that literature has\nproduced. But how true George Sand\u2019s criticism is! \u201c_Chez Obermann la\nsensibilit\u00e9 est active, l\u2019intelligence est paresseuse ou insuffisante._\u201d\n He has a certain antique power of making the truisms of life splendid\nand impressive. No one can write more poetical exercises than he on the\nold text of _pulvis et umbra sumus_, but beyond this his philosophical\npower fails him. As soon as he leaves the region of romantic description\nhow wearisome the pages are apt to grow! Instead of a poet, \u201c_un\nergoteur Voltairien_;\u201d instead of the explorer of fresh secrets of the\nheart, a Parisian talking a cheap cynicism! Intellectually, the ground\ngives way; there is no solidity of knowledge, no range of thought. Above\nall, the scientific idea in our sense is almost absent; so that while\nAmiel represents the modern mind at its keenest and best, dealing at\nwill with the vast additions to knowledge which the last fifty years\nhave brought forth, Senancour is still in the eighteenth-century stage,\ntalking like Rousseau of a return to primitive manners, and discussing\nChristianity in the tone of the \u201cEncyclop\u00e9die.\u201d\n\nMaurice de Gu\u00e9rin, again, is the inventor of new terms in the language\nof feeling, a poet as Amiel and Senancour are. His love of nature, the\nearth-passion which breathes in his letters and journal, has a strange\nsavor, a force and flame which is all his own. Beside his actual sense\nof community with the visible world, Amiel\u2019s love of landscape has a\ntame, didactic air. The Swiss thinker is too ready to make nature a mere\nvehicle of moral or philosophical thought; Maurice de Gu\u00e9rin loves her\nfor herself alone, and has found words to describe her influence over\nhim of extraordinary individuality and power. But for the rest the story\nof his inner life has but small value in the history of thought. His\ndifficulties do not go deep enough; his struggle is intellectually not\nserious enough--we see in it only a common incident of modern experience\npoetically told; it throws no light on the genesis and progress of\nthe great forces which are molding and renovating the thought of the\npresent--it tells us nothing for the future.\n\nNo--there is much more in the \u201cJournal Intime\u201d than the imagination or\nthe poetical glow which Amiel shares with his immediate predecessors\nin the art of confession-writing. His book is representative of human\nexperience in its more intimate and personal forms to an extent hardly\nequaled since Rousseau. For his study of himself is only a means to an\nend. \u201cWhat interests me in myself,\u201d he declares, \u201cis that I find in my\nown case a genuine example of human nature, and therefore a specimen of\ngeneral value.\u201d It is the human consciousness of to-day, of the modern\nworld, in its two-fold relation--its relation toward the infinite and\nthe unknowable, and its relation toward the visible universe which\nconditions it--which is the real subject of the \u201cJournal Intime.\u201d There\nare few elements of our present life which, in a greater or less degree,\nare not made vocal in these pages. Amiel\u2019s intellectual interest is\nuntiring. Philosophy, science, letters, art--he has penetrated the\nspirit of them all; there is nothing, or almost nothing, within the wide\nrange of modern activities which he has not at one time or other felt\nthe attraction of, and learned in some sense to understand. \u201cAmiel,\u201d\n says M. Renan, \u201chas his defects, but he was certainly one of the\nstrongest speculative heads who, during the period from 1845 to 1880,\nhave reflected on the nature of things.\u201d And, although a certain fatal\nspiritual weakness debarred him to a great extent from the world of\npractical life, his sympathy with action, whether it was the action\nof the politician or the social reformer, or merely that steady\nhalf-conscious performance of its daily duty which keeps humanity\nsweet and living, was unfailing. His horizon was not bounded by his own\n\u201cprison-cell,\u201d or by that dream-world which he has described with so\nmuch subtle beauty; rather the energies which should have found their\nnatural expression in literary or family life, pent up within the mind\nitself, excited in it a perpetual eagerness for intellectual discovery,\nand new powers of sympathy with whatever crossed its field of vision.\n\nSo that the thinker, the historian, the critic, will find himself at\nhome with Amiel. The power of organizing his thought, the art of writing\na book, _monumentum aere perennius_, was indeed denied him--he\nlaments it bitterly; but, on the other hand, he is receptivity itself,\nresponsive to all the great forces which move the time, catching and\nreflecting on the mobile mirror of his mind whatever winds are blowing\nfrom the hills of thought.\n\nAnd if the thinker is at home with him, so too are the religious minds,\nthe natures for whom God and duty are the foundation of existence. Here,\nindeed, we come to the innermost secret of Amiel\u2019s charm, the fact which\nprobably goes farther than any other to explain his fascination for a\nlarge and growing class of readers. For, while he represents all the\nintellectual complexities of a time bewildered by the range and number\nof its own acquisitions, the religious instinct in him is as strong\nand tenacious as in any of the representative exponents of the life of\nfaith. The intellect is clear and unwavering; but the heart clings to\nold traditions, and steadies itself on the rock of duty. His Calvinistic\ntraining lingers long in him; and what detaches him from the Hegelian\nschool, with which he has much in common, is his own stronger sense of\npersonal need, his preoccupation with the idea of \u201csin.\u201d \u201cHe speaks,\u201d\n says M. Renan contemptuously, \u201cof sin, of salvation, of redemption, and\nconversion, as if these things were realities. He asks me \u2018What does M.\nRenan make of sin?\u2019 _Eh bien, je crois que je le supprime_.\u201d But it is\njust because Amiel is profoundly sensitive to the problems of evil and\nresponsibility, and M. Renan dismisses them with this half-tolerant,\nhalf-skeptical smile, that M. Renan\u2019s \u201cSouvenirs\u201d inform and entertain\nus, while the \u201cJournal Intime\u201d makes a deep impression on that moral\nsense which is at the root of individual and national life.\n\nThe Journal is full, indeed, of this note of personal religion.\nReligion, Amiel declares again and again, cannot be replaced by\nphilosophy. The redemption of the intelligence is not the redemption of\nthe heart. The philosopher and critic may succeed in demonstrating that\nthe various definite forms into which the religious thought of man has\nthrown itself throughout history are not absolute truth, but only the\ntemporary creations of a need which gradually and surely outgrows them\nall. \u201cThe Trinity, the life to come, paradise and hell, may cease to\nbe dogmas and spiritual realities, the form and the letter may vanish\naway--the question of humanity remains: What is it which saves?\u201d Amiel\u2019s\nanswer to the question will recall to a wide English circle the method\nand spirit of an English teacher, whose dear memory lives to-day in many\na heart, and is guiding many an effort in the cause of good--the method\nand spirit of the late Professor Green of Balliol. In many respects\nthere was a gulf of difference between the two men. The one had all the\nwill and force of personality which the other lacked. But the ultimate\ncreed of both, the way in which both interpret the facts of nature and\nconsciousness, is practically the same. In Amiel\u2019s case, we have to\ngather it through all the variations and inevitable contradictions of a\nJournal which is the reflection of a life, not the systematic expression\nof a series of ideas, but the main results are clear enough. Man is\nsaved by love and duty, and by the hope which springs from duty, or\nrather from the moral facts of consciousness, as a flower springs from\nthe soil. Conscience and the moral progress of the race--these are his\npoints of departure. Faith in the reality of the moral law is what he\nclings to when his inherited creed has yielded to the pressure of the\nintellect, and after all the storms of pessimism and necessitarianism\nhave passed over him. The reconciliation of the two certitudes, the two\nmethods, the scientific and the religious, \u201cis to be sought for in that\nmoral law which is also a fact, and every step of which requires for its\nexplanation another cosmos than the cosmos of necessity.\u201d \u201cNature is the\nvirtuality of mind, the soul the fruit of life, and liberty the flower\nof necessity.\u201d Consciousness is the one fixed point in this boundless\nand bottomless gulf of things, and the soul\u2019s inward law, as it has been\npainfully elaborated by human history, the only revelation of God.\n\nThe only but the sufficient revelation! For this first article of a\nreasonable creed is the key to all else--the clue which leads the mind\nsafely through the labyrinth of doubt into the presence of the Eternal.\nWithout attempting to define the indefinable, the soul rises from the\nbelief in the reality of love and duty to the belief in \u201ca holy will at\nthe root of nature and destiny\u201d--for \u201cif man is capable of conceiving\ngoodness, the general principle of things, which cannot be inferior to\nman, must be good.\u201d And then the religious consciousness seizes on this\nintellectual deduction, and clothes it in language of the heart, in\nthe tender and beautiful language of faith. \u201cThere is but one thing\nneedful--to possess God. All our senses, all our powers of mind and\nsoul, are so many ways of approaching the Divine, so many modes of\ntasting and adoring God. Religion is not a method; it is a life--a\nhigher and supernatural life, mystical in its root and practical in its\nfruits; a communion with God, a calm and deep enthusiasm, a love which\nradiates, a force which acts, a happiness which overflows.\u201d And the\nfaith of his youth and his maturity bears the shock of suffering, and\nsupports him through his last hours. He writes a few months before the\nend: \u201cThe animal expires; man surrenders his soul to the author of the\nsoul.\u201d ... \u201cWe dream alone, we suffer alone, we die alone, we inhabit\nthe last resting-place alone. But there is nothing to prevent us from\nopening our solitude to God. And so what was an austere monologue\nbecomes dialogue, reluctance becomes docility, renunciation passes into\npeace, and the sense of painful defeat is lost in the sense of recovered\nliberty\u201d--_\u201cTout est bien, mon Dieu m\u2019enveloppe.\u201d_\n\nNor is this all. It is not only that Amiel\u2019s inmost thought and\naffections are stayed on this conception of \u201ca holy will at the root of\nnature and destiny\u201d--in a certain very real sense he is a Christian. No\none is more sensitive than he to the contribution which Christianity has\nmade to the religious wealth of mankind; no one more penetrated than he\nwith the truth of its essential doctrine \u201cdeath unto sin and a new\nbirth unto righteousness.\u201d \u201cThe religion of sin, of repentance and\nreconciliation,\u201d he cries, \u201cthe religion of the new birth and of\neternal life, is not a religion to be ashamed of.\u201d The world has\nfound inspiration and guidance for eighteen centuries in the religious\nconsciousness of Jesus. \u201cThe gospel has modified the world and consoled\nmankind,\u201d and so \u201cwe may hold aloof from the churches and yet bow\nourselves before Jesus. We may be suspicious of the clergy and refuse to\nhave anything to do with catechisms, and yet love the Holy and the Just\nwho came to save and not to curse.\u201d And in fact Amiel\u2019s whole life and\nthought are steeped in Christianity. He is the spiritual descendant of\none of the intensest and most individual forms of Christian belief,\nand traces of his religious ancestry are visible in him at every step.\nProtestantism of the sincerer and nobler kind leaves an indelible\nimpression on the nature which has once surrounded itself to the austere\nand penetrating influences flowing from the religion of sin and grace;\nand so far as feeling and temperament are concerned, Amiel retained\nthroughout his life the marks of Calvinism and Geneva.\n\nAnd yet how clear the intellect remains, through all the anxieties\nof thought, and in the face of the soul\u2019s dearest memories and most\npassionate needs! Amiel, as soon as his reasoning faculty has once\nreached its maturity, never deceives himself as to the special claims\nof the religion which by instinct and inheritance he loves; he makes\nno compromise with dogma or with miracle. Beyond the religions of the\npresent he sees always the essential religion which lasts when all local\nforms and marvels have passed away; and as years go on, with more and\nmore clearness of conviction, he learns to regard all special beliefs\nand systems as \u201cprejudices, useful in practice, but still narrownesses\nof the mind;\u201d misgrowths of thought, necessary in their time and place,\nbut still of no absolute value, and having no final claim on the thought\nof man.\n\nAnd it is just here--in this mixture of the faith which clings and\naspires, with the intellectual pliancy which allows the mind to sway\nfreely under the pressure of life and experience, and the deep respect\nfor truth, which will allow nothing to interfere between thought and\nits appointed tasks--that Amiel\u2019s special claim upon us lies. It is this\nbalance of forces in him which makes him so widely representative of the\nmodern mind--of its doubts, its convictions, its hopes. He speaks for\nthe life of to-day as no other single voice has yet spoken for it; in\nhis contradictions, his fears, his despairs, and yet in the constant\nstraining toward the unseen and the ideal which gives a fundamental\nunity to his inner life, he is the type of a generation universally\ntouched with doubt, and yet as sensitive to the need of faith as any\nthat have gone before it; more widely conscious than its predecessors\nof the limitations of the human mind, and of the iron pressure of man\u2019s\nphysical environment; but at the same time--paradox as it may seem--more\nconscious of man\u2019s greatness, more deeply thrilled by the spectacle of\nthe nobility and beauty interwoven with the universe.\n\nAnd he plays this part of his so modestly, with so much hesitation,\nso much doubt of his thought and of himself! He is no preacher, like\nEmerson and Carlyle, with whom, as poet and idealist, he has so much in\ncommon; there is little resemblance between him and the men who\nspeak, as it were, from a height to the crowd beneath, sure always of\nthemselves and what they have to say. And here again he represents the\npresent and foreshadows the future. For the age of the preachers is\npassing those who speak with authority on the riddles of life and nature\nas the priests of this or that all-explaining dogma, are becoming less\nimportant as knowledge spreads, and the complexity of experience is made\nevident to a wider range of minds. The force of things is against _the\ncertain people_. Again and again truth escapes from the prisons made for\nher by mortal hands, and as humanity carries on the endless pursuit she\nwill pay more and more respectful heed to voices like this voice of the\nlonely Genevese thinker--with its pathetic alterations of hope and fear,\nand the moral steadfastness which is the inmost note of it--to these\nmeditative lives, which, through all the ebb and flow of thought, and in\nthe dim ways of doubt and suffering, rich in knowledge, and yet rich in\nfaith, grasp in new forms, and proclaim to us in new words,\n\n  \u201cThe mighty hopes which make us men.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nAMIEL\u2019S JOURNAL.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Where no other name is mentioned, Geneva is to be understood as the\nauthor\u2019s place of residence.]\n\nBERLIN, July 16. 1848.--There is but one thing needful--to possess\nGod. All our senses, all our powers of mind and soul, all our external\nresources, are so many ways of approaching the divinity, so many modes\nof tasting and of adoring God. We must learn to detach ourselves from\nall that is capable of being lost, to bind ourselves absolutely only\nto what is absolute and eternal, and to enjoy the rest as a loan, a\nusufruct.... To adore, to understand, to receive, to feel, to give, to\nact: there is my law my duty, my happiness, my heaven. Let come what\ncome will--even death. Only be at peace with self, live in the presence\nof God, in communion with Him, and leave the guidance of existence to\nthose universal powers against whom thou canst do nothing! If death\ngives me time, so much the better. If its summons is near, so much the\nbetter still; if a half-death overtake me, still so much the better,\nfor so the path of success is closed to me only that I may find opening\nbefore me the path of heroism, of moral greatness and resignation. Every\nlife has its potentiality of greatness, and as it is impossible to be\noutside God, the best is consciously to dwell in Him.\n\nBERLIN, July 20, 1848.--It gives liberty and breadth to thought,\nto learn to judge our own epoch from the point of view of universal\nhistory, history from the point of view of geological periods, geology\nfrom the point of view of astronomy. When the duration of a man\u2019s life\nor of a people\u2019s life appears to us as microscopic as that of a fly and\ninversely, the life of a gnat as infinite as that of a celestial body,\nwith all its dust of nations, we feel ourselves at once very small and\nvery great, and we are able, as it were, to survey from the height of\nthe spheres our own existence, and the little whirlwinds which agitate\nour little Europe.\n\nAt bottom there is but one subject of study: the forms and metamorphoses\nof mind. All other subjects may be reduced to that; all other studies\nbring us back to this study.\n\nGENEVA, April 20, 1849.--It is six years [Footnote: Amiel left Geneva\nfor Paris and Berlin in April, 1848, the preceding year, 1841-42, having\nbeen spent in Italy and Sicily.] to-day since I last left Geneva. How\nmany journeys, how many impressions, observations, thoughts, how many\nforms of men and things have since then passed before me and in me! The\nlast seven years have been the most important of my life: they have been\nthe novitiate of my intelligence, the initiation of my being into being.\n\nThree snowstorms this afternoon. Poor blossoming plum-trees and peach\ntrees! What a difference from six years ago, when the cherry-trees,\nadorned in their green spring dress and laden with their bridal flowers,\nsmiled at my departure along the Vaudois fields, and the lilacs of\nBurgundy threw great gusts of perfume into my face!...\n\nMay 3, 1849.--I have never felt any inward assurance of genius, or\nany presentiment of glory or of happiness. I have never seen myself in\nimagination great or famous, or even a husband, a father, an influential\ncitizen. This indifference to the future, this absolute self-distrust,\nare, no doubt, to be taken as signs. What dreams I have are all vague\nand indefinite; I ought not to live, for I am now scarcely capable\nof living. Recognize your place; let the living live; and you, gather\ntogether your thoughts, leave behind you a legacy of feeling and ideas;\nyou will be most useful so. Renounce yourself, accept the cup given\nyou, with its honey and its gall, as it comes. Bring God down into your\nheart. Embalm your soul in Him now, make within you a temple for the\nHoly Spirit, be diligent in good works, make others happier and better.\n\nPut personal ambition away from you, and then you will find consolation\nin living or in dying, whatever may happen to you.\n\nMay 27, 1849.--To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is\nthe cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and\nmelancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand; it\nis the cruelest trial reserved for self-devotion; it is what must have\noftenest wrung the heart of the Son of man; and if God could suffer, it\nwould be the wound we should be forever inflicting upon Him. He also--He\nabove all--is the great misunderstood, the least comprehended. Alas!\nalas! never to tire, never to grow cold; to be patient, sympathetic,\ntender; to look for the budding flower and the opening heart; to hope\nalways, like God; to love always--this is duty.\n\nJune 3, 1849.--Fresh and delicious weather. A long morning walk.\nSurprised the hawthorn and wild rose-trees in flower. From the fields\nvague and health-giving scents. The Voirons fringed with dazzling mists,\nand tints of exquisite softness over the Sal\u00e8ve. Work in the fields, two\ndelightful donkeys, one pulling greedily at a hedge of barberry. Then\nthree little children. I felt a boundless desire to caress and play\nwith them. To be able to enjoy such leisure, these peaceful fields, fine\nweather, contentment; to have my two sisters with me; to rest my eyes on\nbalmy meadows and blossoming orchards; to listen to the life singing in\nthe grass and on the trees; to be so calmly happy--is it not too much?\nis it deserved? O let me enjoy it with gratitude. The days of trouble\ncome soon enough and are many enough. I have no presentiment of\nhappiness. All the more let me profit by the present. Come, kind nature,\nsmile and enchant me! Veil from me awhile my own griefs and those of\nothers; let me see only the folds of thy queenly mantle, and hide all\nmiserable and ignoble things from me under thy bounties and splendors!\n\nOctober 1, 1849.--Yesterday, Sunday, I read through and made extracts\nfrom the gospel of St. John. It confirmed me in my belief that about\nJesus we must believe no one but Himself, and that what we have to do\nis to discover the true image of the founder behind all the prismatic\nreactions through which it comes to us, and which alter it more or less.\nA ray of heavenly light traversing human life, the message of Christ\nhas been broken into a thousand rainbow colors and carried in a thousand\ndirections. It is the historical task of Christianity to assume\nwith every succeeding age a fresh metamorphosis, and to be forever\nspiritualizing more and more her understanding of the Christ and of\nsalvation.\n\nI am astounded at the incredible amount of Judaism and formalism which\nstill exists nineteen centuries after the Redeemer\u2019s proclamation,\n\u201cit is the letter which killeth\u201d--after his protest against a dead\nsymbolism. The new religion is so profound that it is not understood\neven now, and would seem a blasphemy to the greater number of\nChristians. The person of Christ is the center of it. Redemption,\neternal life, divinity, humanity, propitiation, incarnation, judgment,\nSatan, heaven and hell--all these beliefs have been so materialized and\ncoarsened, that with a strange irony they present to us the spectacle of\nthings having a profound meaning and yet carnally interpreted. Christian\nboldness and Christian liberty must be reconquered; it is the church\nwhich is heretical, the church whose sight is troubled and her heart\ntimid. Whether we will or no, there is an esoteric doctrine, there is a\nrelative revelation; each man enters into God so much as God enters\ninto him, or as Angelus, [Footnote: Angelus Silesius, otherwise Johannes\nSoheffler, the German seventeenth century hymn-writer, whose tender and\nmystical verses have been popularized in England by Miss Winkworth\u2019s\ntranslations in the _Lyra Germanica_.] I think, said, \u201cthe eye by which\nI see God is the same eye by which He sees me.\u201d\n\nChristianity, if it is to triumph over pantheism, must absorb it. To\nour pusillanimous eyes Jesus would have borne the marks of a hateful\npantheism, for he confirmed the Biblical phrase \u201cye are gods,\u201d and\nso would St. Paul, who tells us that we are of \u201cthe race of God.\u201d\n Our century wants a new theology--that is to say, a more profound\nexplanation of the nature of Christ and of the light which it flashes\nupon heaven and upon humanity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHeroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh--that is to\nsay, over fear: fear of poverty, of suffering, of calumny, of sickness,\nof isolation, and of death. There is no serious piety without heroism.\nHeroism is the dazzling and glorious concentration of courage.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDuty has the virtue of making us feel the reality of a positive world\nwhile at the same time detaching us from it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDecember 30, 1850.--The relation of thought to action filled my mind on\nwaking, and I found myself carried toward a bizarre formula, which seems\nto have something of the night still clinging about it: _Action is but\ncoarsened thought_; thought become concrete, obscure, and unconscious.\nIt seemed to me that our most trifling actions, of eating, walking, and\nsleeping, were the condensation of a multitude of truths and thoughts,\nand that the wealth of ideas involved was in direct proportion to the\ncommonness of the action (as our dreams are the more active, the deeper\nour sleep). We are hemmed round with mystery, and the greatest mysteries\nare contained in what we see and do every day. In all spontaneity the\nwork of creation is reproduced in analogy. When the spontaneity is\nunconscious, you have simple action; when it is conscious, intelligent\nand moral action. At bottom this is nothing more than the proposition of\nHegel: [\u201cWhat is rational is real; and what is real is rational;\u201d] but\nit had never seemed to me more evident, more palpable. Everything which\nis, is thought, but not conscious and individual thought. The human\nintelligence is but the consciousness of being. It is what I have\nformulated before: Everything is a symbol of a symbol, and a symbol of\nwhat? of mind.\n\n... I have just been looking through the complete works of Montesquieu,\nand cannot yet make plain to myself the impression left on me by\nthis singular style, with its mixture of gravity and affectation, of\ncarelessness and precision, of strength and delicacy; so full of sly\nintention for all its coldness, expressing at once inquisitiveness and\nindifference, abrupt, piecemeal, like notes thrown together haphazard,\nand yet deliberate. I seem to see an intelligence naturally grave and\naustere donning a dress of wit for convention\u2019s sake. The author desires\nto entertain as much as to teach, the thinker is also a _bel-esprit_,\nthe jurisconsult has a touch of the coxcomb, and a perfumed breath from\nthe temple of Venus has penetrated the tribunal of Minos. Here we have\nausterity, as the century understood it, in philosophy or religion. In\nMontesquieu, the art, if there is any, lies not in the words but in\nthe matter. The words run freely and lightly, but the thought is\nself-conscious.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEach bud flowers but once and each flower has but its minute of perfect\nbeauty; so, in the garden of the soul each feeling has, as it were,\nits flowering instant, its one and only moment of expansive grace and\nradiant kingship. Each star passes but once in the night through the\nmeridian over our heads and shines there but an instant; so, in the\nheaven of the mind each thought touches its zenith but once, and in that\nmoment all its brilliancy and all its greatness culminate. Artist,\npoet, or thinker, if you want to fix and immortalize your ideas or your\nfeelings, seize them at this precise and fleeting moment, for it is\ntheir highest point. Before it, you have but vague outlines or dim\npresentiments of them. After it you will have only weakened reminiscence\nor powerless regret; that moment is the moment of your ideal.\n\nSpite is anger which is afraid to show itself, it is an impotent fury\nconscious of its impotence.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNothing resembles pride so much as discouragement.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo repel one\u2019s cross is to make it heavier.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the conduct of life, habits count for more than maxims, because habit\nis a living maxim, becomes flesh and instinct. To reform one\u2019s maxims is\nnothing: it is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits\nis everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a\ntissue of habits.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFebruary 17, 1851.--I have been reading, for six or seven hours without\nstopping the _Pens\u00e9es_ of Joubert. I felt at first a very strong\nattraction toward the book, and a deep interest in it, but I have\nalready a good deal cooled down. These scattered and fragmentary\nthoughts, falling upon one without a pause, like drops of light, tire,\nnot my head, but reasoning power. The merits of Joubert consist in the\ngrace of the style, the vivacity or _finesse_ of the criticisms, the\ncharm of the metaphors; but he starts many more problems than he solves,\nhe notices and records more than he explains. His philosophy is\nmerely literary and popular; his originality is only in detail and\nin execution. Altogether, he is a writer of reflections rather than\na philosopher, a critic of remarkable gifts, endowed with exquisite\nsensibility, but, as an intelligence, destitute of the capacity for\nco-ordination. He wants concentration and continuity. It is not that he\nhas no claims to be considered a philosopher or an artist, but rather\nthat he is both imperfectly, for he thinks and writes marvelously, _on a\nsmall scale_. He is an entomologist, a lapidary, a jeweler, a coiner of\nsentences, of adages, of criticisms, of aphorisms, counsels, problems;\nand his book, extracted from the accumulations of his journal during\nfifty years of his life, is a collection of precious stones, of\nbutterflies, coins and engraved gems. The whole, however, is more subtle\nthan strong, more poetical than profound, and leaves upon the reader\nrather the impression of a great wealth of small curiosities of value,\nthan of a great intellectual existence and a new point of view.\nThe place of Joubert seems to me then, below and very far from the\nphilosophers and the true poets, but honorable among the moralists and\nthe critics. He is one of those men who are superior to their works, and\nwho have themselves the unity which these lack. This first judgment is,\nbesides, indiscriminate and severe. I shall have to modify it later.\n\nFebruary 20th.--I have almost finished these two volumes of _Pens\u00e9es_\nand the greater part of the _Correspondance_. This last has especially\ncharmed me; it is remarkable for grace, delicacy, atticism, and\nprecision. The chapters on metaphysics and philosophy are the most\ninsignificant. All that has to do with large views with the whole of\nthings, is very little at Joubert\u2019s command; he has no philosophy of\nhistory, no speculative intuition. He is the thinker of detail, and his\nproper field is psychology and matters of taste. In this sphere of the\nsubtleties and delicacies of imagination and feeling, within the circle\nof personal affectation and preoccupations, of social and educational\ninterests, he abounds in ingenuity and sagacity, in fine criticisms,\nin exquisite touches. It is like a bee going from flower to flower, a\nteasing, plundering, wayward zephyr, an Aeolian harp, a ray of furtive\nlight stealing through the leaves. Taken as a whole, there is something\nimpalpable and immaterial about him, which I will not venture to call\neffeminate, but which is scarcely manly. He wants bone and body: timid,\ndreamy, and _clairvoyant_, he hovers far above reality. He is rather a\nsoul, a breath, than a man. It is the mind of a woman in the character\nof a child, so that we feel for him less admiration than tenderness and\ngratitude.\n\nFebruary 27, 1851.--Read over the first book of _Emile_. I was revolted,\ncontrary to all expectation, for I opened the book with a sort of\nhunger for style and beauty. I was conscious instead of an impression of\nheaviness and harshness, of labored, _hammering_ emphasis, of something\nviolent, passionate, and obstinate, without serenity, greatness,\nnobility. Both the qualities and the defects of the book produced in\nme a sense of lack of good manners, a blaze of talent, but no grace, no\ndistinction, the accent of good company wanting. I understood how it is\nthat Rousseau rouses a particular kind of repugnance, the repugnance of\ngood taste, and I felt the danger to style involved in such a model\nas well as the danger to thought arising from a truth so alloyed and\nsophisticated. What there is of true and strong in Rousseau did not\nescape me, and I still admired him, but his bad sides appeared to me\nwith a clearness relatively new.\n\n(_Same day._)--The _pens\u00e9e_-writer is to the philosopher what the\n_dilettante_ is to the artist. He plays with thought, and makes it\nproduce a crowd of pretty things in detail, but he is more anxious about\ntruths than truth, and what is essential in thought, its sequence, its\nunity, escapes him. He handles his instrument agreeably, but he does\nnot possess it, still less does he create it. He is a gardener and not a\ngeologist; he cultivates the earth only so much as is necessary to make\nit produce for him flowers and fruits; he does not dig deep enough into\nit to understand it. In a word, the _pens\u00e9e_-writer deals with what is\nsuperficial and fragmentary. He is the literary, the oratorical,\nthe talking or writing philosopher; whereas the philosopher is the\nscientific _pens\u00e9e_-writer. The _pens\u00e9e_-writers serve to stimulate or\nto popularize the philosophers. They have thus a double use, besides\ntheir charm. They are the pioneers of the army of readers, the doctors\nof the crowd, the money-changers of thought, which they convert into\ncurrent coin. The writer of _pens\u00e9e_ is a man of letters, though of\na serious type, and therefore he is popular. The philosopher is a\nspecialist, as far as the form of his science goes, though not in\nsubstance, and therefore he can never become popular. In France, for one\nphilosopher (Descartes) there have been thirty writers of _pens\u00e9es_; in\nGermany, for ten such writers there have been twenty philosophers.\n\nMarch 25, 1851.--How many illustrious men whom I have known have been\nalready reaped by death, Steffens, Marheineke, Neander, Mendelssohn,\nThorwaldsen, Oelenschl\u00e4ger, Geijer, Tegner, Oersted, Stuhr, Lachmann;\nand with us, Sismondi, T\u00f6pffer, de Candolle, savants, artists, poets,\nmusicians, historians. [Footnote: Of these Marheineke, Neander, and\nLachmann had been lecturing at Berlin during Amiel\u2019s residence there.\nThe Danish dramatic poet Oelenschl\u00e4ger and the Swedish writer\nTegner were among the Scandinavian men of letters with whom he made\nacquaintance during his tour of Sweden and Denmark in 1845. He probably\ncame across the Swedish historian Geijer on the same occasion. Schelling\nand Alexander von Humboldt, mentioned a little lower down, were\nalso still holding sway at Berlin when he was a student. There is an\ninteresting description in one of his articles on Berlin, published in\nthe _Biblioth\u00e8que Universelle de Gen\u00e8ve_, of a university ceremonial\nthere in or about 1847, and of the effect produced on the student\u2019s\nyoung imagination by the sight of half the leaders of European research\ngathered into a single room. He saw Schlosser, the veteran historian, at\nHeidelberg at the end of 1843.] The old generation is going. What will\nthe new bring us? What shall we ourselves contribute? A few great old\nmen--Schelling, Alexander von Humboldt, Schlosser--still link us with\nthe glorious past. Who is preparing to bear the weight of the future?\nA shiver seizes us when the ranks grow thin around us, when age is\nstealing upon us, when we approach the zenith, and when destiny says to\nus: \u201cShow what is in thee! Now is the moment, now is the hour, else fall\nback into nothingness! It is thy turn! Give the world thy measure, say\nthy word, reveal thy nullity or thy capacity. Come forth from the shade!\nIt is no longer a question of promising, thou must perform. The time of\napprenticeship is over. Servant, show us what thou hast done with thy\ntalent. Speak now, or be silent forever.\u201d This appeal of the conscience\nis a solemn summons in the life of every man, solemn and awful as\nthe trumpet of the last judgment. It cries, \u201cArt thou ready? Give an\naccount. Give an account of thy years, thy leisure, thy strength, thy\nstudies, thy talent, and thy works. Now and here is the hour of great\nhearts, the hour of heroism and of genius.\u201d\n\nApril 6, 1851.--Was there ever any one so vulnerable as I? If I were\na father how many griefs and vexations, a child might cause me. As a\nhusband I should have a thousand ways of suffering because my happiness\ndemands a thousand conditions I have a heart too easily reached, a\ntoo restless imagination; despair is easy to me, and every sensation\nreverberates again and again within me. What might be, spoils for me\nwhat is. What ought to be consumes me with sadness. So the reality, the\npresent, the irreparable, the necessary, repel and even terrify me. I\nhave too much imagination, conscience and penetration, and not enough\ncharacter. The life of thought alone seems to me to have enough\nelasticity and immensity, to be free enough from the irreparable;\npractical life makes me afraid.\n\nAnd yet, at the same time it attracts me; I have need of it. Family\nlife, especially, in all its delightfulness, in all its moral depth,\nappeals to me almost like a duty. Sometimes I cannot escape from the\nideal of it. A companion of my life, of my work, of my thoughts, of my\nhopes; within, a common worship, toward the world outside, kindness\nand beneficence; educations to undertake, the thousand and one moral\nrelations which develop round the first, all these ideas intoxicate me\nsometimes. But I put them aside because every hope is, as it were, an\negg whence a serpent may issue instead of a dove, because every joy\nmissed is a stab; because every seed confided to destiny contains an ear\nof grief which the future may develop.\n\nI am distrustful of myself and of happiness because I know myself.\nThe ideal poisons for me all imperfect possession. Everything which\ncompromises the future or destroys my inner liberty, which enslaves me\nto things or obliges me to be other than I could and ought to be, all\nwhich injures my idea of the perfect man, hurts me mortally, degrades\nand wounds me in mind, even beforehand. I abhor useless regrets and\nrepentances. The fatality of the consequences which follow upon every\nhuman act, the leading idea of dramatic art and the most tragic element\nof life, arrests me more certainly than the arm of the _Commandeur_. I\nonly act with regret, and almost by force.\n\nTo be dependent is to me terrible; but to depend upon what is\nirreparable, arbitrary and unforeseen, and above all to be so dependent\nby my fault and through my own error, to give up liberty and hope, to\nslay sleep and happiness, this would be hell!\n\nAll that is necessary, providential, in short, _unimputable_, I could\nbear, I think, with some strength of mind. But responsibility mortally\nenvenoms grief; and as an act is essentially voluntary, therefore I act\nas little as possible.\n\nLast outbreak of a rebellious and deceitful self-will, craving for\nrepose for satisfaction, for independence! is there not some relic\nof selfishness in such a disinterestedness, such a fear, such idle\nsusceptibility.\n\nI wish to fulfill my duty, but where is it, what is it? Here inclination\ncomes in again and interprets the oracle. And the ultimate question is\nthis: Does duty consist in obeying one\u2019s nature, even the best and most\nspiritual? or in conquering it?\n\nLife, is it essentially the education of the mind and intelligence,\nor that of the will? And does will show itself in strength or in\nresignation? If the aim of life is to teach us renunciation, then\nwelcome sickness, hindrances, sufferings of every kind! But if its aim\nis to produce the perfect man, then one must watch over one\u2019s integrity\nof mind and body. To court trial is to tempt God. At bottom, the God of\njustice veils from me the God of love. I tremble instead of trusting.\n\nWhenever conscience speaks with a divided, uncertain, and disputed\nvoice, it is not yet the voice of God. Descend still deeper into\nyourself, until you hear nothing but a clear and undivided voice, a\nvoice which does away with doubt and brings with it persuasion, light\nand serenity. Happy, says the apostle, are they who are at peace with\nthemselves, and whose heart condemneth them not in the part they take.\nThis inner identity, this unity of conviction, is all the more\ndifficult the more the mind analyzes, discriminates, and foresees. It is\ndifficult, indeed, for liberty to return to the frank unity of instinct.\n\nAlas! we must then re-climb a thousand times the peaks already scaled,\nand reconquer the points of view already won, we must _fight the fight_!\nThe human heart, like kings, signs mere truces under a pretence of\nperpetual peace. The eternal life is eternally to be re-won. Alas, yes!\npeace itself is a struggle, or rather it is struggle and activity\nwhich are the law. We only find rest in effort, as the flame only finds\nexistence in combustion. O Heraclitus! the symbol of happiness is after\nall the same as that of grief; anxiety and hope, hell and heaven, are\nequally restless. The altar of Vesta and the sacrifice of Beelzebub burn\nwith the same fire. Ah, yes, there you have life--life double-faced and\ndouble-edged. The fire which enlightens is also the fire which consumes;\nthe element of the gods may become that of the accursed.\n\nApril 7, 1851.--Read a part of Ruge\u2019s [Footnote: Arnold Ruge, born in\n1803, died at Brighton in 1880, principal editor of the _Hallische_,\nafterward the _Deutsche Jahrb\u00fccher_ (1838-43), in which Strauss, Bruno\nBauer, and Louis Feuerbach wrote. He was a member of the parliament of\nFrankfort.] volume \u201c_Die Academie_\u201d (1848) where the humanism of the\nneo-Hegelians in politics, religion, and literature is represented by\ncorrespondents or articles (Kuno Fischer, Kollach, etc). They recall the\n_philosophist_ party of the last century, able to dissolve anything by\nreason and reasoning, but unable to construct anything; for construction\nrests upon feeling, instinct, and will. One finds them mistaking\nphilosophic consciousness for realizing power, the redemption of the\nintelligence for the redemption of the heart, that is to say, the part\nfor the whole. These papers make me understand the radical difference\nbetween morals and intellectualism. The writers of them wish to supplant\nreligion by philosophy. Man is the principle of their religion, and\nintellect is the climax of man. Their religion, then, is the religion\nof intellect. There you have the two worlds: Christianity brings and\npreaches salvation by the conversion of the will, humanism by the\nemancipation of the mind. One attacks the heart, the other the brain.\nBoth wish to enable man to reach his ideal. But the ideal differs, if\nnot by its content, at least by the disposition of its content, by the\npredominance and sovereignty given to this for that inner power. For\none, the mind is the organ of the soul; for the other, the soul is\nan inferior state of the mind; the one wishes to enlighten by making\nbetter, the other to make better by enlightening. It is the difference\nbetween Socrates and Jesus.\n\n_The cardinal question is that of sin._ The question of immanence or of\ndualism is secondary. The trinity, the life to come, paradise and hell,\nmay cease to be dogmas, and spiritual realities, the form and the letter\nmay vanish away, the question of humanity remains: What is it which\nsaves? How can man be led to be truly man? Is the ultimate root of his\nbeing responsibility, yes or no? And is doing or knowing the right,\nacting or thinking, his ultimate end? If science does not produce\nlove it is insufficient. Now all that science gives is the _amor\nintellectualis_ of Spinoza, light without warmth, a resignation which\nis contemplative and grandiose, but inhuman, because it is scarcely\ntransmissible and remains a privilege, one of the rarest of all. Moral\nlove places the center of the individual in the center of being. It has\nat least salvation in principle, the germ of eternal life. _To love is\nvirtually to know; to know is not virtually to love_; there you have the\nrelation of these two modes of man. The redemption wrought by science or\nby intellectual love is then inferior to the redemption wrought by\nwill or by moral love. The first may free a man from himself, it may\nenfranchise him from egotism. The second drives the _ego_ out of itself,\nmakes it active and fruitful. The one is critical, purifying, negative;\nthe other is vivifying, fertilizing, positive. Science, however\nspiritual and substantial it may be in itself, is still formal\nrelatively to love. Moral force is then the vital point. And this force\nis only produced by moral force. Like alone acts upon like. Therefore do\nnot amend by reasoning, but by example; approach feeling by feeling;\ndo not hope to excite love except by love. Be what you wish others to\nbecome. Let yourself and not your words preach for you.\n\nPhilosophy, then, to return to the subject, can never replace religion;\nrevolutionaries are not apostles, although the apostles may have been\nrevolutionaries. To save from the outside to the inside--and by the\noutside I understand also the intelligence relatively to the will--is an\nerror and danger. The negative part of the humanist\u2019s work is good; it\nwill strip Christianity of an outer shell, which has become superfluous;\nbut Ruge and Feuerbach cannot save humanity. She must have her saints\nand her heroes to complete the work of her philosophers. Science is\nthe power of man, and love his strength; man _becomes_ man only by\nthe intelligence, but he _is_ man only by the heart. Knowledge, love,\npower--there is the complete life.\n\nJune 16, 1851.--This evening I walked up and down on the Pont des\nBergues, under a clear, moonless heaven delighting in the freshness of\nthe water, streaked with light from the two quays, and glimmering under\nthe twinkling stars. Meeting all these different groups of young people,\nfamilies, couples and children, who were returning to their homes, to\ntheir garrets or their drawing-rooms, singing or talking as they went,\nI felt a movement of sympathy for all these passers-by; my eyes and\nears became those of a poet or a painter; while even one\u2019s mere kindly\ncuriosity seems to bring with it a joy in living and in seeing others\nlive.\n\nAugust 15, 1851.--To know how to be ready, a great thing, a precious\ngift, and one that implies calculation, grasp and decision. To be always\nready a man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied;\nhe must know how to disengage what is essential from the detail in which\nit is enwrapped, for everything cannot be equally considered; in a word,\nhe must be able to simplify his duties, his business, and his life. To\nknow how to be ready, is to know how to start.\n\nIt is astonishing how all of us are generally cumbered up with the\nthousand and one hindrances and duties which are not such, but which\nnevertheless wind us about with their spider threads and fetter the\nmovement of our wings. It is the lack of order which makes us slaves;\nthe confusion of to-day discounts the freedom of to-morrow.\n\nConfusion is the enemy of all comfort, and confusion is born of\nprocrastination. To know how to be ready we must be able to finish.\nNothing is done but what is finished. The things which we leave dragging\nbehind us will start up again later on before us and harass our path.\nLet each day take thought for what concerns it, liquidate its own\naffairs and respect the day which is to follow, and then we shall be\nalways ready. To know how to be ready is at bottom to know how to die.\n\nSeptember 2, 1851.--Read the work of Tocqueville (\u201c_De la Democratie\nen Am\u00e9rique_.\u201d) My impression is as yet a mixed one. A fine book, but\nI feel in it a little too much imitation of Montesquieu. This abstract,\npiquant, sententious style, too, is a little dry, over-refined and\nmonotonous. It has too much cleverness and not enough imagination. It\nmakes one think, more than it charms, and though really serious, it\nseems flippant. His method of splitting up a thought, of illuminating\na subject by successive facets, has serious inconveniences. We see\nthe details too clearly, to the detriment of the whole. A multitude of\nsparks gives but a poor light. Nevertheless, the author is evidently a\nripe and penetrating intelligence, who takes a comprehensive view of\nhis subject, while at the same time possessing a power of acute and\nexhaustive analysis.\n\nSeptember 6th.--Tocqueville\u2019s book has on the whole a calming effect\nupon the mind, but it leaves a certain sense of disgust behind. It\nmakes one realize the necessity of what is happening around us and the\ninevitableness of the goal prepared for us; but it also makes it plain\nthat the era of _mediocrity_ in everything is beginning, and mediocrity\nfreezes all desire. Equality engenders uniformity, and it is by\nsacrificing what is excellent, remarkable, and extraordinary that we get\nrid of what is bad. The whole becomes less barbarous, and at the same\ntime more vulgar.\n\nThe age of great men is going; the epoch of the ant-hill, of life in\nmultiplicity, is beginning. The century of individualism, if abstract\nequality triumphs, runs a great risk of seeing no more true individuals.\nBy continual leveling and division of labor, society will become\neverything and man nothing.\n\nAs the floor of valleys is raised by the denudation and washing down\nof the mountains, what is average will rise at the expense of what is\ngreat. The exceptional will disappear. A plateau with fewer and fewer\nundulations, without contrasts and without oppositions, such will be\nthe aspect of human society. The statistician will register a growing\nprogress, and the moralist a gradual decline: on the one hand, a\nprogress of things; on the other, a decline of souls. The useful will\ntake the place of the beautiful, industry of art, political economy of\nreligion, and arithmetic of poetry. The spleen will become the malady of\na leveling age.\n\nIs this indeed the fate reserved for the democratic era? May not the\ngeneral well-being be purchased too dearly at such a price? The creative\nforce which in the beginning we see forever tending to produce and\nmultiply differences, will it afterward retrace its steps and obliterate\nthem one by one? And equality, which in the dawn of existence is mere\ninertia, torpor, and death, is it to become at last the natural form of\nlife? Or rather, above the economic and political equality to which the\nsocialist and non-socialist democracy aspires, taking it too often for\nthe term of its efforts, will there not arise a new kingdom of mind, a\nchurch of refuge, a republic of souls, in which, far beyond the region\nof mere right and sordid utility, beauty, devotion, holiness, heroism,\nenthusiasm, the extraordinary, the infinite, shall have a worship and an\nabiding city? Utilitarian materialism, barren well-being, the idolatry\nof the flesh and of the \u201cI,\u201d of the temporal and of mammon, are they to\nbe the goal if our efforts, the final recompense promised to the labors\nof our race? I do not believe it. The ideal of humanity is something\ndifferent and higher.\n\nBut the animal in us must be satisfied first, and we must first banish\nfrom among us all suffering which is superfluous and has its origin in\nsocial arrangements, before we can return to spiritual goods.\n\nSeptember 7, 1851. (_Aix_).--It is ten o\u2019clock at night. A strange\nand mystic moonlight, with a fresh breeze and a sky crossed by a few\nwandering clouds, makes our terrace delightful. These pale and gentle\nrays shed from the zenith a subdued and penetrating peace; it is like\nthe calm joy or the pensive smile of experience, combined with a certain\nstoic strength. The stars shine, the leaves tremble in the silver light.\nNot a sound in all the landscape; great gulfs of shadow under the green\nalleys and at the corners of the steps. Everything is secret, solemn,\nmysterious.\n\nO night hours, hours of silence and solitude! with you are grace and\nmelancholy; you sadden and you console. You speak to us of all that\nhas passed away, and of all that must still die, but you say to us,\n\u201ccourage!\u201d and you promise us rest.\n\nNovember 9, 1851. (Sunday).--At the church of St. Gervais, a second\nsermon from Adolphe Monod, less grandiose perhaps but almost more\noriginal, and to me more edifying than that of last Sunday. The subject\nwas St. Paul or the active life, his former one having been St. John or\nthe inner life, of the Christian. I felt the golden spell of eloquence:\nI found myself hanging on the lips of the orator, fascinated by his\nboldness, his grace, his energy, and his art, his sincerity, and his\ntalent; and it was borne in upon me that for some men difficulties are\na source of inspiration, so that what would make others stumble is for\nthem the occasion of their highest triumphs. He made St. Paul _cry_\nduring an hour and a half; he made an old nurse of him, he hunted up his\nold cloak, his prescriptions of water and wine to Timothy, the canvas\nthat he mended, his friend Tychicus, in short, all that could raise a\nsmile; and from it he drew the most unfailing pathos, the most austere\nand penetrating lessons. He made the whole St. Paul, martyr, apostle and\nman, his grief, his charities, his tenderness, live again before us,\nand this with a grandeur, an unction, a warmth of reality, such as I had\nnever seen equaled.\n\nHow stirring is such an apotheosis of pain in our century of comfort,\nwhen shepherds and sheep alike sink benumbed in Capuan languors, such\nan apotheosis of ardent charity in a time of coldness and indifference\ntoward souls, such an apotheosis of a _human_, natural, inbred\nChristianity, in an age, when some put it, so to speak, above man, and\nothers below man! Finally, as a peroration, he dwelt upon the necessity\nfor a new people, for a stronger generation, if the world is to be\nsaved from the tempests which threaten it. \u201cPeople of God, awake! Sow\nin tears, that ye may reap in triumph!\u201d What a study is such a sermon!\nI felt all the extraordinary literary skill of it, while my eyes were\nstill dim with tears. Diction, composition, similes, all is instructive\nand precious to remember. I was astonished, shaken, taken hold of.\n\nNovember 18, 1851.--The energetic subjectivity, which has faith in\nitself, which does not fear to be something particular and definite\nwithout any consciousness or shame of its subjective illusion, is\nunknown to me. I am, so far as the intellectual order is concerned,\nessentially objective, and my distinctive speciality, is to be able\nto place myself in all points of view, to see through all eyes, to\nemancipate myself, that is to say, from the individual prison. Hence\naptitude for theory and irresolution in practice; hence critical talent\nand difficulty in spontaneous production. Hence, also, a continuous\nuncertainty of conviction and opinion, so long as my aptitude remained\nmere instinct; but now that it is conscious and possesses itself, it is\nable to conclude and affirm in its turn, so that, after having brought\ndisquiet, it now brings peace. It says: \u201cThere is no repose for the mind\nexcept in the absolute; for feeling, except in the infinite; for the\nsoul, except in the divine.\u201d Nothing finite is true, is interesting, or\nworthy to fix my attention. All that is particular is exclusive, and\nall that is exclusive, repels me. There is nothing non-exclusive but the\nAll; my end is communion with Being through the whole of Being. Then, in\nthe light of the absolute, every idea becomes worth studying; in that of\nthe infinite, every existence worth respecting; in that of the divine,\nevery creature worth loving.\n\nDecember 2, 1851.--Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always\nturning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but\nleave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds\nmay bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a\nplace in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for the unknown\nGod. Then if a bird sing among your branches, do not be too eager to\ntame it. If you are conscious of something new--thought or feeling,\nwakening in the depths of your being--do not be in a hurry to let in\nlight upon it, to look at it; let the springing germ have the protection\nof being forgotten, hedge it round with quiet, and do not break in\nupon its darkness; let it take shape and grow, and not a word of your\nhappiness to any one! Sacred work of nature as it is, all conception\nshould be enwrapped by the triple veil of modesty, silence and night.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nKindness is the principle of tact, and respect for others the first\ncondition of _savoir-vivre_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe who is silent is forgotten; he who abstains is taken at his word;\nhe who does not advance, falls back; he who stops is overwhelmed,\ndistanced, crushed; he who ceases to grow greater becomes smaller; he\nwho leaves off, gives up; the stationary condition is the beginning of\nthe end--it is the terrible symptom which precedes death. To live, is\nto achieve a perpetual triumph; it is to assert one\u2019s self against\ndestruction, against sickness, against the annulling and dispersion of\none\u2019s physical and moral being. It is to will without ceasing, or rather\nto refresh one\u2019s will day by day.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is not history which teaches conscience to be honest; it is the\nconscience which educates history. Fact is corrupting, it is we who\ncorrect it by the persistence of our ideal. The soul moralizes the past\nin order not to be demoralized by it. Like the alchemists of the middle\nages, she finds in the crucible of experience only the gold that she\nherself has poured into it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFebruary 1, 1852. (Sunday).--Passed the afternoon in reading the\n_Monologues_ of Schleiermacher. This little book made an impression on\nme almost as deep as it did twelve years ago, when I read it for the\nfirst time. It replunged me into the inner world, to which I return with\njoy whenever I may have forsaken it. I was able besides, to measure my\nprogress since then by the transparency of all the thoughts to me, and\nby the freedom with which I entered into and judged the point of view.\n\nIt is great, powerful, profound, but there is still pride in it, and\neven selfishness. For the center of the universe is still the self, the\ngreat _Ich_ of Fichte. The tameless liberty, the divine dignity of\nthe individual spirit, expanding till it admits neither any limit nor\nanything foreign to itself, and conscious of a strength instinct with\ncreative force, such is the point of view of the _Monologues_.\n\nThe inner life in its enfranchisement from time, in its double end,\nthe realization of the species and of the individuality, in its proud\ndominion over all hostile circumstances, in its prophetic certainty of\nthe future, in its immortal youth, such is their theme. Through them we\nare enabled to enter into a life of monumental interest, wholly original\nand beyond the influence of anything exterior, an astonishing example\nof the autonomy of the _ego_, an imposing type of character, Zeno and\nFichte in one. But still the motive power of this life is not\nreligious; it is rather moral and philosophic. I see in it not so much a\nmagnificent model to imitate as a precious subject of study. This ideal\nof a liberty, absolute, indefeasible, inviolable, respecting itself\nabove all, disdaining the visible and the universe, and developing\nitself after its own laws alone, is also the ideal of Emerson, the stoic\nof a young America. According to it, man finds his joy in himself,\nand, safe in the inaccessible sanctuary, of his personal consciousness,\nbecomes almost a god. [Footnote: Compare Clough\u2019s lines:\n\n  \u201cWhere are the great, whom thou would\u2019st wish to praise thee?\n  Where are the pure, whom thou would\u2019st choose to love thee?\n  Where are the brave, to stand supreme above thee?\n  Whose high commands would cheer, whose chidings raise thee?\n  Seek, seeker, in thyself; submit to find\n  In the stones, bread, and life in the blank mind.\u201d]\n\nHe is himself principle, motive, and end of his own destiny; he is\nhimself, and that is enough for him. This superb triumph of life is\nnot far from being a sort of impiety, or at least a displacement of\nadoration. By the mere fact that it does away with humility, such a\nsuperhuman point of view becomes dangerous; it is the very temptation\nto which the first man succumbed, that of becoming his own master by\nbecoming like unto the Elohim. Here then the heroism of the philosopher\napproaches temerity, and the _Monologues_ are therefore open to three\nreproaches: Ontologically, the position of man in the spiritual universe\nis wrongly indicated; the individual soul, not being unique and not\nspringing from itself, can it be conceived without God? Psychologically,\nthe force of spontaneity in the _ego_ is allowed a dominion too\nexclusive of any other. As a fact, it is not everything in man. Morally,\nevil is scarcely named, and conflict, the condition of true peace, is\nleft out of count. So that the peace described in the _Monologues_ is\nneither a conquest by man nor a grace from heaven; it is rather a stroke\nof good fortune.\n\nFebruary 2d.--Still the _Monologues_. Critically I defended myself\nenough against them yesterday; I may abandon myself now, without scruple\nand without danger, to the admiration and the sympathy with which they\ninspire me. This life so proudly independent, this sovereign conception\nof human dignity, this actual possession of the universe and the\ninfinite, this perfect emancipation from all which passes, this calm\nsense of strength and superiority, this invincible energy of will, this\ninfallible clearness of self-vision, this autocracy of the consciousness\nwhich is its own master, all these decisive marks of a royal personality\nof a nature Olympian, profound, complete, harmonious, penetrate the\nmind with joy and heart with gratitude. What a life! what a man! These\nglimpses into the inner regions of a great soul do one good. Contact of\nthis kind strengthens, restores, refreshes. Courage returns as we gaze;\nwhen we see what has been, we doubt no more that it can be again. At the\nsight of a _man_ we too say to ourselves, let us also be men.\n\nMarch 3, 1852.--Opinion has its value and even its power: to have it\nagainst us is painful when we are among friends, and harmful in the case\nof the outer world. We should neither flatter opinion nor court it; but\nit is better, if we can help it, not to throw it on to a false scent.\nThe first error is a meanness; the second an imprudence. We should be\nashamed of the one; we may regret the other. Look to yourself; you are\nmuch given to this last fault, and it has already done you great harm.\nBe ready to bend your pride; abase yourself even so far as to show\nyourself ready and clever like others. This world of skillful egotisms\nand active ambitions, this world of men, in which one must deceive\nby smiles, conduct, and silence as much as by actual words, a world\nrevolting to the proud and upright soul, it is our business to learn to\nlive in it! Success is required in it: succeed. Only force is recognized\nthere: be strong. Opinion seeks to impose her law upon all, instead of\nsetting her at defiance, it would be better to struggle with her and\nconquer.... I understand the indignation of contempt, and the wish to\ncrush, roused irresistibly by all that creeps, all that is tortuous,\noblique, ignoble.... But I cannot maintain such a mood, which is a mood\nof vengeance, for long. This world is a world of men, and these men\nare our brothers. We must not banish from us the divine breath, we must\nlove. Evil must be conquered by good; and before all things one must\nkeep a pure conscience. Prudence may be preached from this point of\nview too. \u201cBe ye simple as the dove and prudent as the serpent,\u201d are the\nwords of Jesus. Be careful of your reputation, not through vanity, but\nthat you may not harm your life\u2019s work, and out of love for truth. There\nis still something of self-seeking in the refined disinterestedness\nwhich will not justify itself, that it may feel itself superior to\nopinion. It requires ability, to make what we seem agree with what we\nare, and humility, to feel that we are no great things.\n\nThere, thanks to this journal, my excitement has passed away. I have\njust read the last book of it through again, and the morning has passed\nby. On the way I have been conscious of a certain amount of monotony.\nIt does not signify! These pages are not written to be read; they are\nwritten for my own consolation and warning. They are landmarks in my\npast; and some of the landmarks are funeral crosses, stone pyramids,\nwithered stalks grown green again, white pebbles, coins--all of them\nhelpful toward finding one\u2019s way again through the Elysian fields of the\nsoul. The pilgrim has marked his stages in it; he is able to trace by it\nhis thoughts, his tears, his joys. This is my traveling diary: if some\npassages from it may be useful to others, and if sometimes even I have\ncommunicated such passages to the public, these thousand pages as a\nwhole are only of value to me and to those who, after me, may take some\ninterest in the itinerary of an obscurely conditioned soul, far from the\nworld\u2019s noise and fame. These sheets will be monotonous when my life is\nso; they will repeat themselves when feelings repeat themselves; truth\nat any rate will be always there, and truth is their only muse, their\nonly pretext, their only duty.\n\nApril 2, 1852.--What a lovely walk! Sky clear, sun rising, all the tints\nbright, all the outlines sharp, save for the soft and misty infinite\nof the lake. A pinch of white frost, powdered the fields, lending a\nmetallic relief to the hedges of green box, and to the whole landscape,\nstill without leaves, an air of health and vigor, of youth and\nfreshness. \u201cBathe, O disciple, thy thirsty soul in the dew of the dawn!\u201d\n says Faust, to us, and he is right. The morning air breathes a new and\nlaughing energy into veins and marrow. If every day is a repetition of\nlife, every dawn gives signs as it were a new contract with existence.\nAt dawn everything is fresh, light, simple, as it is for children. At\ndawn spiritual truth, like the atmosphere, is more transparent, and our\norgans, like the young leaves, drink in the light more eagerly, breathe\nin more ether, and less of things earthly. If night and the starry sky\nspeak to the meditative soul of God, of eternity and the infinite, the\ndawn is the time for projects, for resolutions, for the birth of action.\nWhile the silence and the \u201csad serenity of the azure vault,\u201d incline the\nsoul to self-recollection, the vigor and gayety of nature spread into\nthe heart and make it eager for life and living. Spring is upon us.\nPrimroses and violets have already hailed her coming. Rash blooms are\nshowing on the peach trees; the swollen buds of the pear trees and\nthe lilacs point to the blossoming that is to be; the honeysuckles are\nalready green.\n\nApril 26, 1852.--This evening a feeling of emptiness took possession\nof me; and the solemn ideas of duty, the future, solitude, pressed\nthemselves upon me. I gave myself to meditation, a very necessary\ndefense against the dispersion and distraction brought about by the\nday\u2019s work and its detail. Read a part of Krause\u2019s book \u201c_Urbild der\nMenschheit_\u201d [Footnote: Christian Frederick Krause, died 1832, Hegel\u2019s\nyounger contemporary, and the author of a system which he called\n_panentheism_--Amiel alludes to it later on.] which answered marvelously\nto my thought and my need. This philosopher has always a beneficent\neffect upon me; his sweet religious serenity gains upon me and invades\nme. He inspires me with a sense of peace and infinity.\n\nStill I miss something, common worship, a positive religion, shared with\nother people. Ah! when will the church to which I belong in heart rise\ninto being? I cannot like Scherer, content myself with being in the\nright all alone. I must have a less solitary Christianity. My religious\nneeds are not satisfied any more than my social needs, or my needs of\naffection. Generally I am able to forget them and lull them to sleep.\nBut at times they wake up with a sort of painful bitterness ... I waver\nbetween languor and _ennui_, between frittering myself away on the\ninfinitely little, and longing after what is unknown and distant. It is\nlike the situation which French novelists are so fond of, the story of\na _vie de province_; only the province is all that is not the country\nof the soul, every place where the heart feels itself strange,\ndissatisfied, restless and thirsty. Alas! well understood, this place is\nthe earth, this country of one\u2019s dreams is heaven, and this suffering is\nthe eternal homesickness, the thirst for happiness.\n\n\u201c_In der Beschr\u00e4nkung zeigt sich erst der Meister_,\u201d says Goethe. _M\u00e2le\nr\u00e9signation_, this also is the motto of those who are masters of the\nart of life; \u201cmanly,\u201d that is to say, courageous, active, resolute,\npersevering, \u201cresignation,\u201d that is to say, self-sacrifice,\nrenunciation, limitation. Energy in resignation, there lies the wisdom\nof the sons of earth, the only serenity possible in this life of\nstruggle and of combat. In it is the peace of martyrdom, in it too the\npromise of triumph.\n\nApril 28, 1852. (Lancy.) [Footnote: A village near Geneva.]--Once more I\nfeel the spring languor creeping over me, the spring air about me. This\nmorning the poetry of the scene, the song of the birds, the tranquil\nsunlight, the breeze blowing over the fresh green fields, all rose into\nand filled my heart. Now all is silent. O silence, thou art terrible!\nterrible as that calm of the ocean which lets the eye penetrate the\nfathomless abysses below. Thou showest us in ourselves depths which\nmake us giddy, inextinguishable needs, treasures of suffering. Welcome\ntempests! at least they blur and trouble the surface of these waters\nwith their terrible secrets. Welcome the passion blasts which stir the\nwares of the soul, and so veil from us its bottomless gulfs! In all of\nus, children of dust, sons of time, eternity inspires an involuntary\nanguish, and the infinite, a mysterious terror. We seem to be entering a\nkingdom of the dead. Poor heart, thy craving is for life, for love, for\nillusions! And thou art right after all, for life is sacred.\n\nIn these moments of _t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate_ with the infinite, how different life\nlooks! How all that usually occupies and excites us becomes suddenly\npuerile, frivolous and vain. We seem to ourselves mere puppets,\nmarionettes, strutting seriously through a fantastic show, and mistaking\ngewgaws for things of great price. At such moments, how everything\nbecomes transformed, how everything changes! Berkeley and Fichte seem\nright, Emerson too; the world is but an allegory; the idea is more real\nthan the fact; fairy tales, legends, are as true as natural history, and\neven more true, for they are emblems of greater transparency. The only\nsubstance properly so called is the soul. What is all the rest? Mere\nshadow, pretext, figure, symbol, or dream. Consciousness alone is\nimmortal, positive, perfectly real. The world is but a firework,\na sublime phantasmagoria, destined to cheer and form the soul.\nConsciousness is a universe, and its sun is love....\n\nAlready I am falling back into the objective life of thought. It\ndelivers me from--shall I say? no, it deprives me of the intimate life\nof feeling. Reflection solves reverie and burns her delicate wings. This\nis why science does not make men, but merely entities and abstractions.\nAh, let us feel and live and beware of too much analysis! Let us put\nspontaneity, _na\u00efvet\u00e9_, before reflection, experience before study; let\nus make life itself our study. Shall I then never have the heart of a\nwoman to rest upon? a son in whom to live again, a little world where I\nmay see flowering and blooming all that is stifled in me? I shrink and\ndraw back, for fear of breaking my dream. I have staked so much on this\ncard that I dare not play it. Let me dream again....\n\nDo no violence to yourself, respect in yourself the oscillations of\nfeeling. They are your life and your nature; One wiser than you ordained\nthem. Do not abandon yourself altogether either to instinct or to\nwill. Instinct is a siren, will a despot. Be neither the slave of your\nimpulses and sensations of the moment, nor of an abstract and general\nplan; be open to what life brings from within and without, and welcome\nthe unforeseen; but give to your life unity, and bring the unforeseen\nwithin the lines of your plan. Let what is natural in you raise itself\nto the level of the spiritual, and let the spiritual become once more\nnatural. Thus will your development be harmonious, and the peace of\nheaven will shine upon your brow; always on condition that your peace is\nmade, and that you have climbed your Calvary.\n\n_Afternoon_--Shall I ever enjoy again those marvelous reveries of past\ndays, as, for instance, once, when I was still quite a youth, in the\nearly dawn, sitting among the ruins of the castle of Faucigny; another\ntime in the mountains above Lavey, under the midday sun, lying under a\ntree and visited by three butterflies; and again another night on the\nsandy shore of the North Sea, stretched full length upon the beach, my\neyes wandering over the Milky Way? Will they ever return to me, those\ngrandiose, immortal, cosmogonic dreams, in which one seems to carry\nthe world in one\u2019s breast, to touch the stars, to possess the infinite?\nDivine moments, hours of ecstasy, when thought flies from world to\nworld, penetrates the great enigma, breathes with a respiration large,\ntranquil, and profound, like that of the ocean, and hovers serene and\nboundless like the blue heaven! Visits from the muse, Urania, who traces\naround the foreheads of those she loves the phosphorescent nimbus\nof contemplative power, and who pours into their hearts the tranquil\nintoxication, if not the authority of genius, moments of irresistible\nintuition in which a man feels himself great like the universe and calm\nlike a god! From the celestial spheres down to the shell or the moss,\nthe whole of creation is then submitted to our gaze, lives in our\nbreast, and accomplishes in us its eternal work with the regularity of\ndestiny and the passionate ardor of love. What hours, what memories! The\ntraces which remain to us of them are enough to fill us with respect and\nenthusiasm, as though they had been visits of the Holy Spirit. And then,\nto fall back again from these heights with their boundless horizons into\nthe muddy ruts of triviality! what a fall! Poor Moses! Thou too sawest\nundulating in the distance the ravishing hills of the promised land, and\nit was thy fate nevertheless to lay thy weary bones in a grave dug in\nthe desert! Which of us has not his promised land, his day of ecstasy\nand his death in exile? What a pale counterfeit is real life of the life\nwe see in glimpses, and how these flaming lightnings of our prophetic\nyouth make the twilight of our dull monotonous manhood more dark and\ndreary!\n\nApril 29 (Lancy).--This morning the air was calm, the sky slightly\nveiled. I went out into the garden to see what progress the spring was\nmaking. I strolled from the irises to the lilacs, round the flower-beds,\nand in the shrubberies. Delightful surprise! at the corner of the walk,\nhalf hidden under a thick clump of shrubs, a small leaved _chorchorus_\nhad flowered during the night. Gay and fresh as a bunch of bridal\nflowers, the little shrub glittered before me in all the attraction\nof its opening beauty. What springlike innocence, what soft and modest\nloveliness, there was in these white corollas, opening gently to the\nsun, like thoughts which smile upon us at waking, and perched upon\ntheir young leaves of virginal green like bees upon the wing! Mother of\nmarvels, mysterious and tender nature, why do we not live more in thee?\nThe poetical _fl\u00e2neurs_ of T\u00f6pffer, his Charles and Jules, the friends\nand passionate lovers of thy secret graces, the dazzled and ravished\nbeholders of thy beauties, rose up in my memory, at once a reproach and\na lesson. A modest garden and a country rectory, the narrow horizon of\na garret, contain for those who know how to look and to wait more\ninstruction than a library, even than that of _Mon oncle_. [Footnote:\nThe allusions in this passage are to T\u00f6pffer\u2019s best known books--\u201cLa\nPresbyt\u00e8re\u201d and \u201cLa Biblioth\u00e8que de mon Oncle,\u201d that airy chronicle of a\nhundred romantic or vivacious nothings which has the young student\nJules for its center.] Yes, we are too busy, too encumbered, too much\noccupied, too active! We read too much! The one thing needful is to\nthrow off all one\u2019s load of cares, of preoccupations, of pedantry, and\nto become again young, simple, child-like, living happily and gratefully\nin the present hour. We must know how to put occupation aside, which\ndoes not mean that we must be idle. In an inaction which is meditative\nand attentive the wrinkles of the soul are smoothed away, and the soul\nitself spreads, unfolds, and springs afresh, and, like the trodden grass\nof the roadside or the bruised leaf of a plant, repairs its injuries,\nbecomes new, spontaneous, true, and original. Reverie, like the rain of\nnight, restores color and force to thoughts which have been blanched and\nwearied by the heat of the day. With gentle fertilizing power it awakens\nwithin us a thousand sleeping germs, and as though in play, gathers\nround us materials for the future, and images for the use of talent.\n_Reverie is the Sunday of thought_; and who knows which is the more\nimportant and fruitful for man, the laborious tension of the week, or\nthe life-giving repose of the Sabbath? The _fl\u00e2nerie_ so exquisitely\nglorified and sung by T\u00f6pffer is not only delicious, but useful. It is\nlike a bath which gives vigor and suppleness to the whole being, to the\nmind as to the body; it is the sign and festival of liberty, a joyous\nand wholesome banquet, the banquet of the butterfly wandering from\nflower to flower over the hills and in the fields. And remember, the\nsoul too is a butterfly.\n\nMay 2, 1852. (Sunday) Lancy.--This morning read the epistle of St.\nJames, the exegetical volume of Cell\u00e9rier [Footnote: Jacob-\u00c9lys\u00e9e\nCell\u00e9rier, professor of theology at the Academy of Geneva, and son of\nthe pastor of Satigny mentioned in Madame de Sta\u00ebl\u2019s \u201cL\u2019Allemagne.\u201d]\non this epistle, and a great deal of Pascal, after having first of all\npassed more than an hour in the garden with the children. I made them\nclosely examine the flowers, the shrubs, the grasshoppers, the snails,\nin order to practice them in observation, in wonder, in kindness.\n\nHow enormously important are these first conversations of childhood!\nI felt it this morning with a sort of religious terror. Innocence and\nchildhood are sacred. The sower who casts in the seed, the father or\nmother casting in the fruitful word are accomplishing a pontifical act\nand ought to perform it with religious awe, with prayer and gravity, for\nthey are laboring at the kingdom of God. All seed-sowing is a mysterious\nthing, whether the seed fall into the earth or into souls. Man is a\nhusbandman; his whole work rightly understood is to develop life, to\nsow it everywhere. Such is the mission of humanity, and of this divine\nmission the great instrument is speech. We forget too often that\nlanguage is both a seed-sowing and a revelation. The influence of a word\nin season, is it not incalculable? What a mystery is speech! But we are\nblind to it, because we are carnal and earthy. We see the stones and the\ntrees by the road, the furniture of our houses, all that is palpable\nand material. We have no eyes for the invisible phalanxes of ideas which\npeople the air and hover incessantly around each one of us.\n\nEvery life is a profession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and\nsilent propaganda. As far as lies in its power, it tends to transform\nthe universe and humanity into its own image. Thus we have all a cure\nof souls. Every man is the center of perpetual radiation like a luminous\nbody; he is, as it were, a beacon which entices a ship upon the rocks\nif it does not guide it into port. Every man is a priest, even\ninvoluntarily; his conduct is an unspoken sermon, which is forever\npreaching to others; but there are priests of Baal, of Moloch, and of\nall the false gods. Such is the high importance of example. Thence comes\nthe terrible responsibility which weighs upon us all. An evil example is\na spiritual poison: it is the proclamation of a sacrilegious faith, of\nan impure God. Sin would be only an evil for him who commits it, were\nit not a crime toward the weak brethren, whom it corrupts. Therefore, it\nhas been said: \u201cIt were better for a man not to have been born than to\noffend one of these little ones.\u201d\n\nMay 6, 1852.--It is women who, like mountain flowers, mark with most\ncharacteristic precision the gradation of social zones. The hierarchy of\nclasses is plainly visible among them; it is blurred in the other sex.\nWith women this hierarchy has the average regularity of nature; among\nmen we see it broken by the incalculable varieties of human freedom. The\nreason is that the man on the whole, makes himself by his own activity,\nand that the woman, is, on the whole, made by her situation; that\nthe one modifies and shapes circumstance by his own energy, while the\ngentleness of the other is dominated by and reflects circumstance;\nso that woman, so to speak, inclines to be species, and man to be\nindividual.\n\nThus, which is curious, women are at once the sex which is most constant\nand most variable. Most constant from the moral point of view, most\nvariable from the social. A confraternity in the first case, a hierarchy\nin the second. All degrees of culture and all conditions of society\nare clearly marked in their outward appearance, their manners and their\ntastes; but the inward fraternity is traceable in their feelings, their\ninstincts, and their desires. The feminine sex represents at the same\ntime natural and historical inequality; it maintains the unity of the\nspecies and marks off the categories of society, it brings together and\ndivides, it gathers and separates, it makes castes and breaks through\nthem, according as it interprets its twofold _r\u00f4le_ in the one sense or\nthe other. At bottom, woman\u2019s mission is essentially conservative,\nbut she is a conservative without discrimination. On the one side,\nshe maintains God\u2019s work in man, all that is lasting, noble, and truly\nhuman, in the race, poetry, religion, virtue, tenderness. On the other,\nshe maintains the results of circumstance, all that is passing, local,\nand artificial in society; that is to say, customs, absurdities,\nprejudices, littlenesses. She surrounds with the same respectful and\ntenacious faith the serious and the frivolous, the good and the bad.\nWell, what then? Isolate if you can, the fire from its smoke. It is\na divine law that you are tracing, and therefore good. The woman\npreserves; she is tradition as the man is progress. And if there is no\nfamily and no humanity without the two sexes, without these two forces\nthere is no history.\n\nMay 14, 1852. (Lancy.)--Yesterday I was full of the philosophy of joy,\nof youth, of the spring, which smiles and the roses which intoxicate;\nI preached the doctrine of strength, and I forgot that, tried and\nafflicted like the two friends with whom I was walking, I should\nprobably have reasoned and felt as they did.\n\nOur systems, it has been said, are the expression of our character, or\nthe theory of our situation, that is to say, we like to think of what\nhas been given as having been acquired, we take our nature for our own\nwork, and our lot in life for our own conquest, an illusion born of\nvanity and also of the craving for liberty. We are unwilling to be the\nproduct of circumstances, or the mere expansion of an inner germ. And\nyet we have received everything, and the part which is really ours, is\nsmall indeed, for it is mostly made up of negation, resistance, faults.\nWe receive everything, both life and happiness; but the _manner_ in\nwhich we receive, this is what is still ours. Let us then, receive\ntrustfully without shame or anxiety. Let us humbly accept from God even\nour own nature, and treat it charitably, firmly, intelligently. Not that\nwe are called upon to accept the evil and the disease in us, but let\nus accept _ourselves_ in spite of the evil and the disease. And let us\nnever be afraid of innocent joy; God is good, and what He does is well\ndone; resign yourself to everything, even to happiness; ask for the\nspirit of sacrifice, of detachment, of renunciation, and above all, for\nthe spirit of joy and gratitude, that genuine and religious optimism\nwhich sees in God a father, and asks no pardon for His benefits. We must\ndare to be happy, and dare to confess it, regarding ourselves always as\nthe depositaries, not as the authors of our own joy.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n... This evening I saw the first glow-worm of the season in the turf\nbeside the little winding road which descends from Lancy toward the\ntown. It was crawling furtively under the grass, like a timid thought or\na dawning talent.\n\nJune 17, 1852.--Every despotism has a specially keen and hostile\ninstinct for whatever keeps up human dignity, and independence. And it\nis curious to see scientific and realist teaching used everywhere as\na means of stifling all freedom of investigation as addressed to moral\nquestions under a dead weight of facts. Materialism is the auxiliary\ndoctrine of every tyranny, whether of the one or of the masses. To crush\nwhat is spiritual, moral, human so to speak, in man, by specializing\nhim; to form mere wheels of the great social machine, instead of perfect\nindividuals; to make society and not conscience the center of life, to\nenslave the soul to things, to de-personalize man, this is the dominant\ndrift of our epoch. Everywhere you may see a tendency to substitute\nthe laws of dead matter (number, mass) for the laws of the moral nature\n(persuasion, adhesion, faith) equality, the principle of mediocrity,\nbecoming a dogma; unity aimed at through uniformity; numbers doing\nduty for argument; negative liberty, which has no law _in itself_, and\nrecognizes no limit except in force, everywhere taking the place of\npositive liberty, which means action guided by an inner law and curbed\nby a moral authority. Socialism _versus_ individualism: this is how\nVinet put the dilemma. I should say rather that it is only the eternal\nantagonism between letter and spirit, between form and matter, between\nthe outward and the inward, appearance and reality, which is always\npresent in every conception and in all ideas.\n\nMaterialism coarsens and petrifies everything; makes everything\nvulgar and every truth false. And there is a religious and political\nmaterialism which spoils all that it touches, liberty, equality,\nindividuality. So that there are two ways of understanding democracy....\n\nWhat is threatened to-day is moral liberty, conscience, respect for the\nsoul, the very nobility of man. To defend the soul, its interests, its\nrights, its dignity, is the most pressing duty for whoever sees the\ndanger. What the writer, the teacher, the pastor, the philosopher, has\nto do, is to defend humanity in man. Man! the true man, the ideal man!\nSuch should be their motto, their rallying cry. War to all that\ndebases, diminishes, hinders, and degrades him; protection for all\nthat fortifies, ennobles, and raises him. The test of every religious,\npolitical, or educational system, is the man which it forms. If a system\ninjures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is\nvicious. If it injures the conscience it is criminal.\n\nAugust 12, 1852. (Lancy.)--Each sphere of being tends toward a higher\nsphere, and has already revelations and presentiments of it. The ideal\nunder all its forms is the anticipation and the prophetic vision of that\nexistence, higher than his own, toward which every being perpetually\naspires. And this higher and more dignified existence is more inward in\ncharacter, that is to say, more spiritual. Just as volcanoes reveal to\nus the secrets of the interior of the globe, so enthusiasm and ecstasy\nare the passing explosions of this inner world of the soul; and human\nlife is but the preparation and the means of approach to this spiritual\nlife. The degrees of initiation are innumerable. Watch, then, disciple\nof life, watch and labor toward the development of the angel within\nthee! For the divine Odyssey is but a series of more and more ethereal\nmetamorphoses, in which each form, the result of what goes before, is\nthe condition of those which follow. The divine life is a series of\nsuccessive deaths, in which the mind throws off its imperfections and\nits symbols, and yields to the growing attraction of the ineffable\ncenter of gravitation, the sun of intelligence and love. Created spirits\nin the accomplishment of their destinies tend, so to speak, to form\nconstellations and milky ways within the empyrean of the divinity;\nin becoming gods, they surround the throne of the sovereign with a\nsparkling court. In their greatness lies their homage. The divinity with\nwhich they are invested is the noblest glory of God. God is the father\nof spirits, and the constitution of the eternal kingdom rests on the\nvassalship of love.\n\nSeptember 27, 1852. (Lancy.)--To-day I complete my thirty-first year....\n\nThe most beautiful poem there is, is life--life which discerns its own\nstory in the making, in which inspiration and self-consciousness go\ntogether and help each other, life which knows itself to be the world in\nlittle, a repetition in miniature of the divine universal poem. Yes, be\nman; that is to say, be nature, be spirit, be the image of God, be what\nis greatest, most beautiful, most lofty in all the spheres of being,\nbe infinite will and idea, a reproduction of the great whole. And be\neverything while being nothing, effacing thyself, letting God enter into\nthee as the air enters an empty space, reducing the _ego_ to the mere\nvessel which contains the divine essence. Be humble, devout, silent,\nthat so thou mayest hear within the depths of thyself the subtle\nand profound voice; be spiritual and pure, that so thou mayest have\ncommunion with the pure spirit. Withdraw thyself often into the\nsanctuary of thy inmost consciousness; become once more point and atom,\nthat so thou mayest free thyself from space, time, matter, temptation,\ndispersion, that thou mayest escape thy very organs themselves and thine\nown life. That is to say, die often, and examine thyself in the presence\nof this death, as a preparation for the last death. He who can without\nshuddering confront blindness, deafness, paralysis, disease, betrayal,\npoverty; he who can without terror appear before the sovereign justice,\nhe alone can call himself prepared for partial or total death. How\nfar am I from anything of the sort, how far is my heart from any such\nstoicism! But at least we can try to detach ourselves from all that can\nbe taken away from us, to accept everything as a loan and a gift, and\nto cling only to the imperishable--this at any rate we can attempt. To\nbelieve in a good and fatherly God, who educates us, who tempers the\nwind to the shorn lamb, who punishes only when he must, and takes away\nonly with regret; this thought, or rather this conviction, gives\ncourage and security. Oh, what need we have of love, of tenderness, of\naffection, of kindness, and how vulnerable we are, we the sons of God,\nwe, immortal and sovereign beings! Strong as the universe or feeble as\nthe worm, according as we represent God or only ourselves, as we lean\nupon infinite being, or as we stand alone.\n\nThe point of view of religion, of a religion at once active and moral,\nspiritual and profound, alone gives to life all the dignity and all\nthe energy of which it is capable. Religion makes invulnerable and\ninvincible. Earth can only be conquered in the name of heaven. All good\nthings are given over and above to him who desires but righteousness.\nTo be disinterested is to be strong, and the world is at the feet of\nhim whom it cannot tempt. Why? Because spirit is lord of matter, and\nthe world belongs to God. \u201cBe of good cheer,\u201d saith a heavenly voice, \u201cI\nhave overcome the world.\u201d\n\nLord, lend thy strength to those who are weak in the flesh, but willing\nin the spirit!\n\nOctober 31, 1852. (Lancy.)--Walked for half an hour in the garden. A\nfine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. The sky was\nhung with various shades of gray, and mists hovered about the distant\nmountains, a melancholy nature. The leaves were falling on all sides\nlike the last illusions of youth under the tears of irremediable\ngrief. A brood of chattering birds were chasing each other through the\nShrubberies, and playing games among the branches, like a knot of hiding\nschoolboys. The ground strewn with leaves, brown, yellow, and reddish;\nthe trees half-stripped, some more, some less, and decked in ragged\nsplendors of dark-red, scarlet, and yellow; the reddening shrubs and\nplantations; a few flowers still lingering behind, roses, nasturtiums,\ndahlias, shedding their petals round them; the bare fields, the thinned\nhedges; and the fir, the only green thing left, vigorous and stoical,\nlike eternal youth braving decay; all these innumerable and marvelous\nsymbols which forms colors, plants, and living beings, the earth and the\nsky, yield at all times to the eye which has learned to look for them,\ncharmed and enthralled me. I wielded a poetic wand, and had but to touch\na phenomenon to make it render up to me its moral significance. Every\nlandscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates\ninto both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each\ndetail. True poetry is truer than science, because it is synthetic, and\nseizes at once what the combination of all the sciences is able at most\nto attain as a final result. The soul of nature is divined by the\npoet; the man of science, only serves to accumulate materials for its\ndemonstration.\n\nNovember 6, 1852.--I am capable of all the passions, for I bear them all\nwithin me. Like a tamer of wild beasts, I keep them caged and lassoed,\nbut I sometimes hear them growling. I have stifled more than one nascent\nlove. Why? Because with that prophetic certainty which belongs to moral\nintuition, I felt it lacking in true life, and less durable than myself.\nI choked it down in the name of the supreme affection to come. The loves\nof sense, of imagination, of sentiment, I have seen through and rejected\nthem all; I sought the love which springs from the central profundities\nof being. And I still believe in it. I will have none of those passions\nof straw which dazzle, burn up, and wither; I invoke, I await, and I\nhope for the love which is great, pure and earnest, which lives and\nworks in all the fibres and through all the powers of the soul. And even\nif I go lonely to the end, I would rather my hope and my dream died with\nme, than that my soul should content itself with any meaner union.\n\nNovember 8, 1852.--Responsibility is my invisible nightmare. To suffer\nthrough one\u2019s own fault is a torment worthy of the lost, for so grief is\nenvenomed by ridicule, and the worst ridicule of all, that which springs\nfrom shame of one\u2019s self. I have only force and energy wherewith to\nmeet evils coming from outside; but an irreparable evil brought about\nby myself, a renunciation for life of my liberty, my peace of mind,\nthe very thought of it is maddening--I expiate my privilege indeed. My\nprivilege is to be spectator of my life drama, to be fully conscious of\nthe tragi-comedy of my own destiny, and, more than that, to be in the\nsecret of the tragi-comic itself, that is to say, to be unable to take\nmy illusions seriously, to see myself, so to speak, from the theater\non the stage, or to be like a man looking from beyond the tomb into\nexistence. I feel myself forced to feign a particular interest in my\nindividual part, while all the time I am living in the confidence of the\npoet who is playing with all these agents which seem so important, and\nknows all that they are ignorant of. It is a strange position, and one\nwhich becomes painful as soon as grief obliges me to betake myself once\nmore to my own little _r\u00f4le_, binding me closely to it, and warning me\nthat I am going too far in imagining myself, because of my conversations\nwith the poet, dispensed from taking up again my modest part of valet\nin the piece. Shakespeare must have experienced this feeling often, and\nHamlet, I think, must express it somewhere. It is a _Doppelg\u00e4ngerei_,\nquite German in character, and which explains the disgust with reality\nand the repugnance to public life, so common among the thinkers of\nGermany. There is, as it were, a degradation a gnostic fall, in thus\nfolding one\u2019s wings and going back again into the vulgar shell of\none\u2019s own individuality. Without grief, which is the string of this\nventuresome kite, man would soar too quickly and too high, and the\nchosen souls would be lost for the race, like balloons which, save for\ngravitation, would never return from the empyrean.\n\nHow, then, is one to recover courage enough for action? By striving to\nrestore in one\u2019s self something of that unconsciousness, spontaneity,\ninstinct, which reconciles us to earth and makes man useful and\nrelatively happy.\n\nBy believing more practically in the providence which pardons and allows\nof reparation.\n\nBy accepting our human condition in a more simple and childlike spirit,\nfearing trouble less, calculating less, hoping more. For we decrease our\nresponsibility, if we decrease our clearness of vision, and fear lessens\nwith the lessening of responsibility.\n\nBy extracting a richer experience out of our losses and lessons.\n\nNovember 9, 1852.--A few pages of the _Chrestomathie Fran\u00e7aise_ and\nVinet\u2019s remarkable letter at the head of the volume, have given me one\nor two delightful hours. As a thinker, as a Christian, and as a man,\nVinet occupies a typical place. His philosophy, his theology, his\nesthetics, in short, his work, will be, or has been already surpassed\nat all points. His was a great soul and a fine talent. But neither were\nwell enough served by circumstances. We see in him a personality\nworthy of all veneration, a man of singular goodness and a writer\nof distinction, but not quite a great man, nor yet a great writer.\nProfundity and purity, these are what he possesses in a high degree, but\nnot greatness, properly speaking. For that, he is a little too subtle\nand analytical, too ingenious and fine-spun; his thought is overladen\nwith detail, and has not enough flow, eloquence, imagination, warmth,\nand largeness. Essentially and constantly meditative, he has not\nstrength enough left to deal with what is outside him. The\ncasuistries of conscience and of language, eternal self-suspicion, and\nself-examination, his talent lies in these things, and is limited by\nthem. Vinet wants passion, abundance, _entra\u00eenement_, and therefore\npopularity. The individualism which is his title to glory is also the\ncause of his weakness.\n\nWe find in him always the solitary and the ascetic. His thought is, as\nit were, perpetually at church; it is perpetually devising trials\nand penances for itself. Hence the air of scruple and anxiety which\ncharacterizes it even in its bolder flights. Moral energy, balanced by a\ndisquieting delicacy of fibre; a fine organization marred, so to speak,\nby low health, such is the impression it makes upon us. Is it\nreproach or praise to say of Vinet\u2019s mind that it seems to one a force\nperpetually reacting upon itself? A warmer and more self-forgetful\nmanner; more muscles, as it were, around the nerves, more circles of\nintellectual and historical life around the individual circle, these are\nwhat Vinet, of all writers perhaps the one who makes us _think_ most, is\nstill lacking in. Less _reflexivity_ and more plasticity, the eye more\non the object, would raise the style of Vinet, so rich in substance, so\nnervous, so full of ideas, and variety, into a grand style. Vinet,\nto sum up, is conscience personified, as man and as writer. Happy the\nliterature and the society which is able to count at one time two or\nthree like him, if not equal to him!\n\nNovember 10, 1852.--How much have we not to learn from the Greeks,\nthose immortal ancestors of ours! And how much better they solved their\nproblem than we have solved ours. Their ideal man is not ours, but they\nunderstood infinitely better than we how to reverence, cultivate and\nennoble the man whom they knew. In a thousand respects we are still\nbarbarians beside them, as B\u00e9ranger said to me with a sigh in 1843:\nbarbarians in education, in eloquence, in public life, in poetry, in\nmatters of art, etc. We must have millions of men in order to produce a\nfew elect spirits: a thousand was enough in Greece. If the measure of a\ncivilization is to be the number of perfected men that it produces, we\nare still far from this model people. The slaves are no longer below us,\nbut they are among us. Barbarism is no longer at our frontiers; it lives\nside by side with us. We carry within us much greater things than\nthey, but we ourselves are smaller. It is a strange result. Objective\ncivilization produced great men while making no conscious effort\ntoward such a result; subjective civilization produces a miserable and\nimperfect race, contrary to its mission and its earnest desire. The\nworld grows more majestic but man diminishes. Why is this?\n\nWe have too much barbarian blood in our veins, and we lack measure,\nharmony and grace. Christianity, in breaking man up into outer\nand inner, the world into earth and heaven, hell and paradise, has\ndecomposed the human unity, in order, it is true, to reconstruct it more\nprofoundly and more truly. But Christianity has not yet digested this\npowerful leaven. She has not yet conquered the true humanity; she is\nstill living under the antimony of sin and grace, of here below and\nthere above. She has not penetrated into the whole heart of Jesus. She\nis still in the _narthex_ of penitence; she is not reconciled, and even\nthe churches still wear the livery of service, and have none of the joy\nof the daughters of God, baptized of the Holy Spirit.\n\nThen, again, there is our excessive division of labor; our bad and\nfoolish education which does not develop the whole man; and the problem\nof poverty. We have abolished slavery, but without having solved the\nquestion of labor. In law there are no more slaves, in fact, there are\nmany. And while the majority of men are not free, the free man, in the\ntrue sense of the term can neither be conceived nor realized. Here are\nenough causes for our inferiority.\n\nNovember 12, 1852.--St. Martin\u2019s summer is still lingering, and the days\nall begin in mist. I ran for a quarter of an hour round the garden to\nget some warmth and suppleness. Nothing could be lovelier than the last\nrosebuds, or than the delicate gaufred edges of the strawberry leaves\nembroidered with hoar-frost, while above them Arachne\u2019s delicate webs\nhung swaying in the green branches of the pines, little ball-rooms\nfor the fairies carpeted with powdered pearls and kept in place by a\nthousand dewy strands hanging from above like the chains of a lamp and\nsupporting them from below like the anchors of a vessel. These little\nairy edifices had all the fantastic lightness of the elf-world and all\nthe vaporous freshness of dawn. They recalled to me the poetry of the\nnorth, wafting to me a breath from Caledonia or Iceland or Sweden,\nFrithiof and the Edda, Ossian and the Hebrides. All that world of cold\nand mist, of genius and of reverie, where warmth comes not from the sun\nbut from the heart where man is more noticeable than nature--that chaste\nand vigorous world in which will plays a greater part than sensation and\nthought has more power than instinct--in short the whole romantic cycle\nof German and northern poetry, awoke little by little in my memory and\nlaid claim upon my sympathy. It is a poetry of bracing quality, and acts\nupon one like a moral tonic. Strange charm of imagination! A twig of\npine wood and a few spider-webs are enough to make countries, epochs,\nand nations live again before her.\n\nDecember 26, 1852. (Sunday.)--If I reject many portions of our theology\nand of our church system, it is that I may the better reach the Christ\nhimself. My philosophy allows me this. It does not state the dilemma\nas one of religion or philosophy, but as one of religion accepted or\nexperienced, understood or not understood. For me philosophy is a manner\nof apprehending things, a mode of perception of reality. It does not\ncreate nature, man or God, but it finds them and seeks to understand\nthem. Philosophy is consciousness taking account of itself with all\nthat it contains. Now consciousness may contain a new life--the facts of\nregeneration and of salvation, that is to say, Christian experience.\nThe understanding of the Christian consciousness is an integral part\nof philosophy, as the Christian consciousness is a leading form of\nreligious consciousness, and religious consciousness an essential form\nof consciousness.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAn error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth\nwhich it contains.\n\nLook twice, if what you want is a just conception; look once, if what\nyou want is a sense of beauty.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA man only understands what is akin to something already existing in\nhimself.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCommon sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of\nexperience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe wealth of each mind is proportioned to the number and to the\nprecision of its categories and its points of view.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo feel himself freer than his neighbor is the reward of the critic.\n\nModesty (_pudeur_) is always the sign and safeguard of a mystery. It is\nexplained by its contrary--profanation. Shyness or modesty is, in\ntruth, the half-conscious sense of a secret of nature or of the soul too\nintimately individual to be given or surrendered. It is _exchanged_.\nTo surrender what is most profound and mysterious in one\u2019s being and\npersonality at any price less than that of absolute reciprocity is\nprofanation.\n\nJanuary 6, 1853.--Self-government with tenderness--here you have the\ncondition of all authority over children. The child must discover in us\nno passion, no weakness of which he can make use; he must feel himself\npowerless to deceive or to trouble us; then he will recognize in us his\nnatural superiors, and he will attach a special value to our kindness,\nbecause he will respect it. The child who can rouse in us anger, or\nimpatience, or excitement, feels himself stronger than we, and a child\nonly respects strength. The mother should consider herself as her\nchild\u2019s sun, a changeless and ever radiant world, whither the small\nrestless creature, quick at tears and laughter, light, fickle,\npassionate, full of storms, may come for fresh stores of light, warmth,\nand electricity, of calm and of courage. The mother represents goodness,\nprovidence, law; that is to say, the divinity, under that form of it\nwhich is accessible to childhood. If she is herself passionate, she will\ninculcate on her child a capricious and despotic God, or even several\ndiscordant gods. The religion of a child depends on what its mother\nand its father are, and not on what they say. The inner and unconscious\nideal which guides their life is precisely what touches the child; their\nwords, their remonstrances, their punishments, their bursts of feeling\neven, are for him merely thunder and comedy; what they worship, this it\nis which his instinct divines and reflects.\n\nThe child sees what we are, behind what we wish to be. Hence his\nreputation as a physiognomist. He extends his power as far as he can\nwith each of us; he is the most subtle of diplomatists. Unconsciously\nhe passes under the influence of each person about him, and reflects it\nwhile transforming it after his own nature. He is a magnifying mirror.\nThis is why the first principle of education is: train yourself; and the\nfirst rule to follow if you wish to possess yourself of a child\u2019s will\nis: master your own.\n\nFebruary 5, 1853 (seven o\u2019clock in the morning).--I am always astonished\nat the difference between one\u2019s inward mood of the evening and that\nof the morning. The passions which are dominant in the evening, in the\nmorning leave the field free for the contemplative part of the soul. Our\nwhole being, irritated and overstrung by the nervous excitement of\nthe day, arrives in the evening at the culminating point of its human\nvitality; the same being, tranquilized by the calm of sleep, is in the\nmorning nearer heaven. We should weigh a resolution in the two balances,\nand examine an idea under the two lights, if we wish to minimize the\nchances of error by taking the average of our daily oscillations. Our\ninner life describes regular curves, barometical curves, as it were,\nindependent of the accidental disturbances which the storms of sentiment\nand passion may raise in us. Every soul has its climate, or rather, is\na climate; it has, so to speak, its own meteorology in the general\nmeteorology of the soul. Psychology, therefore, cannot be complete so\nlong as the physiology of our planet is itself incomplete--that science\nto which we give nowadays the insufficient name of physics of the globe.\n\nI became conscious this morning that what appears to us impossible is\noften an impossibility altogether subjective. Our mind, under the\naction of the passions, produces by a strange mirage gigantic obstacles,\nmountains or abysses, which stop us short. Breathe upon the passion and\nthe phantasmagoria will vanish. This power of mirage, by which we are\nable to delude and fascinate ourselves, is a moral phenomenon worthy\nof attentive study. We make for ourselves, in truth, our own spiritual\nworld monsters, chimeras, angels, we make objective what ferments in us.\nAll is marvelous for the poet; all is divine for the saint; all is great\nfor the hero; all is wretched, miserable, ugly, and bad for the base and\nsordid soul. The bad man creates around him a pandemonium, the artist,\nan Olympus, the elect soul, a paradise, which each of them sees for\nhimself alone. We are all visionaries, and what we see is our soul in\nthings. We reward ourselves and punish ourselves without knowing it, so\nthat all appears to change when we change.\n\nThe soul is essentially active, and the activity of which we are\nconscious is but a part of our activity, and voluntary activity is but\na part of our conscious activity. Here we have the basis of a whole\npsychology and system of morals. Man reproducing the world, surrounding\nhimself with a nature which is the objective rendering of his spiritual\nnature, rewarding and punishing himself; the universe identical with\nthe divine nature, and the nature of the perfect spirit only becoming\nunderstood according to the measure of our perfection; intuition the\nrecompense of inward purity; science as the result of goodness; in\nshort, a new phenomenology more complete and more moral, in which the\ntotal soul of things becomes spirit. This shall perhaps be my subject\nfor my summer lectures. How much is contained in it! the whole domain\nof inner education, all that is mysterious in our life, the relation of\nnature to spirit, of God and all other beings to man, the repetition\nin miniature of the cosmogony, mythology, theology, and history of the\nuniverse, the evolution of mind, in a word the problem of problems\ninto which I have often plunged but from which finite things, details,\nminutiae, have turned me back a thousand times. I return to the brink of\nthe great abyss with the clear perception that here lies the problem\nof science, that to sound it is a duty, that God hides Himself only\nin light and love, that He calls upon us to become spirits, to possess\nourselves and to possess Him in the measure of our strength and that it\nis our incredulity, our spiritual cowardice, which is our infirmity and\nweakness.\n\nDante, gazing into the three worlds with their divers heavens, saw under\nthe form of an image what I would fain seize under a purer form. But he\nwas a poet, and I shall only be a philosopher. The poet makes himself\nunderstood by human generations and by the crowd; the philosopher\naddresses himself only to a few rare minds. The day has broken.\nIt brings with it dispersion of thought in action. I feel myself\nde-magnetized, pure clairvoyance gives place to study, and the ethereal\ndepth of the heaven of contemplation vanishes before the glitter of\nfinite things. Is it to be regretted? No. But it proves that the hours\nmost apt for philosophical thought are those which precede the dawn.\n\nFebruary 10, 1853.--This afternoon I made an excursion to the Sal\u00e8ve\nwith my particular friends, Charles Heim, Edmond Scherer, \u00c9lie\nLecoultre, and Ernest Naville. The conversation was of the most\ninteresting kind, and prevented us from noticing the deep mud which\nhindered our walking. It was especially Scherer, Naville, and I who kept\nit alive. Liberty in God, the essence of Christianity, new publications\nin philosophy, these were our three subjects of conversation. The\nprinciple result for me was an excellent exercise in dialectic and in\nargumentation with solid champions. If I learned nothing, many of my\nideas gained new confirmation, and I was able to penetrate more deeply\ninto the minds of my friends. I am much nearer to Scherer than to\nNaville, but from him also I am in some degree separated.\n\nIt is a striking fact, not unlike the changing of swords in \u201cHamlet,\u201d\n that the abstract minds, those which move from ideas to facts, are\nalways fighting on behalf of concrete reality; while the concrete minds,\nwhich move from facts to ideas, are generally the champions of abstract\nnotions. Each pretends to that over which he has least power; each aims\ninstinctively at what he himself lacks. It is an unconscious protest\nagainst the incompleteness of each separate nature. We all tend toward\nthat which we possess least of, and our point of arrival is essentially\ndifferent from our point of departure. The promised land is the land\nwhere one is not. The most intellectual of natures adopts an ethical\ntheory of mind; the most moral of natures has an intellectual theory\nof morals. This reflection was brought home to me in the course of our\nthree or four hours\u2019 discussion. Nothing is more hidden from us than the\nillusion which lives with us day by day, and our greatest illusion is to\nbelieve that we are what we think ourselves to be.\n\nThe mathematical intelligence and the historical intelligence (the two\nclasses of intelligences) can never understand each other. When they\nsucceed in doing so as to words, they differ as to the things which the\nwords mean. At the bottom of every discussion of detail between them\nreappears the problem of the origin of ideas. If the problem is not\npresent to them, there is confusion; if it is present to them, there is\nseparation. They only agree as to the goal--truth; but never as to the\nroad, the method, and the criterion.\n\nHeim represented the impartiality of consciousness, Naville the morality\nof consciousness, Lecoultre the religion of consciousness, Scherer the\nintelligence of consciousness, and I the consciousness of consciousness.\nA common ground, but differing individualities. _Discrimen ingeniorum_.\n\nWhat charmed me most in this long discussion was the sense of mental\nfreedom which it awakened in me. To be able to set in motion the\ngreatest subjects of thought without any sense of fatigue, to be greater\nthan the world, to play with one\u2019s strength, this is what makes the\nwell-being of intelligence, the Olympic festival of thought. _Habere,\nnon haberi_. There is an equal happiness in the sense of reciprocal\nconfidence, of friendship, and esteem in the midst of conflict; like\nathletes, we embrace each other before and after the combat, and the\ncombat is but a deploying of the forces of free and equal men.\n\nMarch 20, 1853.--I sat up alone; two or three times I paid a visit to\nthe children\u2019s room. It seemed to me, young mothers, that I understood\nyou! sleep is the mystery of life; there is a profound charm in this\ndarkness broken by the tranquil light of the night-lamp, and in this\nsilence measured by the rhythmic breathings of two young sleeping\ncreatures. It was brought home to me that I was looking on at a\nmarvelous operation of nature, and I watched it in no profane spirit. I\nsat silently listening, a moved and hushed spectator of this poetry of\nthe cradle, this ancient and ever new benediction of the family, this\nsymbol of creation, sleeping under the wing of God, of our consciousness\nwithdrawing into the shade that it may rest from the burden of thought,\nand of the tomb, that divine bed, where the soul in its turn rests from\nlife. To sleep is to strain and purify our emotions, to deposit the\nmud of life, to calm the fever of the soul, to return into the bosom of\nmaternal nature, thence to re-issue, healed and strong. Sleep is a sort\nof innocence and purification. Blessed be He who gave it to the poor\nsons of men as the sure and faithful companion of life, our daily healer\nand consoler.\n\nApril 27, 1853.--This evening I read the treatise by Nicole so much\nadmired by Mme. de S\u00e9vign\u00e9: \u201c_Des moyens de conserver la paix avec les\nhommes._\u201d Wisdom so gentle and so insinuating, so shrewd, piercing, and\nyet humble, which divines so well the hidden thoughts and secrets of the\nheart, and brings them all into the sacred bondage of love to God and\nman, how good and delightful a thing it is! Everything in it is smooth,\neven well put together, well thought out, but no display, no tinsel,\nno worldly ornaments of style. The moralist forgets himself and in us\nappeals only to the conscience. He becomes a confessor, a friend, a\ncounsellor.\n\nMay 11, 1853.--Psychology, poetry, philosophy, history, and science,\nI have swept rapidly to-day on the wings of the invisible hippogriff\nthrough all these spheres of thought. But the general impression has\nbeen one of tumult and anguish, temptation and disquiet.\n\nI love to plunge deep into the ocean of life; but it is not without\nlosing sometimes all sense of the axis and the pole, without losing\nmyself and feeling the consciousness of my own nature and vocation\ngrowing faint and wavering. The whirlwind of the wandering Jew carries\nme away, tears me from my little familiar enclosure, and makes me behold\nall the empires of men. In my voluntary abandonment to the generality,\nthe universal, the infinite, my particular _ego_ evaporates like a drop\nof water in a furnace; it only condenses itself anew at the return\nof cold, after enthusiasm has died out and the sense of reality has\nreturned. Alternate expansion and condensation, abandonment and recovery\nof self, the conquest of the world to be pursued on the one side, the\ndeepening of consciousness on the other--such is the play of the inner\nlife, the march of the microcosmic mind, the marriage of the individual\nsoul with the universal soul, the finite with the infinite, whence\nsprings the intellectual progress of man. Other betrothals unite the\nsoul to God, the religious consciousness with the divine; these belong\nto the history of the will. And what precedes will is feeling, preceded\nitself by instinct. Man is only what he becomes--profound truth; but he\nbecomes only what he is, truth still more profound. What am I? Terrible\nquestion! Problem of predestination, of birth, of liberty, there lies\nthe abyss. And yet one must plunge into it, and I have done so. The\nprelude of Bach I heard this evening predisposed me to it; it paints\nthe soul tormented and appealing and finally seizing upon God, and\npossessing itself of peace and the infinite with an all-prevailing\nfervor and passion.\n\nMay 14, 1853.--Third quartet concert. It was short. Variations for piano\nand violin by Beethoven, and two quartets, not more. The quartets were\nperfectly clear and easy to understand. One was by Mozart and the\nother by Beethoven, so that I could compare the two masters. Their\nindividuality seemed to become plain to me: Mozart--grace, liberty,\ncertainty, freedom, and precision of style, and exquisite and\naristocratic beauty, serenity of soul, the health and talent of the\nmaster, both on a level with his genius; Beethoven--more pathetic, more\npassionate, more torn with feeling, more intricate, more profound, less\nperfect, more the slave of his genius, more carried away by his fancy or\nhis passion, more moving, and more sublime than Mozart. Mozart refreshes\nyou, like the \u201cDialogues\u201d of Plato; he respects you, reveals to you your\nstrength, gives you freedom and balance. Beethoven seizes upon you; he\nis more tragic and oratorical, while Mozart is more disinterested and\npoetical. Mozart is more Greek, and Beethoven more Christian. One is\nserene, the other serious. The first is stronger than destiny, because\nhe takes life less profoundly; the second is less strong, because he\nhas dared to measure himself against deeper sorrows. His talent is\nnot always equal to his genius, and pathos is his dominant feature,\nas perfection is that of Mozart. In Mozart the balance of the whole is\nperfect, and art triumphs; in Beethoven feeling governs everything and\nemotion troubles his art in proportion as it deepens it.\n\nJuly 26, 1853.--Why do I find it easier and more satisfactory, as a\nwriter of verse, to compose in the short metres than in the long and\nserious ones? Why, in general, am I better fitted for what is difficult\nthan for what is easy? Always for the same reason. I cannot bring myself\nto move freely, to show myself without a veil, to act on my own account\nand act seriously, to believe in and assert myself, whereas a piece of\nbadinage which diverts attention from myself to the thing in hand,\nfrom the feeling to the skill of the writer, puts me at my ease. It is\ntimidity which is at the bottom of it. There is another reason, too--I\nam afraid of greatness, I am not afraid of ingenuity, and distrustful as\nI am both of my gift and my instrument, I like to reassure myself by\nan elaborate practice of execution. All my published literary essays,\ntherefore, are little else than studies, games, exercises for the\npurpose of testing myself. I play scales, as it were; I run up and down\nmy instrument, I train my hand and make sure of its capacity and skill.\nBut the work itself remains unachieved. My effort expires, and satisfied\nwith the _power_ to act I never arrive at the will to act. I am always\npreparing and never accomplishing, and my energy is swallowed up in a\nkind of barren curiosity. Timidity, then, and curiosity--these are\nthe two obstacles which bar against me a literary career. Nor must\nprocrastination be forgotten. I am always reserving for the future what\nis great, serious, and important, and meanwhile, I am eager to exhaust\nwhat is pretty and trifling. Sure of my devotion to things that are vast\nand profound, I am always lingering in their contraries lest I should\nneglect them. Serious at bottom, I am frivolous in appearance. A\nlover of thought, I seem to care above all, for expression; I keep the\nsubstance for myself, and reserve the form for others. So that the net\nresult of my timidity is that I never treat the public seriously,\nand that I only show myself to it in what is amusing, enigmatical, or\ncapricious; the result of my curiosity is that everything tempts me,\nthe shell as well as the mountain, and that I lose myself in endless\nresearch; while the habit of procrastination keeps me forever at\npreliminaries and antecedents, and production itself is never even\nbegun.\n\nBut if that is the fact, the fact might be different. I understand\nmyself, but I do not approve myself.\n\nAugust 1, 1853.--I have just finished Pelletan\u2019s book, \u201cProfession de\nfoi du dix-neuvi\u00e8me Si\u00e8cle.\u201d It is a fine book Only one thing is wanting\nto it--the idea of evil. It is a kind of supplement to the theory of\nCondorcet--indefinite perfectibility, man essentially good, _life_,\nwhich is a physiological notion, dominating virtue, duty, and holiness,\nin short, a non-ethical conception of history, liberty identified with\nnature, the natural man taken for the whole man. The aspirations which\nsuch a book represents are generous and poetical, but in the first place\ndangerous, since they lead to an absolute confidence in instinct; and\nin the second, credulous and unpractical, for they set before us a mere\ndream man, and throw a veil over both present and past reality. The book\nis at once the plea justificatory of progress, conceived as fatal and\nirresistible, and an enthusiastic hymn to the triumph of humanity. It is\nearnest, but morally superficial; poetical, but fanciful and untrue. It\nconfounds the progress of the race with the progress of the individual,\nthe progress of civilization with the advance of the inner life. Why?\nBecause its criterion is quantitative, that is to say, purely exterior\n(having regard to the wealth of life), and not qualitative (the goodness\nof life). Always the same tendency to take the appearance for the thing,\nthe form for the substance, the law for the essence, always the same\nabsence of moral personality, the same obtuseness of conscience, which\nhas never recognized sin present in the will, which places evil outside\nof man, moralizes from outside, and transforms to its own liking\nthe whole lesson of history! What is at fault is the philosophic\nsuperficiality of France, which she owes to her fatal notion of\nreligion, itself due to a life fashioned by Catholicism and by absolute\nmonarchy.\n\nCatholic thought cannot conceive of personality as supreme and conscious\nof itself. Its boldness and its weakness come from one and the same\ncause--from an absence of the sense of responsibility, from that vassal\nstate of conscience which knows only slavery or anarchy, which proclaims\nbut does not obey the law, because the law is outside it, not within it.\nAnother illusion is that of Quinet and Michelet, who imagine it possible\nto come out of Catholicism without entering into any other positive form\nof religion, and whose idea is to fight Catholicism by philosophy, a\nphilosophy which is, after all, Catholic at bottom, since it springs\nfrom anti-Catholic reaction. The mind and the conscience, which have\nbeen formed by Catholicism, are powerless to rise to any other form of\nreligion. From Catholicism, as from Epicureanism there is no return.\n\nOctober 11, 1853.--My third day at Turin, is now over. I have been able\nto penetrate farther than ever before into the special genius of this\ntown and people. I have felt it live, have realized it little by little,\nas my intuition became more distinct. That is what I care for most: to\nseize the soul of things, the soul of a nation; to live the objective\nlife, the life outside self; to find my way into a new moral country. I\nlong to assume the citizenship of this unknown world, to enrich myself\nwith this fresh form of existence, to feel it from within, to link\nmyself to it, and to reproduce it sympathetically; this is the end and\nthe reward of my efforts. To-day the problem grew clear to me as I stood\non the terrace of the military hospital, in full view of the Alps, the\nweather fresh and clear in spite of a stormy sky. Such an intuition\nafter all is nothing out a synthesis wrought by instinct, a synthesis\nto which everything--streets, houses, landscape, accent, dialect,\nphysiognomies, history, and habits contribute their share. I might call\nit the ideal integration of a people or its reduction to the generating\npoint, or an entering into its consciousness. This generating point\nexplains everything else, art, religion, history, politics, manners;\nand without it nothing can be explained. The ancients realized\ntheir consciousness in the national God. Modern nationalities, more\ncomplicated and less artistic, are more difficult to decipher. What\none seeks for in them is the daemon, the fatum, the inner genius, the\nmission, the primitive disposition, both what there is desire for and\nwhat there is power for, the force in them and its limitations.\n\nA pure and life-giving freshness of thought and of the spiritual life\nseemed to play about me, borne on the breeze descending from the Alps.\nI breathed an atmosphere of spiritual freedom, and I hailed with emotion\nand rapture the mountains whence was wafted to me this feeling of\nstrength and purity. A thousand sensations, thoughts, and analogies\ncrowded upon me. History, too, the history of the sub-Alpine countries,\nfrom the Ligurians to Hannibal, from Hannibal to Charlemagne, from\nCharlemagne to Napoleon, passed through my mind. All the possible\npoints of view, were, so to speak, piled upon each other, and one caught\nglimpses of some eccentrically across others. I was enjoying and I was\nlearning. Sight passed into vision without a trace of hallucination, and\nthe landscape was my guide, my Virgil.\n\nAll this made me very sensible of the difference between me and the\nmajority of travelers, all of whom have a special object, and content\nthemselves with one thing or with several, while I desire all or\nnothing, and am forever straining toward the total, whether of all\npossible objects, or of all the elements present in the reality. In\nother words, what I desire is the sum of all desires, and what I seek\nto know is the sum of all different kinds of knowledge. Always the\ncomplete, the absolute; the _teres atque rotundum_, sphericity,\nnon-resignation.\n\nOctober 27, 1853.--I thank Thee, my God, for the hour that I have just\npassed in Thy presence. Thy will was clear to me; I measured my faults,\ncounted my griefs, and felt Thy goodness toward me. I realized my own\nnothingness, Thou gavest me Thy peace. In bitterness there is sweetness;\nin affliction, joy; in submission, strength; in the God who punishes,\nthe God who loves. To lose one\u2019s life that one may gain it, to offer it\nthat one may receive it, to possess nothing that one may conquer all, to\nrenounce self that God may give Himself to us, how impossible a problem,\nand how sublime a reality! No one truly knows happiness who has not\nsuffered, and the redeemed are happier than the elect.\n\n(Same day.)--The divine miracle _par excellence_ consists surely in the\napotheosis of grief, the transfiguration of evil by good. The work of\ncreation finds its consummation, and the eternal will of the infinite\nmercy finds its fulfillment only in the restoration of the free creature\nto God and of an evil world to goodness, through love. Every soul in\nwhich conversion has taken place is a symbol of the history of the\nworld. To be happy, to possess eternal life, to be in God, to be saved,\nall these are the same. All alike mean the solution of the problem,\nthe aim of existence. And happiness is cumulative, as misery may be.\nAn eternal growth is an unchangeable peace, an ever profounder depth of\napprehension, a possession constantly more intense and more spiritual of\nthe joy of heaven--this is happiness. Happiness has no limits, because\nGod has neither bottom nor bounds, and because happiness is nothing but\nthe conquest of God through love.\n\nThe center of life is neither in thought nor in feeling, nor in will,\nnor even in consciousness, so far as it thinks, feels, or wishes. For\nmoral truth may have been penetrated and possessed in all these ways,\nand escape us still. Deeper even than consciousness there is our being\nitself, our very substance, our nature. Only those truths which have\nentered into this last region, which have become ourselves, become\nspontaneous and involuntary, instinctive and unconscious, are really our\nlife--that is to say something more than our property. So long as we\nare able to distinguish any space whatever between the truth and us\nwe remain outside it. The thought, the feeling, the desire, the\nconsciousness of life, are not yet quite life. But peace and repose can\nnowhere be found except in life, and in eternal life and the eternal\nlife is the divine life, is God. To become divine is then the aim of\nlife: then only can truth be said to be ours beyond the possibility of\nloss, because it is no longer outside us, nor even in us, but we are it,\nand it is we; we ourselves are a truth, a will, a work of God. Liberty\nhas become nature; the creature is one with its creator--one through\nlove. It is what it ought to be; its education is finished, and its\nfinal happiness begins. The sun of time declines and the light of\neternal blessedness arises.\n\nOur fleshly hearts may call this mysticism. It is the mysticism of\nJesus: \u201cI am one with my Father; ye shall be one with me. We will be one\nwith you.\u201d\n\nDo not despise your situation; in it you must act, suffer, and conquer.\nFrom every point on earth we are equally near to heaven and to the\ninfinite.\n\nThere are two states or conditions of pride. The first is one of\nself-approval, the second one of self-contempt. Pride is seen probably\nat its purest in the last.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe,\nby affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that\nwe think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFebruary 1, 1854.--A walk. The atmosphere incredibly pure, a warm\ncaressing gentleness in the sunshine--joy in one\u2019s whole being. Seated\nmotionless upon a bench on the Tranch\u00e9es, beside the slopes clothed with\nmoss and tapestried with green, I passed some intense delicious moments,\nallowing great elastic waves of music, wafted to me from a military band\non the terrace of St. Antoine, to surge and bound through me. Every way\nI was happy, as idler, as painter, as poet. Forgotten impressions of\nchildhood and youth came back to me--all those indescribable effects\nwrought by color, shadow, sunlight, green hedges, and songs of birds,\nupon the soul just opening to poetry. I became again young, wondering,\nand simple, as candor and ignorance are simple. I abandoned myself to\nlife and to nature, and they cradled me with an infinite gentleness.\nTo open one\u2019s heart in purity to this ever pure nature, to allow this\nimmortal life of things to penetrate into one\u2019s soul, is at the same\ntime to listen to the voice of God. Sensation may be a prayer, and\nself-abandonment an act of devotion.\n\nFebruary 18, 1854.--Everything tends to become fixed, solidified, and\ncrystallized in this French tongue of ours, which seeks form and not\nsubstance, the result and not its formation, what is seen rather than\nwhat is thought, the outside rather than the inside.\n\nWe like the accomplished end and not the pursuit of the end, the goal\nand not the road, in short, ideas ready-made and bread ready-baked,\nthe reverse of Lessing\u2019s principle. What we look for above all are\nconclusions. This clearness of the \u201cready-made\u201d is a superficial\nclearness--physical, outward, solar clearness, so to speak, but in the\nabsence of a sense for origin and genesis it is the clearness of\nthe incomprehensible, the clearness of opacity, the clearness of\nthe obscure. We are always trifling on the surface. Our temper is\nformal--that is to say, frivolous and material, or rather artistic and\nnot philosophical. For what it seeks is the figure, the fashion and\nmanner of things, not their deepest life, their soul, their secret.\n\nMarch 16, 1854. (From Veevay to Geneva.)--What message had this lake for\nme, with its sad serenity, its soft and even tranquility, in which\nwas mirrored the cold monotonous pallor of mountains and clouds? That\ndisenchanted disillusioned life may still be traversed by duty, lit by a\nmemory of heaven. I was visited by a clear and profound intuition of the\nflight of things, of the fatality of all life, of the melancholy which\nis below the surface of all existence, but also of that deepest depth\nwhich subsists forever beneath the fleeting wave.\n\nDecember 17, 1854.--When we are doing nothing in particular, it is then\nthat we are living through all our being; and when we cease to add to\nour growth it is only that we may ripen and possess ourselves. Will is\nsuspended, but nature and time are always active and if our life is no\nlonger our work, the work goes on none the less. With us, without us, or\nin spite of us, our existence travels through its appointed phases, our\ninvisible Psyche weaves the silk of its chrysalis, our destiny fulfills\nitself, and all the hours of life work together toward that flowering\ntime which we call death. This activity, then, is inevitable and fatal;\nsleep and idleness do not interrupt it, but it may become free and\nmoral, a joy instead of a terror.\n\nNothing is more characteristic of a man than the manner in which he\nbehaves toward fools.\n\nIt costs us a great deal of trouble not to be of the same opinion as our\nself-love, and not to be ready to believe in the good taste of those who\nbelieve in our merits.\n\nDoes not true humility consist in accepting one\u2019s infirmity as a\ntrial, and one\u2019s evil disposition as a cross, in sacrificing all one\u2019s\npretensions and ambitions, even those of conscience? True humility is\ncontentment.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA man only understands that of which he has already the beginnings in\nhimself.\n\nLet us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret\nof eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMarch 28, 1855.--Not a blade of grass but has a story to tell, not a\nheart but has its romance, not a life which does not hide a secret\nwhich is either its thorn or its spur. Everywhere grief, hope, comedy,\ntragedy; even under the petrifaction of old age, as in the twisted forms\nof fossils, we may discover the agitations and tortures of youth. This\nthought is the magic wand of poets and of preachers: it strips the\nscales from our fleshly eyes, and gives us a clear view into human life;\nit opens to the ear a world of unknown melodies, and makes us understand\nthe thousand languages of nature. Thwarted love makes a man a polyglot,\nand grief transforms him into a diviner and a sorcerer.\n\nApril 16, 1855.--I realized this morning the prodigious effect of\nclimate on one\u2019s state of mind. I was Italian or Spanish. In this blue\nand limpid air, and under this southern sun, the very walls smile at\nyou. All the chestnut trees were en fete; with their glistening buds\nshining like little flames at the curved ends of the branches, they were\nthe candelabra of the spring decking the festival of eternal nature. How\nyoung everything was, how kindly, how gracious! the moist freshness of\nthe grass, the transparent shadows in the courtyards, the strength of\nthe old cathedral towers, the white edges of the roads. I felt myself a\nchild; the sap of life mounted again into my veins as it does in plants.\nHow sweet a thing is a little simple enjoyment! And now, a brass\nband which has stopped in the street makes my heart leap as it did at\neighteen. Thanks be to God; there have been so many weeks and months\nwhen I thought myself an old man. Come poetry, nature, youth, and love,\nknead my life again with your fairy hands; weave round me once more your\nimmortal spells; sing your siren melodies, make me drink of the cup\nof immortality, lead me back to the Olympus of the soul. Or rather, no\npaganism! God of joy and of grief, do with me what Thou wilt; grief is\ngood, and joy is good also. Thou art leading me now through joy. I take\nit from Thy hands, and I give Thee thanks for it.\n\nApril 17, 1855.--The weather is still incredibly brilliant, warm, and\nclear. The day is full of the singing of birds, the night is full of\nstars, nature has become all kindness, and it is a kindness clothed upon\nwith splendor.\n\nFor nearly two hours have I been lost in the contemplation of this\nmagnificent spectacle. I felt myself in the temple of the infinite, in\nthe presence of the worlds, God\u2019s guest in this vast nature. The stars\nwandering in the pale ether drew me far away from earth. What peace\nbeyond the power of words, what dews of life eternal, they shed on the\nadoring soul! I felt the earth floating like a boat in this blue ocean.\nSuch deep and tranquil delight nourishes the whole man, it purifies and\nennobles. I surrendered myself, I was all gratitude and docility.\n\nApril 21, 1855.--I have been reading a great deal: ethnography,\ncomparative anatomy, cosmical systems. I have traversed the universe\nfrom the deepest depths of the empyrean to the peristaltic movements of\nthe atoms in the elementary cell. I have felt myself expanding in the\ninfinite, and enfranchised in spirit from the bounds of time and space,\nable to trace back the whole boundless creation to a point without\ndimensions, and seeing the vast multitude of suns, of milky ways, of\nstars, and nebulae, all existent in the point.\n\nAnd on all sides stretched mysteries, marvels and prodigies, without\nlimit, without number, and without end. I felt the unfathomable thought\nof which the universe is the symbol live and burn within me; I touched,\nproved, tasted, embraced my nothingness and my immensity; I kissed the\nhem of the garments of God, and gave Him thanks for being Spirit and\nfor being life. Such moments are glimpses of the divine. They make one\nconscious of one\u2019s immortality; they bring home to one that an eternity\nis not too much for the study of the thoughts and works of the eternal;\nthey awaken in us an adoring ecstasy and the ardent humility of love.\n\nMay 23, 1855.--Every hurtful passion draws us to it, as an abyss does,\nby a kind of vertigo. Feebleness of will brings about weakness of head,\nand the abyss in spite of its horror, comes to fascinate us, as though\nit were a place of refuge. Terrible danger! For this abyss is within\nus; this gulf, open like the vast jaws of an infernal serpent bent on\ndevouring us, is in the depth of our own being, and our liberty floats\nover this void, which is always seeking to swallow it up. Our only\ntalisman lies in that concentration of moral force which we call\nconscience, that small inextinguishable flame of which the light is duty\nand the warmth love. This little flame should be the star of our life;\nit alone can guide our trembling ark across the tumult of the great\nwaters; it alone can enable us to escape the temptations of the sea, the\nstorms and the monsters which are the offspring of night and the deluge.\nFaith in God, in a holy, merciful, fatherly God, is the divine ray which\nkindles this flame.\n\nHow deeply I feel the profound and terrible poetry of all these\nprimitive terrors from which have issued the various theogonies of the\nworld, and how it all grows clear to me, and becomes a symbol of the\none great unchanging thought, the thought of God about the universe! How\npresent and sensible to my inner sense is the unity of everything! It\nseems to me that I am able to pierce to the sublime motive which, in all\nthe infinite spheres of existence, and through all the modes of space\nand time, every created form reproduces and sings within the bond of an\neternal harmony. From the infernal shades I feel myself mounting toward\nthe regions of light; my flight across chaos finds its rest in paradise.\nHeaven, hell, the world, are within us. Man is the great abyss.\n\nJuly 27, 1855.--So life passes away, tossed like a boat by the waves\nup and down, hither and thither, drenched by the spray, stained by the\nfoam, now thrown upon the bank, now drawn back again according to the\nendless caprice of the water. Such, at least, is the life of the heart\nand the passions, the life which Spinoza and the stoics reprove, and\nwhich is the exact opposite of that serene and contemplative life,\nalways equable like the starlight, in which man lives at peace, and sees\neverything tinder its eternal aspect; the opposite also of the life\nof conscience, in which God alone speaks, and all self-will surrenders\nitself to His will made manifest.\n\nI pass from one to another of these three existences, which are equally\nknown to me; but this very mobility deprives me of the advantages of\neach. For my heart is worn with scruples, the soul in me cannot crush\nthe needs of the heart, and the conscience is troubled and no longer\nknows how to distinguish, in the chaos of contradictory inclinations,\nthe voice of duty or the will of God. The want of simple faith, the\nindecision which springs from distrust of self, tend to make all my\npersonal life a matter of doubt and uncertainty. I am afraid of the\nsubjective life, and recoil from every enterprise, demand, or promise\nwhich may oblige me to realize myself; I feel a terror of action, and\nam only at ease in the impersonal, disinterested, and objective life of\nthought. The reason seems to be timidity, and the timidity springs\nfrom the excessive development of the reflective power which has almost\ndestroyed in me all spontaneity, impulse, and instinct, and therefore\nall boldness and confidence. Whenever I am forced to act, I see cause\nfor error and repentance everywhere, everywhere hidden threats and\nmasked vexations. From a child I have been liable to the disease of\nirony, and that it may not be altogether crushed by destiny, my nature\nseems to have armed itself with a caution strong enough to prevail\nagainst any of life\u2019s blandishments. It is just this strength which is\nmy weakness. I have a horror of being duped, above all, duped by myself,\nand I would rather cut myself off from all life\u2019s joys than deceive or\nbe deceived. Humiliation, then, is the sorrow which I fear the most,\nand therefore it would seem as if pride were the deepest rooted of my\nfaults.\n\nThis may be logical, but it is not the truth: it seems to me that it is\nreally distrust, incurable doubt of the future, a sense of the justice\nbut not of the goodness of God--in short, unbelief, which is my\nmisfortune and my sin. Every act is a hostage delivered over to avenging\ndestiny--there is the instinctive belief which chills and freezes; every\nact is a pledge confided to a fatherly providence, there is the belief\nwhich calms.\n\nPain seems to me a punishment and not a mercy: this is why I have a\nsecret horror of it. And as I feel myself vulnerable at all points, and\neverywhere accessible to pain, I prefer to remain motionless, like a\ntimid child, who, left alone in his father\u2019s laboratory, dares not touch\nanything for fear of springs; explosions, and catastrophes, which may\nburst from every corner at the least movement of his inexperienced\nhands. I have trust in God directly and as revealed in nature, but I\nhave a deep distrust of all free and evil agents. I feel or foresee\nevil, moral and physical, as the consequence of every error, fault, or\nsin, and I am ashamed of pain.\n\nAt bottom, is it not a mere boundless self-love, the purism of\nperfection, an incapacity to accept our human condition, a tacit protest\nagainst the order of the world, which lies at the root of my inertia?\nIt means _all or nothing_, a vast ambition made inactive by disgust, a\nyearning that cannot be uttered for the ideal, joined with an offended\ndignity and a wounded pride which will have nothing to say to what they\nconsider beneath them. It springs from the ironical temper which\nrefuses to take either self or reality seriously, because it is forever\ncomparing both with the dimly-seen infinite of its dreams. It is a state\nof mental reservation in which one lends one\u2019s self to circumstances for\nform\u2019s sake, but refuses to recognize them in one\u2019s heart because one\ncannot see the necessity or the divine order in them. I am disinterested\nbecause I am indifferent; I have nothing to say against what is, and yet\nI am never satisfied. I am too weak to conquer, and yet I will not be\nConquered--it is the isolation of the disenchanted soul, which has put\neven hope away from it.\n\nBut even this is a trial laid upon one. Its providential purpose is no\ndoubt to lead one to that true renunciation of which charity is the sign\nand symbol. It is when one expects nothing more for one\u2019s self that one\nis able to love. To do good to men because we love them, to use every\ntalent we have so as to please the Father from whom we hold it for\nHis service, there is no other way of reaching and curing this\ndeep discontent with life which hides itself under an appearance of\nindifference.\n\nSeptember 4, 1855.--In the government of the soul the parliamentary form\nsucceeds the monarchical. Good sense, conscience, desire, reason, the\npresent and the past, the old man and the new, prudence and generosity,\ntake up their parable in turn; the reign of argument begins; chaos\nreplaces order, and darkness light. Simple will represents the\nautocratic _r\u00e9gime_, interminable discussion the deliberate regime of\nthe soul. The one is preferable from the theoretical point of view, the\nother from the practical. Knowledge and action are their two respective\nadvantages.\n\nBut the best of all would be to be able to realize three powers in the\nsoul. Besides the man of counsel we want the man of action and the man\nof judgment. In me, reflection comes to no useful end, because it is\nforever returning upon itself, disputing and debating. I am wanting in\nboth the general who commands and the judge who decides.\n\nAnalysis is dangerous if it overrules the synthetic faculty; reflection\nis to be feared if it destroys our power of intuition, and inquiry\nis fatal if it supplants faith. Decomposition becomes deadly when it\nsurpasses in strength the combining and constructive energies of life,\nand the _separate_ action of the powers of the soul tends to mere\ndisintegration and destruction as soon as it becomes impossible to bring\nthem to bear as _one_ undivided force. When the sovereign abdicates\nanarchy begins.\n\nIt is just here that my danger lies. Unity of life, of force, of action,\nof expression, is becoming impossible to me; I am legion, division,\nanalysis, and reflection; the passion for dialectic, for fine\ndistinctions, absorbs and weakens me. The point which I have reached\nseems to be explained by a too restless search for perfection, by the\nabuse of the critical faculty, and by an unreasonable distrust of first\nimpulses, first thoughts, first words. Unity and simplicity of being,\nconfidence, and spontaneity of life, are drifting out of my reach, and\nthis is why I can no longer act.\n\nGive up, then, this trying to know all, to embrace all. Learn to\nlimit yourself, to content yourself with some definite thing, and some\ndefinite work; dare to be what you are, and learn to resign with a good\ngrace all that you are not, and to believe in your own individuality.\nSelf-distrust is destroying you; trust, surrender, abandon yourself;\n\u201cbelieve and thou shalt be healed.\u201d Unbelief is death, and depression\nand self-satire are alike unbelief.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom the point of view of happiness, the problem of life is insoluble,\nfor it is our highest aspirations which prevent us from being happy.\nFrom the point of view of duty, there is the same difficulty, for the\nfulfillment of duty brings peace, not happiness. It is divine love, the\nlove of the holiest, the possession of God by faith, which solves the\ndifficulty; for if sacrifice has itself become a joy, a lasting, growing\nand imperishable joy--the soul is then secure of an all-sufficient and\nunfailing nourishment.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nJanuary 21, 1856.--Yesterday seems to me as far off as though it were\nlast year. My memory holds nothing more of the past than its general\nplan, just as my eye perceives nothing more in the starry heaven. It\nis no more possible for me to recover one of my days from the depths of\nmemory than if it were a glass of water poured into a lake; it is not\nso much a lost thing as a thing melted and fused; the individual has\nreturned into the whole. The divisions of time are categories which\nhave no power to mold my life, and leave no more lasting impression than\nlines traced by a stick in water. My life, my individuality, are fluid,\nthere is nothing for it but to resign one\u2019s self.\n\nApril 9, 1856.--How true it is that our destinies are decided by\nnothings and that a small imprudence helped by some insignificant\naccident, as an acorn is fertilized by a drop of rain, may raise the\ntrees on which perhaps we and others shall be crucified. What happens\nis quite different from that we planned; we planned a blessing and there\nsprings from it a curse. How many times the serpent of fatality, or\nrather the law of life, the force of things, intertwining itself with\nsome very simple facts, cannot be cut away by any effort, and the logic\nof situations and characters leads inevitably to a dreaded _d\u00e9nouement_.\nIt is the fatal spell of destiny, which obliges us to feed our grief\nfrom our own hand, to prolong the existence of our vulture, to throw\ninto the furnace of our punishment and expiation, our powers, our\nqualities, our very virtues, one by one, and so forces us to recognize\nour nothingness, our dependence and the implacable majesty of law. Faith\nin a providence softens punishment but does not do away with it. The\nwheels of the divine chariot crush us first of all that justice may be\nsatisfied and an example given to men, and then a hand is stretched out\nto us to raise us up, or at least to reconcile us with the love hidden\nunder the justice. Pardon cannot precede repentance and repentance only\nbegins with humility. And so long as any fault whatever appears trifling\nto us, so long as we see, not so much the culpability of as the excuses\nfor imprudence or negligence, so long, in short, as Job murmurs and as\nprovidence is thought to be too severe, so long as there is any inner\nprotestation against fate, or doubt as to the perfect justice of God,\nthere is not yet entire humility or true repentance. It is when we\naccept the expiation that it can be spared us; it is when we submit\nsincerely that grace can be granted to us. Only when grief finds its\nwork done can God dispense us from it. Trial then only stops when it is\nuseless: that is why it scarcely ever stops. Faith in the justice and\nlove of the Father is the best and indeed the only support under the\nsufferings of this life. The foundation of all of our pains is unbelief;\nwe doubt whether what happens to us ought to happen to us; we think\nourselves wiser than providence, because to avoid fatalism we believe in\naccident. Liberty in submission--what a problem! And yet that is what we\nmust always come back to.\n\nMay 7, 1856.--I have been reading Rosenkrantz\u2019s \u201cHistory of Poetry\u201d\n [Footnote: \u201cGeschichte der Poesie,\u201d by Rosenkrantz, the pupil and\nbiographer of Hegel] all day: it touches upon all the great names of\nSpain, Portugal, and France, as far as Louis XV. It is a good thing to\ntake these rapid surveys; the shifting point of view gives a perpetual\nfreshness to the subject and to the ideas presented, a literary\nexperience which is always pleasant and bracing. For one of my\ntemperament, this philosophic and morphological mode of embracing and\nexpounding literary history has a strong attraction. But it is the\nantipodes of the French method of proceeding, which takes, as it were,\nonly the peaks of the subject, links them together by theoretical\nfigures and triangulations, and then assumes these lines to represent\nthe genuine face of the country. The real process of formation of a\ngeneral opinion, of a public taste, of an established _genre_, cannot be\nlaid bare by an abstract method, which suppresses the period of growth\nin favor of the final fruit, which prefers clearness of outline to\nfullness of statement, and sacrifices the preparation to the result, the\nmultitude to the chosen type. This French method, however, is eminently\ncharacteristic, and it is linked by invisible ties to their respect for\ncustom and fashion, to the Catholic and dualist instinct which admits\ntwo truths, two contradictory worlds, and accepts quite naturally\nwhat is magical, incomprehensible, and arbitrary in God, the king,\nor language. It is the philosophy of accident become habit, instinct,\nnature and belief, it is the religion of caprice.\n\nBy one of those eternal contrasts which redress the balance of things,\nthe romance peoples, who excel in the practical matters of life, care\nnothing for the philosophy of it; while the Germans, who know very\nlittle about the practice of life, are masters of its theory. Every\nliving being seeks instinctively to complete itself; this is the secret\nlaw according to which that nation whose sense of life is fullest and\nkeenest, drifts most readily toward a mathematical rigidity of theory.\nMatter and form are the eternal oppositions, and the mathematical\nintellects are often attracted by the facts of life, just as the\nsensuous minds are often drawn toward the study of abstract law. Thus\nstrangely enough, what we think we are is just what we are not: what we\ndesire to be is what suits us least; our theories condemn us, and our\npractice gives the lie to our theories. And the contradiction is an\nadvantage, for it is the source of conflict, of movement, and therefore\na condition of progress. Every life is an inward struggle, every\nstruggle supposes two contrary forces; nothing real is simple,\nand whatever thinks itself simple is in reality the farthest from\nsimplicity. Therefore it would seem that every state is a moment in\na series; every being a compromise between contraries. In concrete\ndialectic we have the key which opens to us the understanding of beings\nin the series of beings, of states in the series of moments; and it is\nin dynamics that we have the explanation of equilibrium. Every situation\nis an _equilibrium_ of forces; every life is a _struggle_ between\nopposing forces working within the limits of a certain equilibrium.\n\nThese two principles have been often clear to me, but I have never\napplied them widely or rigorously enough.\n\nJuly 1, 1856.--A man and still more a woman, always betrays something\nof his or her nationality. The women of Russia, for instance, like the\nlakes and rivers of their native country, seem to be subject to\nsudden and prolonged fits of torpor. In their movement, undulating and\ncaressing like that of water, there is always a threat of unforeseen\nfrost. The high latitude, the difficulty of life, the inflexibility of\ntheir autocratic _r\u00e9gime_, the heavy and mournful sky, the inexorable\nclimate, all these harsh fatalities have left their mark upon the\nMuscovite race. A certain somber obstinacy, a kind of primitive\nferocity, a foundation of savage harshness which, under the influence of\ncircumstances, might become implacable and pitiless; a cold strength, an\nindomitable power of resolution which would rather wreck the whole\nworld than yield, the indestructible instinct of the barbarian tribe,\nperceptible in the half-civilized nation, all these traits are visible\nto an attentive eye, even in the harmless extravagances and caprices\nof a young woman of this powerful race. Even in their _badinage_ they\nbetray something of that fierce and rigid nationality which burns its\nown towns and [as Napoleon said] keeps battalions of dead soldiers on\ntheir feet.\n\nWhat terrible rulers the Russians would be if ever they should spread\nthe night of their rule over the countries of the south! They would\nbring us a polar despotism, tyranny such as the world has never known,\nsilent as darkness, rigid as ice, insensible as bronze, decked with\nan outer amiability and glittering with the cold brilliancy of snow,\na slavery without compensation or relief. Probably, however, they will\ngradually lose both the virtues and the defects of their semi-barbarism.\nThe centuries as they pass will ripen these sons of the north, and they\nwill enter into the concert of peoples in some other capacity than as a\nmenace or a dissonance. They have only to transform their hardiness into\nstrength, their cunning into grace, their Muscovitism into humanity, to\nwin love instead of inspiring aversion or fear.\n\nJuly 3, 1856.--The German admires form, but he has no genius for it. He\nis the opposite of the Greek; he has critical instinct, aspiration, and\ndesire, but no serene command of beauty. The south, more artistic, more\nself-satisfied, more capable of execution, rests idly in the sense of\nits own power to achieve. On one side you have ideas, on the other side,\ntalent. The realm of Germany is beyond the clouds; that of the southern\npeoples is on this earth. The Germanic race thinks and feels; the\nsoutherners feel and express; the Anglo-Saxons will and do. To know, to\nfeel, to act, there you have the trio of Germany, Italy, England. France\nformulates, speaks, decides, and laughs. Thought, talent, will, speech;\nor, in other words science, art, action, proselytism. So the parts of\nthe quartet are assigned.\n\nJuly 21, 1856.--_Mit sack und pack_ here I am back again in my town\nrooms. I have said good-bye to my friends and my country joys, to\nverdure, flowers, and happiness. Why did I leave them after all? The\nreason I gave myself was that I was anxious about my poor uncle, who is\nill. But at bottom are there not other reasons? Yes, several. There is\nthe fear of making myself a burden upon the two or three families of\nfriends who show me incessant kindness, for which I can make no return.\nThere are my books, which call me back. There is the wish to keep faith\nwith myself. But all that would be nothing, I think, without another\ninstinct, the instinct of the wandering Jew, which snatches from me the\ncup I have but just raised to my lips, which forbids me any prolonged\nenjoyment, and cries \u201cgo forward! Let there be no falling asleep, no\nstopping, no attaching yourself to this or that!\u201d This restless feeling\nis not the need of change. It is rather the fear of what I love, the\nmistrust of what charms me, the unrest of happiness. What a _bizarre_\ntendency, and what a strange nature! not to be able to enjoy anything\nsimply, na\u00efvely, without scruple, to feel a force upon one impelling\none to leave the table, for fear the meal should come to an end.\nContradiction and mystery! not to use, for fear of abusing; to think\none\u2019s self obliged to go, not because one has had enough, but because\none has stayed awhile. I am indeed always the same; the being who\nwanders when he need not, the voluntary exile, the eternal traveler,\nthe man incapable of repose, who, driven on by an inward voice, builds\nnowhere, buys and labors nowhere, but passes, looks, camps, and goes.\nAnd is there not another reason for all this restlessness, in a certain\nsense of void? of incessant pursuit of something wanting? of longing\nfor a truer peace and a more entire satisfaction? Neighbors, friends,\nrelations, I love them all; and so long as these affections are active,\nthey leave in me no room for a sense of want. But yet they do not _fill_\nmy heart; and that is why they have no power to fix it. I am always\nwaiting for the woman and the work which shall be capable of taking\nentire possession of my soul, and of becoming my end and aim.\n\n  \u201cPromenant par tout s\u00e9jour\n  Le deuil que tu c\u00e8les,\n  Psych\u00e9-papillon, un jour\n  Puisses-tu trouver l\u2019amour\n  Et perdre tes ailes!\u201d\n\nI have not given away my heart: hence this restlessness of spirit. I\nwill not let it be taken captive by that which cannot fill and satisfy\nit; hence this instinct of pitiless detachment from all that charms\nme without permanently binding me; so that it seems as if my love\nof movement, which looks so like inconstancy, was at bottom only a\nperpetual search, a hope, a desire, and a care, the malady of the ideal.\n\n... Life indeed must always be a compromise between common sense and the\nideal, the one abating nothing of its demands, the other accommodating\nitself to what is practicable and real. But marriage by common sense!\narrived at by a bargain! Can it be anything but a profanation? On\nthe other, hand, is that not a vicious ideal which hinders life from\ncompleting itself, and destroys the family in germ? Is there not too\nmuch of pride in my ideal, pride which will not accept the common\ndestiny?...\n\nNoon.--I have been dreaming--my head in my hand. About what? About\nhappiness. I have as it were, been asleep on the fatherly breast of God.\nHis will be done!\n\nAugust 3, 1856.--A delightful Sunday afternoon at Pressy. Returned late,\nunder a great sky magnificently starred, with summer lightning playing\nfrom a point behind the Jura. Drunk with poetry, and overwhelmed by\nsensation after sensation, I came back slowly, blessing the God of life,\nand plunged in the joy of the infinite. One thing only I lacked, a soul\nwith whom to share it all--for emotion and enthusiasm overflowed like\nwater from a full cup. The Milky Way, the great black poplars, the\nripple of the waves, the shooting stars, distant songs, the lamp-lit\ntown, all spoke to me in the language of poetry. I felt myself almost\na poet. The wrinkles of science disappeared under the magic breath of\nadmiration; the old elasticity of soul, trustful, free, and living was\nmine once more. I was once more young, capable of self-abandonment\nand of love. All my barrenness had disappeared; the heavenly dew had\nfertilized the dead and gnarled stick; it began to be green and flower\nagain. My God, how wretched should we be without beauty! But with it,\neverything is born afresh in us; the senses, the heart, imagination,\nreason, will, come together like the dead bones of the prophet, and\nbecome one single and self-same energy. What is happiness if it is not\nthis plentitude of existence, this close union with the universal\nand divine life? I have been happy a whole half day, and I have been\nbrooding over my joy, steeping myself in it to the very depths of\nconsciousness.\n\nOctober 22, 1856.--We must learn to look upon life as an apprenticeship\nto a progressive renunciation, a perpetual diminution in our\npretensions, our hopes, our powers, and our liberty. The circle grows\nnarrower and narrower; we began with being eager to learn everything, to\nsee everything, to tame and conquer everything, and in all directions we\nreach our limit--_non plus ultra_. Fortune, glory, love, power, health,\nhappiness, long life, all these blessings which have been possessed by\nother men seem at first promised and accessible to us, and then we have\nto put the dream away from us, to withdraw one personal claim after\nanother to make ourselves small and humble, to submit to feel ourselves\nlimited, feeble, dependent, ignorant and poor, and to throw ourselves\nupon God for all, recognizing our own worthlessness, and that we have no\nright to anything. It is in this nothingness that we recover something\nof life--the divine spark is there at the bottom of it. Resignation\ncomes to us, and, in believing love, we reconquer the true greatness.\n\nOctober 27, 1856.--In all the chief matters of life we are alone, and\nour true history is scarcely ever deciphered by others. The chief part\nof the drama is a monologue, rather an intimate debate between God, our\nconscience, and ourselves. Tears, griefs, depressions, disappointments,\nirritations, good and evil thoughts, decisions, uncertainties,\ndeliberations, all these belong to our secret, and are almost all\nincommunicable and intransmissible, even when we try to speak of them,\nand even when we write them down. What is most precious in us never\nshows itself, never finds an issue even in the closest intimacy. Only\na part of it reaches our consciousness, it scarcely enters into action\nexcept in prayer, and is perhaps only perceived by God, for our past\nrapidly becomes strange to us. Our monad may be influenced by other\nmonads, but none the less does it remain impenetrable to them in its\nessence; and we ourselves, when all is said, remain outside our own\nmystery. The center of our consciousness is unconscious, as the kernel\nof the sun is dark. All that we are, desire, do, and know, is more or\nless superficial, and below the rays and lightnings of our periphery\nthere remains the darkness of unfathomable substance.\n\nI was then well-advised when, in my theory of the inner man, I placed\nat the foundation of the self, after the seven spheres which the self\ncontains had been successively disengaged, a lowest depth of darkness,\nthe abyss of the un-revealed, the virtual pledge of an infinite future,\nthe obscure self, the pure subjectivity which is incapable of realizing\nitself in mind, conscience, or reason, in the soul, the heart, the\nimagination, or the life of the senses, and which makes for itself\nattributes and conditions out of all these forms of its own life.\n\nBut the obscure only exists that it may cease to exist. In it lies the\nopportunity of all victory and all progress. Whether it call itself\nfatality, death, night, or matter, it is the pedestal of life, of light,\nof liberty, and the spirit. For it represents _resistance_--that is to\nsay, the fulcrum of all activity, the occasion for its development and\nits triumph.\n\nDecember 17, 1856.--This evening was the second quartet concert. It\nstirred me much more than the first; the music chosen was loftier and\nstronger. It was the quartet in D minor of Mozart, and the quartet in C\nmajor of Beethoven, separated by a Spohr concerto. This last, vivid, and\nbrilliant as a whole, has fire in the allegro, feeling in the adagio,\nand elegance in the _finale_, but it is the product of one fine gift in\na mediocre personality. With the two others you are at once in contact\nwith genius; you are admitted to the secrets of two great souls. Mozart\nstands for inward liberty, Beethoven for the power of enthusiasm. The\none sets us free, the other ravishes us out of ourselves. I do not think\nI ever felt more distinctly than to-day, or with more intensity, the\ndifference between these two masters. Their two personalities became\ntransparent to me, and I seemed to read them to their depths.\n\nThe work of Mozart, penetrated as it is with mind and thought,\nrepresents a solved problem, a balance struck between aspiration and\nexecutive capacity, the sovereignty of a grace which is always mistress\nof itself, marvelous harmony and perfect unity. His quartet describes a\nday in one of those Attic souls who pre-figure on earth the serenity\nof Elysium. The first scene is a pleasant conversation, like that of\nSocrates on the banks of the Ilissus; its chief mark is an exquisite\nurbanity. The second scene is deeply pathetic. A cloud has risen in the\nblue of this Greek heaven. A storm, such as life inevitably brings with\nit, even in the case of great souls who love and esteem each other,\nhas come to trouble the original harmony. What is the cause of it--a\nmisunderstanding, apiece of neglect? Impossible to say, but it breaks\nout notwithstanding. The andante is a scene of reproach and complaint,\nbut as between immortals. What loftiness in complaint, what dignity,\nwhat feeling, what noble sweetness in reproach! The voice trembles and\ngrows graver, but remains affectionate and dignified. Then, the storm\nhas passed, the sun has come back, the explanation has taken place,\npeace is re-established. The third scene paints the brightness of\nreconciliation. Love, in its restored confidence, and as though in\nsly self-testing, permits itself even gentle mocking and friendly\n_badinage_. And the _finale_ brings us back to that tempered gaiety and\nhappy serenity, that supreme freedom, flower of the inner life, which is\nthe leading motive of the whole composition.\n\nIn Beethoven\u2019s on the other hand, a spirit of tragic irony paints\nfor you the mad tumult of existence as it dances forever above the\nthreatening abyss of the infinite. No more unity, no more satisfaction,\nno more serenity! We are spectators of the eternal duel between the\ngreat forces, that of the abyss which absorbs all finite things, and\nthat of life which defends and asserts itself, expands, and enjoys. The\nfirst bars break the seals and open the caverns of the great deep. The\nstruggle begins. It is long. Life is born, and disports itself gay and\ncareless as the butterfly which flutters above a precipice. Then it\nexpands the realm of its conquests, and chants its successes. It founds\na kingdom, it constructs a system of nature. But the typhon rises from\nthe yawning gulf, and the Titans beat upon the gates of the new empire.\nA battle of giants begins. You hear the tumultuous efforts of the powers\nof chaos. Life triumphs at last, but the victory is not final, and\nthrough all the intoxication of it there is a certain note of terror and\nbewilderment. The soul of Beethoven was a tormented soul. The passion\nand the awe of the infinite seemed to toss it to and fro from heaven\nto hell, Hence its vastness. Which is the greater, Mozart or Beethoven?\nIdle question! The one is more perfect, the other more colossal. The\nfirst gives you the peace of perfect art, beauty, at first sight. The\nsecond gives you sublimity, terror, pity, a beauty of second impression.\nThe one gives that for which the other rouses a desire. Mozart has\nthe classic purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic\ngrandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the\nsoul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, that of\nBeethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed\nbe they both! Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us\ngood. Our love is due to both.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo judge is to see clearly, to care for what is just and therefore to be\nimpartial, more exactly, to be disinterested, more exactly still, to be\nimpersonal.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do\nwhat is impossible for talent is the mark of genius.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOur duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to\nour powers.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf nationality is consent, the state is compulsion.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSelf-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only\nbegins for man with self-surrender.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he\ndecides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWithout passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the\nflint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its\nspark.\n\nFebruary 3, 1857.--The phantasmagoria of the soul cradles and soothes\nme as though I were an Indian yoghi, and everything, even my own life,\nbecomes to me smoke, shadow, vapor, and illusion. I hold so lightly\nto all phenomena that they end by passing over me like gleams over a\nlandscape, and are gone without leaving any impression. Thought is a\nkind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can\nmake transparent the mountains and everything that exists. It is by love\nonly that one keeps hold upon reality, that one recovers one\u2019s proper\nself, that one becomes again will, force, and individuality. Love\ncould do everything with me; by myself and for myself I prefer to be\nnothing....\n\nI have the imagination of regret and not that of hope. My\nclear-sightedness is retrospective, and the result with me of\ndisinterestedness and prudence is that I attach myself to what I have no\nchance of obtaining....\n\nMay 27, 1857. (Vandoeuvres. [Footnote: Also a village in the\nneighborhood of Geneva.])--We are going down to Geneva to hear the\n\u201cTannh\u00e4user\u201d of Richard Wagner performed at the theater by the German\ntroup now passing through. Wagner\u2019s is a powerful mind endowed with\nstrong poetical sensitiveness. His work is even more poetical than\nmusical. The suppression of the lyrical element, and therefore of\nmelody, is with him a systematic _parti pris_. No more duos or trios;\nmonologue and the _aria_ are alike done away with. There remains only\ndeclamation, the recitative, and the choruses. In order to avoid the\nconventional in singing, Wagner falls into another convention--that of\nnot singing at all. He subordinates the voice to articulate speech, and\nfor fear lest the muse should take flight he clips her wings. So that\nhis works are rather symphonic dramas than operas. The voice is brought\ndown to the rank of an instrument, put on a level with the violins, the\nhautboys, and the drums, and treated instrumentally. Man is deposed from\nhis superior position, and the center of gravity of the work passes into\nthe baton of the conductor. It is music depersonalized, neo-Hegelian\nmusic--music multiple instead of individual. If this is so, it is indeed\nthe music of the future, the music of the socialist democracy replacing\nthe art which is aristocratic, heroic, or subjective.\n\nThe overture pleased me even less than at the first hearing: it is\nlike nature before man appeared. Everything in it is enormous, savage,\nelementary, like the murmur of forests and the roar of animals. It is\nforbidding and obscure, because man, that is to say, mind, the key of\nthe enigma, personality, the spectator, is wanting to it.\n\nThe idea of the piece is grand. It is nothing less than the struggle of\npassion and pure love, of flesh and spirit, of the animal and the angel\nin man. The music is always expressive, the choruses very beautiful, the\norchestration skillful, but the whole is fatiguing and excessive,\ntoo full, too laborious. When all is said, it lacks gayety, ease,\nnaturalness and vivacity--it has no smile, no wings. Poetically one is\nfascinated, but one\u2019s musical enjoyment is hesitating, often doubtful,\nand one recalls nothing but the general impression--Wagner\u2019s music\nrepresents the abdication of the self, and the emancipation of all the\nforces once under its rule. It is a falling back into Spinozism--the\ntriumph of fatality. This music has its root and its fulcrum in two\ntendencies of the epoch, materialism and socialism--each of them\nignoring the true value of the human personality, and drowning it in the\ntotality of nature or of society.\n\nJune 17, 1857. (Vandoeuvres).--I have just followed Maine de Biran from\nhis twenty-eighth to his forty-eighth year by means of his journal,\nand a crowd of thoughts have besieged me. Let me disengage those which\nconcern myself. In this eternal self-chronicler and observer I seem to\nsee myself reflected with all my faults, indecision, discouragement,\nover-dependence on sympathy, difficulty of finishing, with my habit of\nwatching myself feel and live, with my growing incapacity for practical\naction, with my aptitude for psychological study. But I have also\ndiscovered some differences which cheer and console me. This nature\nis, as it were, only one of the men which exist in me. It is one of my\ndepartments. It is not the whole of my territory, the whole of my inner\nkingdom. Intellectually, I am more objective and more constructive;\nmy horizon is vaster; I have seen much more of men, things, countries,\npeoples and books; I have a greater mass of experiences--in a word, I\nfeel that I have more culture, greater wealth, range, and freedom of\nmind, in spite of my wants, my limits, and my weaknesses. Why does Maine\nde Biran make _will_ the whole of man? Perhaps because he had too little\nwill. A man esteems most highly what he himself lacks, and exaggerates\nwhat he longs to possess. Another incapable of thought, and meditation,\nwould have made self-consciousness the supreme thing. Only the totality\nof things has an objective value. As soon as one isolates a part from\nthe whole, as soon as one chooses, the choice is involuntarily and\ninstinctively dictated by subjective inclinations which obey one or\nother of the two opposing laws, the attraction of similars or the\naffinity of contraries.\n\nFive o\u2019clock.--The morning has passed like a dream. I went on with the\njournal of Maine de Biran down to the end of 1817. After dinner I passed\nmy time with the birds in the open air, wandering in the shady walks\nwhich wind along under Pressy. The sun was brilliant and the air clear.\nThe midday orchestra of nature was at its best. Against the humming\nbackground made by a thousand invisible insects there rose the delicate\ncaprices and improvisations of the nightingale singing from the\nash-trees, or of the hedge-sparrows and the chaffinches in their nests.\nThe hedges are hung with wild roses, the scent of the acacia still\nperfumes the paths; the light down of the poplar seeds floated in the\nair like a kind of warm, fair-weather snow. I felt myself as gay as\na butterfly. On coming in I read the three first books of that poem\n\u201cCorinne,\u201d which I have not seen since I was a youth. Now as I read it\nagain, I look at it across interposing memories; the romantic interest\nof it seems to me to have vanished, but not the poetical, pathetic, or\nmoral interest.\n\nJune 18th.--I have just been spending three hours in the orchard under\nthe shade of the hedge, combining the spectacle of a beautiful morning\nwith reading and taking a turn between each chapter. Now the sky is\nagain covered with its white veil of cloud, and I have come up with\nBiran, whose \u201cPens\u00e9e\u201d I have just finished, and Corinne, whom I have\nfollowed with Oswald in their excursions among the monuments of the\neternal city. Nothing is so melancholy and wearisome as this journal of\nMaine de Biran. This unchanging monotony of perpetual reflection has an\nenervating and depressing effect upon one. Here, then, is the life of\na distinguished man seen in its most intimate aspects! It is one\nlong repetition, in which the only change is an almost imperceptible\ndisplacement of center in the writer\u2019s manner of viewing himself. This\nthinker takes thirty years to move from the Epicurean quietude to the\nquietism of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, and this only speculatively, for his practical\nlife remains the same, and all his anthropological discovery consists\nin returning to the theory of the three lives, lower, human, and higher,\nwhich is in Pascal and in Aristotle. And this is what they call a\nphilosopher in France! Beside the great philosophers, how poor and\nnarrow seems such an intellectual life! It is the journey of an ant,\nbounded by the limits of a field; of a mole, who spends his days in the\nconstruction of a mole-hill. How narrow and stifling the swallow who\nflies across the whole Old World, and whose sphere of life embraces\nAfrica and Europe, would find the circle with which the mole and the ant\nare content! This volume of Biran produces in me a sort of asphyxia;\nas I assimilate it, it seems to paralyze me; I am chained to it by some\nspell of secret sympathy. I pity, and I am afraid of my pity, for I feel\nhow near I am to the same evils and the same faults....\n\nErnest Naville\u2019s introductory essay is full of interest, written in\na serious and noble style; but it is almost as sad as it is ripe and\nmature. What displeases me in it a little is its exaggeration of the\nmerits of Biran. For the rest, the small critical impatience which the\nvolume has stirred in me will be gone by to-morrow. Maine de Biran is an\nimportant link in the French literary tradition. It is from him that\nour Swiss critics descend, Naville father and son, Secr\u00e9tan. He is the\nsource of our best contemporary psychology, for Stapfer, Royer-Collard,\nand Cousin called him their master, and Amp\u00e8re, his junior by nine\nyears, was his friend.\n\nJuly 25, 1857. (Vandoeuvres).--At ten o\u2019clock this evening, under a\nstarlit sky, a group of rustics under the windows of the salon employed\nthemselves in shouting disagreeable songs. Why is it that this tuneless\nshrieking of false notes and scoffing words delights these people? Why\nis it that this ostentatious parade of ugliness, this jarring vulgarity\nand grimacing is their way of finding expression and expansion in the\ngreat solitary and tranquil night?\n\nWhy? Because of a sad and secret instinct. Because of the need they\nhave of realizing themselves as individuals, of asserting themselves\nexclusively, egotistically, idolatrously--opposing the self in them\nto everything else, placing it in harsh contrast with the nature which\nenwraps us, with the poetry which raises us above ourselves, with the\nharmony which binds us to others, with the adoration which carries\nus toward God. No, no, no! Myself only, and that is enough! Myself by\nnegation, by ugliness, by grimace and irony! Myself, in my caprice, in\nmy independence, in my irresponsible sovereignty; myself, set free by\nlaughter, free as the demons are, and exulting in my freedom; I, master\nof myself, invincible and self-sufficient, living for this one time\nyet by and for myself! This is what seems to me at the bottom of this\nmerry-making. One hears in it an echo of Satan, the temptation to make\nself the center of all things, to be like an Elohim, the worst and last\nrevolt of man. It means also, perhaps, some rapid perception of what\nis absolute in personality, some rough exaltation of the subject, the\nindividual, who thus claims, by abasing them, the rights of subjective\nexistence. If so, it is the caricature of our most precious privilege,\nthe parody of our apotheosis, a vulgarizing of our highest greatness.\nShout away, then, drunkards! Your ignoble concert, with all its\nrepulsive vulgarity, still reveals to us, without knowing it, something\nof the majesty of life and the sovereign power of the soul.\n\nSeptember 15, 1857.--I have just finished Sismondi\u2019s journal and\ncorrespondence. Sismondi is essentially the honest man, conscientious,\nupright, respectable, the friend of the public good and the devoted\nupholder of a great cause, the amelioration of the common lot of men.\nCharacter and heart are the dominant elements in his individuality, and\ncordiality is the salient feature of his nature. Sismondi\u2019s is a most\nencouraging example. With average faculties, very little imagination,\nnot much taste, not much talent, without subtlety of feeling, without\ngreat elevation or width or profundity of mind, he yet succeeded in\nachieving a career which was almost illustrious, and he has left behind\nhim some sixty volumes, well-known and well spoken of. How was this? His\nlove for men on the one side, and his passion for work on the other,\nare the two factors in his fame. In political economy, in literary\nor political history, in personal action, Sismondi showed no\ngenius--scarcely talent; but in all he did there was solidity, loyalty,\ngood sense and integrity. The poetical, artistic and philosophic sense\nis deficient in him, but he attracts and interests us by his moral\nsense. We see in him the sincere writer, a man of excellent heart, a\ngood citizen and warm friend, worthy and honest in the widest sense\nof terms, not brilliant, but inspiring trust and confidence by his\ncharacter, his principles and his virtues. More than this, he is the\nbest type of good Genevese liberalism, republican but not democratic,\nProtestant but not Calvinist, human but not socialist, progressive but\nwithout any sympathy with violence. He was a conservative without either\negotism or hypocrisy, a patriot without narrowness. In his theories\nhe was governed by experience and observation, and in his practice by\ngeneral ideas. A laborious philanthropist, the past and the present were\nto him but fields of study, from which useful lessons might be gleaned.\nPositive and reasonable in temper, his mind was set upon a high average\nwell-being for human society, and his efforts were directed toward\nfounding such a social science as might most readily promote it.\n\nSeptember 24, 1857.--In the course of much thought yesterday about\n\u201cAtala\u201d and \u201cRen\u00e9,\u201d Ch\u00e2teaubriand became clear to me. I saw in him a\ngreat artist but not a great man, immense talent but a still vaster\npride--a nature at once devoured with ambition and unable to find\nanything to love or admire in the world except itself--indefatigable in\nlabor and capable of everything except of true devotion, self-sacrifice\nand faith. Jealous of all success, he was always on the opposition side,\nthat he might be the better able to disavow all services received, and\nto hold aloof from any other glory but his own. Legitimist under the\nempire, a parliamentarian tinder the legitimist _r\u00e9gime_, republican\nunder the constitutional monarchy, defending Christianity when France\nwas philosophical, and taking a distaste for religion as soon as\nit became once more a serious power, the secret of these endless\ncontradictions in him was simply the desire to reign alone like the\nsun--a devouring thirst for applause, an incurable and insatiable\nvanity, which, with the true, fierce instinct of tyranny, would endure\nno brother near the throne. A man of magnificent imagination but of poor\ncharacter, of indisputable power, but cursed with a cold egotism and\nan incurable barrenness of feeling, which made it impossible for him to\ntolerate about him anybody but slaves or adorers. A tormented soul and\nmiserable life, when all is said, under its aureole of glory and its\ncrown of laurels!\n\nEssentially jealous and choleric, Ch\u00e2teaubriand from the beginning was\ninspired by mistrust, by the passion for contradicting, for crushing and\nconquering. This motive may always be traced in him. Rousseau seems to\nme his point of departure, the man who suggested to him by contrast\nand opposition all his replies and attacks, Rousseau is revolutionary:\nCh\u00e2teaubriand therefore writes his \u201cEssay on Revolutions.\u201d Rousseau is\nrepublican and Protestant; Ch\u00e2teaubriand will be royalist and Catholic.\nRousseau is _bourgeois_; Chateaubriand will glorify nothing but noble\nbirth, honor, chivalry and deeds of arms. Rousseau conquered nature for\nFrench letters, above all the nature of the mountains and of the\nSwiss and Savoy, and lakes. He pleaded for her against civilization.\nCh\u00e2teaubriand will take possession of a new and colossal nature, of the\nocean, of America; but he will make his savages speak the language of\nLouis XIV., he will bow Atala before a Catholic missionary, and sanctify\npassions born on the banks of the Mississippi by the solemnities\nof Catholic ceremonial. Rousseau was the apologist of reverie;\nCh\u00e2teaubriand will build the monument of it in order to break it in\nRen\u00e9. Rousseau preaches Deism with all his eloquence in the \u201cVicaire\nSavoyard;\u201d Ch\u00e2teaubriand surrounds the Roman creed with all the garlands\nof his poetry in the \u201cG\u00e9nie du Christianisme.\u201d Rousseau appeals to\nnatural law and pleads for the future of nations; Ch\u00e2teaubriand will\nonly sing the glories of the past, the ashes of history and the\nnoble ruins of empires. Always a r\u00f4le to be filled, cleverness to be\ndisplayed, a _parti-pris_ to be upheld and fame to be won--his theme,\none of imagination, his faith one to order, but sincerity, loyalty,\ncandor, seldom or never! Always a real indifference simulating a passion\nfor truth; always an imperious thirst for glory instead of devotion to\nthe good; always the ambitious artist, never the citizen, the believer,\nthe man. Ch\u00e2teaubriand posed all his life as the wearied Colossus,\nsmiling pitifully upon a pygmy world, and contemptuously affecting\nto desire nothing from it, though at the same time wishing it to be\nbelieved that he could if he pleased possess himself of everything by\nmere force of genius. He is the type of an untoward race, and the father\nof a disagreeable lineage.\n\nBut to return to the two episodes. \u201cRen\u00e9\u201d seems to me very superior to\n\u201cAtala.\u2019\u201d Both the stories show a talent of the first rank, but of the\ntwo the beauty of \u201cAtala\u201d is of the more transitory kind. The attempt to\nrender in the style of Versailles the loves of a Natchez and a Seminole,\nand to describe the manners of the adorers of the Manitous in the tone\nof Catholic sentiment, was an attempt too violent to succeed. But the\nwork is a _tour de force_ of style, and it was only by the polished\nclassicism of the form, that the romantic matter of the sentiments and\nthe descriptions could have been imported into the colorless literature\nof the empire. \u201cAtala\u201d is already old-fashioned and theatrical in\nall the parts which are not descriptive or European--that is to say,\nthroughout all the sentimental savagery.\n\n\u201cRen\u00e9\u201d is infinitely more durable. Its theme, which is the malady of a\nwhole generation--distaste for life brought about by idle reverie and\nthe ravages of a vague and unmeasured ambition--is true to reality.\nWithout knowing or wishing it, Ch\u00e2teaubriand has been sincere, for Ren\u00e9\nis himself. This little sketch is in every respect a masterpiece. It\nis not, like \u201cAtala,\u201d spoilt artistically by intentions alien to the\nsubject, by being made the means of expression of a particular tendency.\nInstead of taking a passion for Ren\u00e9, indeed, future generations will\nscorn and wonder at him; instead of a hero they will see in him a\npathological case; but the work itself, like the Sphinx, will endure. A\nwork of art will bear all kinds of interpretations; each in turn finds\na basis in it, while the work itself, because it represents an idea, and\ntherefore partakes of the richness and complexity which belong to ideas,\nsuffices for all and survives all. A portrait proves whatever one asks\nof it. Even in its forms of style, in the disdainful generality of the\nterms in which the story is told, in the terseness of the sentences,\nin the sequence of the images and of the pictures, traced with classic\npurity and marvelous vigor, \u201cRen\u00e9\u201d maintains its monumental character.\nCarved, as it were, in material of the present century, with the tools\nof classical art, \u201cRen\u00e9\u201d is the immortal cameo of Ch\u00e2teaubriand.\n\nWe are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented\nwith ourselves. The consciousness of wrong-doing makes us irritable, and\nour heart in its cunning quarrels with what is outside it, in order that\nit may deafen the clamor within.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe faculty of intellectual metamorphosis is the first and indispensable\nfaculty of the critic; without it he is not apt at understanding other\nminds, and ought, therefore, if he love truth, to hold his peace.\nThe conscientious critic must first criticise himself; what we do not\nunderstand we have not the right to judge.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nJune 14, 1858.--Sadness and anxiety seem to be increasing upon me. Like\ncattle in a burning stable, I cling to what consumes me, to the solitary\nlife which does me so much harm. I let myself be devoured by inward\nsuffering....\n\nYesterday, however, I struggled against this fatal tendency. I went out\ninto the country, and the children\u2019s caresses restored to me something\nof serenity and calm. After we had dined out of doors all three sang\nsome songs and school hymns, which were delightful to listen to. The\nspring fairy had been scattering flowers over the fields with lavish\nhands; it was a little glimpse of paradise. It is true, indeed, that the\nserpent too was not far off. Yesterday there was a robbery close by the\nhouse, and death had visited another neighbor. Sin and death lurk\naround every Eden, and sometimes within it. Hence the tragic beauty,\nthe melancholy poetry of human destiny. Flowers, shade, a fine view, a\nsunset sky, joy, grace, feeling, abundance and serenity, tenderness and\nsong--here you have the element of beauty: the dangers of the present\nand the treacheries of the future, here is the element of pathos.\nThe fashion of this world passeth away. Unless we have laid hold upon\neternity, unless we take the religious view of life, these bright,\nfleeting days can only be a subject for terror. Happiness should be\na prayer--and grief also. Faith in the moral order, in the protecting\nfatherhood of God, appeared to me in all its serious sweetness.\n\n  \u201cPense, aime, agis et souffre en Dieu\n  C\u2019est la grande science.\u201d\n\nJuly 18, 1858.--To-day I have been deeply moved by the _nostalgia_ of\nhappiness and by the appeals of memory. My old self, the dreams which\nused to haunt me in Germany, passionate impulses, high aspirations, all\nrevived in me at once with unexpected force. The dread lest I should\nhave missed my destiny and stifled my true nature, lest I should have\nburied myself alive, passed through me like a shudder. Thirst for the\nunknown, passionate love of life, the yearning for the blue vaults\nof the infinite and the strange worlds of the ineffable, and that sad\necstasy which the ideal wakens in its beholders--all these carried me\naway in a whirlwind of feeling that I cannot describe. Was it a warning,\na punishment, a temptation? Was it a secret protest, or a violent act of\nrebellion on the part of a nature which is unsatisfied?--the last agony\nof happiness and of a hope that will not die?\n\nWhat raised all this storm? Nothing but a book--the first number of the\n\u201c_Revue Germanique_.\u201d The articles of Dollfus, Renan, Littr\u00e9, Mont\u00e9gut,\nTaillandier, by recalling to me some old and favorite subjects, made me\nforget ten wasted years, and carried me back to my university life. I\nwas tempted to throw off my Genevese garb and to set off, stick in hand,\nfor any country that might offer--stripped and poor, but still young,\nenthusiastic, and alive, full of ardor and of faith.\n\n... I have been dreaming alone since ten o\u2019clock at the window, while\nthe stars twinkled among the clouds, and the lights of the neighbors\ndisappeared one by one in the houses round. Dreaming of what? Of the\nmeaning of this tragic comedy which we call life. Alas! alas! I was as\nmelancholy as the preacher. A hundred years seemed to me a dream, life\na breath, and everything a nothing. What tortures of mind and soul, and\nall that we may die in a few minutes! What should interest us, and why?\n\n  \u201cLe temps n\u2019est rien pour l\u2019\u00e2me, enfant, ta vie est pleine,\n  Et ce jour vaut cent ans, s\u2019il te fait trouver Dieu.\u201d\n\nTo make an object for myself, to hope, to struggle, seems to me more\nand more impossible and amazing. At twenty I was the embodiment of\ncuriosity, elasticity and spiritual ubiquity; at thirty-seven I have not\na will, a desire, or a talent left; the fireworks of my youth have left\nnothing but a handful of ashes behind them.\n\nDecember 13, 1858.--Consider yourself a refractory pupil for whom you\nare responsible as mentor and tutor. To sanctify sinful nature, by\nbringing it gradually under the control of the angel within us, by the\nhelp of a holy God, is really the whole of Christian pedagogy and of\nreligious morals. Our work--my work--consists in taming, subduing,\nevangelizing and _angelizing_ the evil self; and in restoring harmony\nwith the good self. Salvation lies in abandoning the evil self in\nprinciple and in taking refuge with the other, the divine self, in\naccepting with courage and prayer the task of living with one\u2019s own\ndemon, and making it into a less and less rebellious instrument of good.\nThe Abel in us must labor for the salvation of the Cain. To undertake\nit is to be converted, and this conversion must be repeated day by day.\nAbel only redeems and touches Cain by exercising him constantly in good\nworks. To do right is in one sense an act of violence; it is suffering,\nexpiation, a cross, for it means the conquest and enslavement of self.\nIn another sense it is the apprenticeship to heavenly things, sweet\nand secret joy, contentment and peace. Sanctification implies perpetual\nmartyrdom, but it is a martyrdom which glorifies. A crown of thorns is\nthe sad eternal symbol of the life of the saints. The best measure of\nthe profundity of any religious doctrine is given by its conception of\nsin and the cure of sin.\n\nA duty is no sooner divined than from that very moment it becomes\nbinding upon us.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLatent genius is but a presumption. Everything that can be, is bound to\ncome into being, and what never comes into being is nothing.\n\nJuly 14, 1859.--I have just read \u201cFaust\u201d again. Alas, every year I am\nfascinated afresh by this somber figure, this restless life. It is\nthe type of suffering toward which I myself gravitate, and I am always\nfinding in the poem words which strike straight to my heart. Immortal,\nmalign, accursed type! Specter of my own conscience, ghost of my own\ntorment, image of the ceaseless struggle of the soul which has not yet\nfound its true aliment, its peace, its faith--art thou not the typical\nexample of a life which feeds upon itself, because it has not found\nits God, and which, in its wandering flight across the worlds, carries\nwithin it, like a comet, an inextinguishable flame of desire, and an\nagony of incurable disillusion? I also am reduced to nothingness, and\nI shiver on the brink of the great empty abysses of my inner being,\nstifled by longing for the unknown, consumed with the thirst for the\ninfinite, prostrate before the ineffable. I also am torn sometimes by\nthis blind passion for life, these desperate struggles for happiness,\nthough more often I am a prey to complete exhaustion and taciturn\ndespair. What is the reason of it all? Doubt--doubt of one\u2019s self, of\nthought, of men, and of life--doubt which enervates the will and\nweakens all our powers, which makes us forget God and neglect prayer and\nduty--that restless and corrosive doubt which makes existence impossible\nand meets all hope with satire.\n\nJuly 17, 1859.--Always and everywhere salvation is torture, deliverance\nmeans death, and peace lies in sacrifice. If we would win our pardon,\nwe must kiss the fiery crucifix. Life is a series of agonies, a\nCalvary, which we can only climb on bruised and aching knees. We seek\ndistractions; we wander away; we deafen and stupefy ourselves that we\nmay escape the test; we turn away oar eyes from the _via dolorosa_; and\nyet there is no help for it--we must come back to it in the end. What\nwe have to recognize is that each of us carries within himself his own\nexecutioner--his demon, his hell, in his sin; that his sin is his idol,\nand that this idol, which seduces the desire of his heart, is his curse.\n\n_Die unto sin!_ This great saying of Christianity remains still the\nhighest theoretical solution of the inner life. Only in it is there any\npeace of conscience; and without this peace there is no peace....\n\nI have just read seven chapters of the gospel. Nothing calms me so much.\nTo do one\u2019s duty in love and obedience, to do what is right--these are\nthe ideas which remain with one. To live in God and to do his work--this\nis religion, salvation, life eternal; this is both the effect and the\nsign of love and of the Holy Spirit; this is the new man announced by\nJesus, and the new life into which we enter by the second birth. To be\nborn again is to renounce the old life, sin, and the natural man, and\nto take to one\u2019s self another principle of life. It is to exist for God\nwith another self, another will, another love.\n\nAugust 9, 1859.--Nature is forgetful: the world is almost more so.\nHowever little the individual may lend himself to it, oblivion soon\ncovers him like a shroud. This rapid and inexorable expansion of the\nuniversal life, which covers, overflows, and swallows up all individual\nbeing, which effaces our existence and annuls all memory of us, fills me\nwith unbearable melancholy. To be born, to struggle, to disappear--there\nis the whole ephemeral drama of human life. Except in a few hearts, and\nnot even always in one, our memory passes like a ripple on the water, or\na breeze in the air. If nothing in us is immortal, what a small thing is\nlife. Like a dream which trembles and dies at the first glimmer of\ndawn, all my past, all my present, dissolve in me, and fall away from my\nconsciousness at the moment when it returns upon itself. I feel myself\nthen stripped and empty, like a convalescent who remembers nothing. My\ntravels, my reading, my studies, my projects, my hopes, have faded from\nmy mind. It is a singular state. All my faculties drop away from me like\na cloak that one takes off, like the chrysalis case of a larva. I\nfeel myself returning into a more elementary form. I behold my own\nunclothing; I forget, still more than I am forgotten; I pass gently into\nthe grave while still living, and I feel, as it were, the indescribable\npeace of annihilation, and the dim quiet of the Nirvana. I am conscious\nof the river of time passing before and in me, of the impalpable shadows\nof life gliding past me, but nothing breaks the cateleptic tranquillity\nwhich enwraps me.\n\nI come to understand the Buddhist trance of the Soufis, the kief of the\nTurk, the \u201cecstasy\u201d of the orientals, and yet I am conscious all the\ntime that the pleasure of it is deadly, that, like the use of opium or\nof hasheesh, it is a kind of slow suicide, inferior in all respects\nto the joys of action, to the sweetness of love, to the beauty of\nenthusiasm, to the sacred savor of accomplished duty. November 28,\n1859.--This evening I heard the first lecture of Ernest Naville\n[Footnote: The well-known Genevese preacher and writer, Ernest Naville,\nthe son of a Genevese pastor, was born in 1816, became professor at the\nAcademy of Geneva in 1844, lost his post after the revolution of\n1846, and, except for a short interval in 1860, has since then held no\nofficial position. His courses of theological lectures, delivered at\nintervals from 1859 onward, were an extraordinary success. They were\nat first confined to men only, and an audience of two thousand persons\nsometimes assembled to hear them. To literature he is mainly known as\nthe editor of Maine de Biran\u2019s Journal.] on \u201cThe Eternal Life.\u201d It was\nadmirably sure in touch, true, clear, and noble throughout. He proved\nthat, whether we would or no, we were bound to face the question\nof another life. Beauty of character, force of expression, depth of\nthought, were all equally visible in this extemporized address, which\nwas as closely reasoned as a book, and can scarcely be disentangled from\nthe quotations of which it was full. The great room of the Casino was\nfull to the doors, and one saw a fairly large number of white heads.\n\nDecember 13, 1859.--Fifth lecture on \u201cThe Eternal Life\u201d (\u201cThe Proof of\nthe Gospel by the Supernatural.\u201d) The same talent and great eloquence;\nbut the orator does not understand that the supernatural must either\nbe historically proved, or, supposing it cannot be proved, that it must\nrenounce all pretensions to overstep the domain of faith and to encroach\nupon that of history and science. He quotes Strauss, Renan, Scherer, but\nhe touches only the letter of them, not the spirit. Everywhere one sees\nthe Cartesian dualism and a striking want of the genetic, historical,\nand critical sense. The idea of a living evolution has not penetrated\ninto the consciousness of the orator. With every intention of dealing\nwith things as they are, he remains, in spite of himself, subjective and\noratorical. There is the inconvenience of handling a matter polemically\ninstead of in the spirit of the student. Naville\u2019s moral sense is too\nstrong for his discernment and prevents him from seeing what he does not\nwish to see. In his metaphysic, will is placed above intelligence, and\nin his personality the character is superior to the understanding, as\none might logically expect. And the consequence is, that he may prop up\nwhat is tottering, but he makes no conquests; he may help to preserve\nexisting truths and beliefs, but he is destitute of initiative or\nvivifying power. He is a moralizing but not a suggestive or stimulating\ninfluence. A popularizer, apologist and orator of the greatest merit, he\nis a schoolman at bottom; his arguments are of the same type as those\nof the twelfth century, and he defends Protestantism in the same way\nin which Catholicism has been commonly defended. The best way of\ndemonstrating the insufficiency of this point of view is to show by\nhistory how incompletely it has been superseded. The chimera of a simple\nand absolute truth is wholly Catholic and anti-historic. The mind of\nNaville is mathematical and his objects moral. His strength lies\nin _mathematicizing_ morals. As soon as it becomes a question of\ndevelopment, metamorphosis, organization--as soon as he is brought\ninto contact with the mobile world of actual life, especially of the\nspiritual life, he has no longer anything serviceable to say. Language\nis for him a system of fixed signs; a man, a people, a book, are so many\ngeometrical figures of which we have only to discover the properties.\n\nDecember 15th.--Naville\u2019s sixth lecture, an admirable one, because it\ndid nothing more than expound the Christian doctrine of eternal life. As\nan extempore performance--marvelously exact, finished, clear and noble,\nmarked by a strong and disciplined eloquence. There was not a single\nreservation to make in the name of criticism, history or philosophy. It\nwas all beautiful, noble, true and pure. It seems to me that Naville has\nimproved in the art of speech during these latter years. He has always\nhad a kind of dignified and didactic beauty, but he has now added to\nit the contagious cordiality and warmth of feeling which complete\nthe orator; he moves the whole man, beginning with the intellect\nbut finishing with the heart. He is now very near to the true virile\neloquence, and possesses one species of it indeed very nearly in\nperfection. He has arrived at the complete command of the resources of\nhis own nature, at an adequate and masterly expression of himself. Such\nexpression is the joy and glory of the oratorical artist as of every\nother. Naville is rapidly becoming a model in the art of premeditated\nand self-controlled eloquence.\n\nThere is another kind of eloquence--that which seems inspired, which\nfinds, discovers, and illuminates by bounds and flashes, which is born\nin the sight of the audience and transports it. Such is not Naville\u2019s\nkind. Is it better worth having? I do not know.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEvery real need is stilled, and every vice is stimulated by\nsatisfaction.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nObstinacy is will asserting itself without being able to justify itself.\nIt is persistence without a plausible motive. It is the tenacity of\nself-love substituted for the tenacity of reason or conscience.\n\nIt is not what he has, nor even what he does, which directly expresses\nthe worth of a man, but what he is.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat comfort, what strength, what economy there is in _order_--material\norder, intellectual order, moral order. To know where one is going\nand what one wishes--this is order; to keep one\u2019s word and one\u2019s\nengagements--again order; to have everything ready under one\u2019s hand, to\nbe able to dispose of all one\u2019s forces, and to have all one\u2019s means of\nwhatever kind under command--still order; to discipline one\u2019s habits,\none\u2019s effort, one\u2019s wishes; to organize one\u2019s life, to distribute\none\u2019s time, to take the measure of one\u2019s duties and make one\u2019s rights\nrespected; to employ one\u2019s capital and resources, one\u2019s talent and one\u2019s\nchances profitably--all this belongs to and is included in the word\n_order_. Order means light and peace, inward liberty and free command\nover one\u2019s self; order is power. Aesthetic and moral beauty consist, the\nfirst in a true perception of order, and the second in submission to it,\nand in the realization of it, by, in, and around one\u2019s self. Order is\nman\u2019s greatest need and his true well-being.\n\nApril 17, 1860.--The cloud has lifted; I am better. I have been able\nto take my usual walk on the Treille; all the buds were opening and\nthe young shoots were green on all the branches. The rippling of clear\nwater, the merriment of birds, the young freshness of plants, and the\nnoisy play of children, produce a strange effect upon an invalid. Or\nrather it was strange to me to be looking at such things with the eyes\nof a sick and dying man; it was my first introduction to a new phase of\nexperience. There is a deep sadness in it. One feels one\u2019s self cut off\nfrom nature--outside her communion as it were. She is strength and joy\nand eternal health. \u201cRoom for the living,\u201d she cries to us; \u201cdo not come\nto darken my blue sky with your miseries; each has his turn: begone!\u201d\n But to strengthen our own courage, we must say to ourselves, No; it is\ngood for the world to see suffering and weakness; the sight adds zest\nto the joy of the happy and the careless, and is rich in warning for\nall who think. Life has been lent to us, and we owe it to our traveling\ncompanions to let them see what use we make of it to the end. We must\nshow our brethren both how to live and how to die. These first summonses\nof illness have besides a divine value; they give us glimpses behind\nthe scenes of life; they teach us something of its awful reality and its\ninevitable end. They teach us sympathy. They warn us to redeem the time\nwhile it is yet day. They awaken in us gratitude for the blessings which\nare still ours, and humility for the gifts which are in us. So that,\nevils though they seem, they are really an appeal to us from on high, a\ntouch of God\u2019s fatherly scourge.\n\nHow frail a thing is health, and what a thin envelope protects our life\nagainst being swallowed up from without, or disorganized from within! A\nbreath, and the boat springs a leak or founders; a nothing, and all\nis endangered; a passing cloud, and all is darkness! Life is indeed a\nflower which a morning withers and the beat of a passing wing breaks\ndown; it is the widow\u2019s lamp, which the slightest blast of air\nextinguishes. In order to realize the poetry which clings to morning\nroses, one needs to have just escaped from the claws of that vulture\nwhich we call illness. The foundation and the heightening of all things\nis the graveyard. The only certainty in this world of vain agitations\nand endless anxieties, is the certainty of death, and that which is the\nforetaste and small change of death--pain.\n\nAs long as we turn our eyes away from this implacable reality, the\ntragedy of life remains hidden from us. As soon as we look at it face to\nface, the true proportions of everything reappear, and existence becomes\nsolemn again. It is made clear to us that we have been frivolous and\npetulant, intractable and forgetful, and that we have been wrong.\n\nWe must die and give an account of our life: here in all its simplicity\nis the teaching of sickness! \u201cDo with all diligence what you have to\ndo; reconcile yourself with the law of the universe; think of your duty;\nprepare yourself for departure:\u201d such is the cry of conscience and of\nreason.\n\nMay 3, 1860.--Edgar Quinet has attempted everything: he has aimed\nat nothing but the greatest things; he is rich in ideas, a master of\nsplendid imagery, serious, enthusiastic, courageous, a noble writer. How\nis it, then, that he has not more reputation? Because he is too pure;\nbecause he is too uniformly ecstatic, fantastic, inspired--a mood\nwhich soon palls on Frenchmen. Because he is too single-minded, candid,\ntheoretical, and speculative, too ready to believe in the power of words\nand of ideas, too expansive and confiding; while at the same time he is\nlacking in the qualities which amuse clever people--in sarcasm, irony,\ncunning and _finesse_. He is an idealist reveling in color: a Platonist\nbrandishing the _thyrsus_ of the Menads. At bottom his is a mind of no\nparticular country. It is in vain that he satirizes Germany and abuses\nEngland; he does not make himself any more of a Frenchman by doing so.\nIt is a northern intellect wedded to a southern imagination, but\nthe marriage has not been a happy one. He has the disease of chronic\nmagniloquence, of inveterate sublimity; abstractions for him become\npersonified and colossal beings, which act or speak in colossal fashion;\nhe is intoxicated with the infinite. But one feels all the time that\nhis creations are only individual monologues; he cannot escape from\nthe bounds of a subjective lyrism. Ideas, passions, anger, hopes,\ncomplaints--he himself is present in them all. We never have the delight\nof escaping from his magic circle, of seeing truth as it is, of entering\ninto relation with the phenomena and the beings of whom he speaks,\nwith the reality of things. This imprisonment of the author within his\npersonality looks like conceit. But on the contrary, it is because the\nheart is generous that the mind is egotistical. It is because Quinet\nthinks himself so much of a Frenchman that he is it so little. These\nironical compensations of destiny are very familiar to me: I have often\nobserved them. Man is nothing but contradiction: the less he knows it\nthe more dupe he is. In consequence of his small capacity for seeing\nthings as they are, Quinet has neither much accuracy nor much balance\nof mind. He recalls Victor Hugo, with much less artistic power but more\nhistorical sense. His principal gift is a great command of imagery and\nsymbolism. He seems to me a G\u00f6rres [Footnote: Joseph Goerres, a German\nmystic and disciple of Schelling. He published, among other works,\n\u201cMythengeschichte der Asiatischen Welt,\u201d and \u201cChristliche Mystik.\u201d]\ntransplanted to Franche Comt\u00e9, a sort of supernumerary prophet, with\nwhom his nation hardly knows what to do, seeing that she loves neither\nenigmas nor ecstasy nor inflation of language, and that the intoxication\nof the tripod bores her.\n\nThe real excellence of Quinet seems to me to lie in his historical works\n(\u201cMarnix,\u201d \u201cL\u2019Italie,\u201d \u201cLes Roumains\u201d), and especially in his studies of\nnationalities. He was born, to understand these souls, at once more vast\nand more sublime than individual souls.\n\n(_Later_).--I have been translating into verse that page of Goethe\u2019s\n\u201cFaust\u201d in which is contained his pantheistic confession of faith. The\ntranslation is not bad, I think. But what a difference between the two\nlanguages in the matter of precision! It is like the difference between\nstump and graving-tool--the one showing the effort, the other noting the\nresult of the act; the one making you feel all that is merely dreamed or\nvague, formless or vacant, the other determining, fixing, giving shape\neven to the indefinite; the one representing the cause, the force, the\nlimbo whence things issue, the other the things themselves. German has\nthe obscure depth of the infinite, French the clear brightness of the\nfinite.\n\nMay 5, 1860.--To grow old is more difficult than to die, because to\nrenounce a good once and for all, costs less than to renew the sacrifice\nday by day and in detail. To bear with one\u2019s own decay, to accept one\u2019s\nown lessening capacity, is a harder and rarer virtue than to face death.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a halo round tragic and premature death; there is but a long\nsadness in declining strength. But look closer: so studied, a resigned\nand religious old age will often move us more than the heroic ardor\nof young years. The maturity of the soul is worth more than the first\nbrilliance of its faculties, or the plentitude of its strength, and the\neternal in us can but profit from all the ravages made by time. There is\ncomfort in this thought.\n\nMay 22, 1860.--There is in me a secret incapacity for expressing my\ntrue feeling, for saying what pleases others, for bearing witness to the\npresent--a reserve which I have often noticed in myself with vexation.\nMy heart never dares to speak seriously, either because it is ashamed of\nbeing thought to flatter, or afraid lest it should not find exactly the\nright expression. I am always trifling with the present moment. Feeling\nin me is retrospective. My refractory nature is slow to recognize the\nsolemnity of the hour in which I actually stand. An ironical instinct,\nborn of timidity, makes me pass lightly over what I have on pretence of\nwaiting for some other thing at some other time. Fear of being carried\naway, and distrust of myself pursue me even in moments of emotion; by\na sort of invincible pride, I can never persuade myself to say to any\nparticular instant: \u201cStay! decide for me; be a supreme moment! stand out\nfrom the monotonous depths of eternity and mark a unique experience in\nmy life!\u201d I trifle, even with happiness, out of distrust of the future.\n\nMay 27, 1860. (Sunday).--I heard this morning a sermon on the Holy\nSpirit--good but insufficient. Why was I not edified? Because there was\nno unction. Why was there no unction? Because Christianity from this\nrationalistic point of view is a Christianity of _dignity_, not of\nhumility. Penitence, the struggles of weakness, austerity, find no\nplace in it. The law is effaced, holiness and mysticism evaporate; the\nspecifically Christian accent is wanting. My impression is always the\nsame--faith is made a dull poor thing by these attempts to reduce it\nto simple moral psychology. I am oppressed by a feeling of\ninappropriateness and _malaise_ at the sight of philosophy in the\npulpit. \u201cThey have taken away my Saviour, and I know not where they have\nlaid him;\u201d so the simple folk have a right to say, and I repeat it with\nthem. Thus, while some shock me by their sacerdotal dogmatism, others\nrepel me by their rationalizing laicism. It seems to me that good\npreaching ought to combine, as Schleiermacher did, perfect moral\nhumility with energetic independence of thought, a profound sense of sin\nwith respect for criticism and a passion for truth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe free being who abandons the conduct of himself, yields himself to\nSatan; in the moral world there is no ground without a master, and the\nwaste lands belong to the Evil One.\n\nThe poetry of childhood consists in simulating and forestalling the\nfuture, just as the poetry of mature life consists often in going\nbackward to some golden age. Poetry is always in the distance. The whole\nart of moral government lies in gaining a directing and shaping hold\nover the poetical ideals of an age.\n\nJanuary 9, 1861.--I have just come from the inaugural lecture of Victor\nCherbuliez in a state of bewildered admiration. As a lecture it was\nexquisite: if it was a recitation of prepared matter, it was admirable;\nif an extempore performance, it was amazing. In the face of superiority\nand perfection, says Schiller, we have but one resource--to love them,\nwhich is what I have done. I had the pleasure, mingled with a little\nsurprise, of feeling in myself no sort of jealousy toward this young\nconqueror.\n\nMarch 15th.--This last lecture in Victor Cherbuliez\u2019s course on\n\u201cChivalry,\u201d which is just over, showed the same magical power over his\nsubject as that with which he began the series two months ago. It was\na triumph and a harvest of laurels. Cervantes, Ignatius Loyola, and the\nheritage of chivalry--that is to say, individualism, honor, the\npoetry of the present and the poetry of contrasts, modern liberty and\nprogress--have been the subjects of this lecture.\n\nThe general impression left upon me all along has been one of admiration\nfor the union in him of extraordinary skill in execution with admirable\ncultivation of mind. With what freedom of spirit he uses and wields his\nvast erudition, and what capacity for close attention he must have to be\nable to carry the weight of a whole improvised speech with the same ease\nas though it were a single sentence! I do not know if I am partial, but\nI find no occasion for anything but praise in this young wizard and his\nlectures. The fact is, that in my opinion we have now one more first\nrate mind, one more master of language among us. This course, with the\n\u201cCauseries Ath\u00e9niennes,\u201d seems to me to establish Victor Cherbuliez\u2019s\nposition at Geneva.\n\nMarch 17, 1861.--This afternoon a homicidal languor seized hold upon\nme--disgust, weariness of life, mortal sadness. I wandered out into the\nchurchyard, hoping to find quiet and peace there, and so to reconcile\nmyself with duty. Vain dream! The place of rest itself had become\ninhospitable. Workmen were stripping and carrying away the turf, the\ntrees were dry, the wind cold, the sky gray--something arid, irreverent,\nand prosaic dishonored the resting-place of the dead. I was struck with\nsomething wanting in our national feeling--respect for the dead, the\npoetry of the tomb, the piety of memory. Our churches are too little\nopen; our churchyards too much. The result in both cases is the same.\nThe tortured and trembling heart which seeks, outside the scene of its\ndaily miseries, to find some place where it may pray in peace, or pour\nout its grief before God, or meditate in the presence of eternal things,\nwith us has nowhere to go. Our church ignores these wants of the\nsoul instead of divining and meeting them. She shows very little\ncompassionate care for her children, very little wise consideration for\nthe more delicate griefs, and no intuition of the deeper mysteries of\ntenderness, no religious suavity. Under a pretext of spirituality we are\nalways checking legitimate aspirations. We have lost the mystical sense;\nand what is religion without mysticism? A rose without perfume.\n\nThe words _repentance_ and _sanctification_ are always on our lips.\nBut _adoration_ and _consolation_ are also two essential elements in\nreligion, and we ought perhaps to make more room for them than we do.\n\nApril 28, 1861.--In the same way as a dream transforms according to\nits nature, the incidents of sleep, so the soul converts into psychical\nphenomena the ill-defined impressions of the organism. An uncomfortable\nattitude becomes nightmare; an atmosphere charged with storm becomes\nmoral torment. Not mechanically and by direct causality; but imagination\nand conscience engender, according to their own nature, analogous\neffects; they translate into their own language, and cast into their own\nmold, whatever reaches them from outside. Thus dreams may be helpful to\nmedicine and to divination, and states of weather may stir up and\nset free within the soul vague and hidden evils. The suggestions and\nsolicitations which act upon life come from outside, but life produces\nnothing but itself after all. Originality consists in rapid and clear\nreaction against these outside influences, in giving to them our\nindividual stamp. To think is to withdraw, as it were, into one\u2019s\nimpression--to make it clear to one\u2019s self, and then to put it forth\nin the shape of a personal judgment. In this also consists\nself-deliverance, self-enfranchisement, self-conquest. All that comes\nfrom outside is a question to which we owe an answer--a pressure to be\nmet by counter-pressure, if we are to remain free and living agents. The\ndevelopment of our unconscious nature follows the astronomical laws\nof Ptolemy; everything in it is change--cycle, epi-cycle, and\nmetamorphosis.\n\nEvery man then possesses in himself the analogies and rudiments of all\nthings, of all beings, and of all forms of life. He who knows how to\ndivine the small beginnings, the germs and symptoms of things, can\nretrace in himself the universal mechanism, and divine by intuition the\nseries which he himself will not finish, such as vegetable and animal\nexistences, human passions and crises, the diseases of the soul and\nthose of the body. The mind which is subtle and powerful may penetrate\nall these potentialities, and make every point flash out the world which\nit contains. This is to be conscious of and to possess the general life,\nthis is to enter into the divine sanctuary of contemplation.\n\nSeptember 12, 1861.--In me an intellect which would fain forget itself\nin things, is contradicted by a heart which yearns to live in human\nbeings. The uniting link of the two contradictions is the tendency\ntoward self-abandonment, toward ceasing to will and exist for\none\u2019s self, toward laying down one\u2019s own personality, and\nlosing--dissolving--one\u2019s self in love and contemplation. What I lack\nabove all things is character, will, individuality. But, as always\nhappens, the appearance is exactly the contrary of the reality, and\nmy outward life the reverse of my true and deepest aspiration. I whose\nwhole being--heart and intellect--thirsts to absorb itself in reality,\nin its neighbor man, in nature and in God, I, whom solitude devours\nand destroys, I shut myself up in solitude and seem to delight only\nin myself and to be sufficient for myself. Pride and delicacy of soul,\ntimidity of heart, have made me thus do violence to all my instincts and\ninvert the natural order of my life. It is not astonishing that I\nshould be unintelligible to others. In fact I have always avoided what\nattracted me, and turned my back upon the point where secretly I desired\nto be.\n\n  \u201cDeux instincts sont en moi: vertige et d\u00e9raison;\n  J\u2019ai l\u2019effroi du bonheur et la soif du poison.\u201d\n\nIt is the Nemesis which dogs the steps of life, the secret instinct and\npower of death in us, which labors continually for the destruction of\nall that seeks to be, to take form, to exist; it is the passion for\ndestruction, the tendency toward suicide, identifying itself with the\ninstinct of self-preservation. This antipathy toward all that does one\ngood, all that nourishes and heals, is it not a mere variation of the\nantipathy to moral light and regenerative truth? Does not sin also\ncreate a thirst for death, a growing passion for what does harm?\nDiscouragement has been my sin. Discouragement is an act of unbelief.\nGrowing weakness has been the consequence of it; the principle of death\nin me and the influence of the Prince of Darkness have waxed stronger\ntogether. My will in abdicating has yielded up the scepter to instinct;\nand as the corruption of the best results in what is worst, love of\nthe ideal, tenderness, unworldliness, have led me to a state in which I\nshrink from hope and crave for annihilation. Action is my cross.\n\nOctober 11, 1861. (_Heidelberg_).--After eleven days journey, here I am\nunder the roof of my friends, in their hospitable house on the banks of\nthe Neckar, with its garden climbing up the side of the Heiligenberg....\nBlazing sun; my room is flooded with light and warmth. Sitting opposite\nthe Geisberg, I write to the murmur of the Neckar, which rolls its green\nwaves, flecked with silver, exactly beneath the balcony on which my room\nopens. A great barge coming from Heilbron passes silently under my eyes,\nwhile the wheels of a cart which I cannot see are dimly heard on the\nroad which skirts the river. Distant voices of children, of cocks, of\nchirping sparrows, the clock of the Church of the Holy Spirit, which\nchimes the hour, serve to gauge, without troubling, the general\ntranquility of the scene. One feels the hours gently slipping by, and\ntime, instead of flying, seems to hover. A peace beyond words steals\ninto my heart, an impression of morning grace, of fresh country poetry\nwhich brings back the sense of youth, and has the true German savor....\nTwo decked barges carrying red flags, each with a train of flat boats\nfilled with coal, are going up the river and making their way under the\narch of the great stone bridge. I stand at the window and see a whole\nperspective of boats sailing in both directions; the Neckar is as\nanimated as the street of some great capital; and already on the slope\nof the wooded mountain, streaked by the smoke-wreaths of the town, the\ncastle throws its shadow like a vast drapery, and traces the outlines of\nits battlements and turrets. Higher up, in front of me, rises the dark\nprofile of the Molkenkur; higher still, in relief against the dazzling\neast, I can distinguish the misty forms of the two towers of the\nKaiserstuhl and the Trutzheinrich.\n\nBut enough of landscape. My host, Dr. George Weber, tells me that his\nmanual of history is translated into Polish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian,\nand French, and that of his great \u201cUniversal History\u201d--three volumes\nare already published. What astonishing power of work, what prodigious\ntenacity, what solidity! _O deutscher Fleiss_!\n\nNovember 25, 1861.--To understand a drama requires the same mental\noperation as to understand an existence, a biography, a man. It is a\nputting back of the bird into the egg, of the plant into its seed, a\nreconstitution of the whole genesis of the being in question. Art is\nsimply the bringing into relief of the obscure thought of nature; a\nsimplification of the lines, a falling into place of groups otherwise\ninvisible. The fire of inspiration brings out, as it were, designs\ntraced beforehand in sympathetic ink. The mysterious grows clear, the\nconfused plain; what is complicated becomes simple--what is accidental,\nnecessary.\n\nIn short, art reveals nature by interpreting its intentions and\nformulating its desires. Every ideal is the key of a long enigma. The\ngreat artist is the simplifier.\n\nEvery man is a tamer of wild beasts, and these wild beasts are his\npassions. To draw their teeth and claws, to muzzle and tame them, to\nturn them into servants and domestic animals, fuming, perhaps, but\nsubmissive--in this consists personal education.\n\nFebruary 3, 1862.--Self-criticism is the corrosive of all oratorical\nor literary spontaneity. The thirst to know turned upon the self is\npunished, like the curiosity of Psyche, by the flight of the thing\ndesired. Force should remain a mystery to itself; as soon as it tries to\npenetrate its own secret it vanishes away. The hen with the golden eggs\nbecomes unfruitful as soon as she tries to find out why her eggs are\ngolden. The consciousness of consciousness is the term and end of\nanalysis. True, but analysis pushed to extremity devours itself, like\nthe Egyptian serpent. We must give it some external matter to crush\nand dissolve if we wish to prevent its destruction by its action upon\nitself. \u201cWe are, and ought to be, obscure to ourselves,\u201d said Goethe,\n\u201cturned outward, and working upon the world which surrounds us.\u201d Outward\nradiation constitutes health; a too continuous concentration upon what\nis within brings us back to vacuity and blank. It is better that life\nshould dilate and extend itself in ever-widening circles, than that it\nshould be perpetually diminished and compressed by solitary contraction.\nWarmth tends to make a globe out of an atom; cold, to reduce a globe\nto the dimensions of an atom. Analysis has been to me self-annulling,\nself-destroying.\n\nApril 23, 1862. (_Mornex sur Sal\u00e8ve_).--I was awakened by the twittering\nof the birds at a quarter to five, and saw, as I threw open my windows,\nthe yellowing crescent of the moon looking in upon me, while the east\nwas just faintly whitening. An hour later it was delicious out of doors.\nThe anemones were still closed, the apple-trees in full flower:\n\n  \u201cCes beaux pommiers, coverts de leurs fleurs \u00e9toil\u00e9ens,\n  Neige odorante du printemps.\u201d\n\nThe view was exquisite, and nature, in full festival, spread freshness\nand joy around her. I breakfasted, read the paper, and here I am. The\nladies of the _pension_ are still under the horizon. I pity them for the\nloss of two or three delightful hours.\n\nEleven o\u2019clock.--Preludes, scales, piano-exercises going on under my\nfeet. In the garden children\u2019s voices. I have just finished Rosenkrantz\non \u201cHegel\u2019s Logic,\u201d and have run through a few articles in the\nReviews.... The limitation of the French mind consists in the\ninsufficiency of its spiritual alphabet, which does not allow it to\ntranslate the Greek, German, or Spanish mind without changing the\naccent. The hospitality of French manners is not completed by a\nreal hospitality of thought.... My nature is just the opposite. I am\nindividual in the presence of men, objective in the presence of things.\nI attach myself to the object, and absorb myself in it; I detach myself\nfrom subjects [_i.e._. persons], and hold myself on my guard against\nthem. I feel myself different from the mass of men, and akin to the\ngreat whole of nature. My way of asserting myself is in cherishing this\nsense of sympathetic unity with life, which I yearn to understand, and\nin repudiating the tyranny of commonplace. All that is imitative and\nartificial inspires me with a secret repulsion, while the smallest true\nand spontaneous existence (plant, animal, child) draws and attracts me.\nI feel myself in community of spirit with the Goethes, the Hegels, the\nSchleiermachers, the Leibnitzes, opposed as they are among themselves;\nwhile the French mathematicians, philosophers, or rhetoricians, in spite\nof their high qualities, leave me cold, because there is in them no\nsense of the whole, the sum of things [Footnote: The following passage\nfrom Sainte-Beuve may be taken as a kind of answer by anticipation to\nthis accusation, which Amiel brings more than once in the course of the\nJournal:\n\n\u201cToute nation livr\u00e9e \u00e0 elle-m\u00eame et \u00e0 son propre g\u00e9nie se fait une\ncritique litt\u00e9raire qui y est conforme. La France en son beau temps a eu\nla sienne, qui ne ressemble ni \u00e0 celle de l\u2019Allemagne ni \u00e0 celle de ses\nautres voisins--un peu plus superficielle, dira-t-on--je ne le crois\npas: mais plus vive, moins charg\u00e9e d\u2019erudition, moins th\u00e9orique et\nsyst\u00e9matique, plus confiante au sentiment imm\u00e9diat du go\u00fbt. _Un peu\nde chaque chose et rien de l\u2019ensemble, \u00e0 la Fran\u00e7aise_: telle \u00e9tait\nla devise de Montaigne et telle est aussi la devise de la critique\nfran\u00e7aise. Nous ne sommes pas _synth\u00e9tiques_, comme diraient les\nAllemands; le mot m\u00eame n\u2019est pas fran\u00e7aise. L\u2019imagination de d\u00e9tail nous\nsuffit. Montaigne, La Fontaine Madame de S\u00e9vign\u00e9, sont volontiers nos\nlivres de chevet.\u201d\n\nThe French critic then goes on to give a rapid sketch of the authors\nand the books, \u201cqui ont peu a peu form\u00e9 comme notre rh\u00e9torique.\u201d French\ncriticism of the old characteristic kind rests ultimately upon the\nminute and delicate knowledge of a few Greek and Latin classics.\nArnauld, Boileau, F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, Rollin, Racine _fils_, Voltaire, La Harpe,\nMarmontel, Delille, Fontanes, and Ch\u00e2teaubriand in one aspect, are the\ntypical names of this tradition, the creators and maintainers of this\ncommon literary _fonds_, this \u201csorte de circulation courante \u00e0 l\u2019usage\ndes gens instruits. J\u2019avoue ma faiblesse: nous sommes devenus bien plus\nforts dans la dissertation \u00e9rudite, mais j\u2019aurais un \u00e9ternel regret\npour cette moyenne et plus libre habitude litt\u00e9raire qui laissait \u00e0\nl\u2019imagination tout son espace et \u00e0 l\u2019esprit tout son jeu; qui formait\nune atmosph\u00e8re saine et facile o\u00f9 le talent respirait et se mouvait\n\u00e0 son gr\u00e9: cette atmosph\u00e8re-l\u00e0, je ne la trouve plus, et je la\nregrette.\u201d--(_Ch\u00e2teaubriand et son Groupe Litt\u00e9raire_, vol. i. p. 311.)\n\nThe following _pens\u00e9e_ of La Bruy\u00e8re applies to the second half of\nAmiel\u2019s criticism of the French mind: \u201cIf you wish to travel in the\nInferno or the Paradiso you must take other guides,\u201d etc.\n\n\u201cUn homme n\u00e9 Chr\u00e9tien et Fran\u00e7ois se trouve contraint dans la satyre;\nles grands sujets lui sont d\u00e9fendus, il les entame quelquefois, et se\nd\u00e9tourne ensuite sur de petites choses qu\u2019il rel\u00e8ve par la beaut\u00e9 de\nson g\u00e9nie et de son style.\u201d--_Les Caract\u00e8res_, etc., \u201c_Des Ouvrages\ndel\u2019Esprit_.\u201d]--because they have no _grasp_ of reality in its fullness,\nand therefore either cramp and limit me or awaken my distrust. The\nFrench lack that intuitive faculty to which the living unity of things\nis revealed, they have very little sense of what is sacred, very little\npenetration into the mysteries of being. What they excel in is the\nconstruction of special sciences; the art of writing a book, style,\ncourtesy, grace, literary models, perfection and urbanity; the spirit of\norder, the art of teaching, discipline, elegance, truth of detail,\npower of arrangement; the desire and the gift for proselytism, the vigor\nnecessary for practical conclusions. But if you wish to travel in the\n\u201cInferno\u201d or the \u201cParadiso\u201d you must take other guides. Their home is\non the earth, in the region of the finite, the changing, the historical,\nand the diverse. Their logic never goes beyond the category of mechanism\nnor their metaphysic beyond dualism. When they undertake anything else\nthey are doing violence to themselves.\n\nApril 24th. (_Noon_).--All around me profound peace, the silence of the\nmountains in spite of a full house and a neighboring village. No sound\nis to be heard but the murmur of the flies. There is something very\nstriking in this calm. The middle of the day is like the middle of the\nnight. Life seems suspended just when it is most intense. These are the\nmoments in which one hears the infinite and perceives the ineffable.\nVictor Hugo, in his \u201cContemplations,\u201d has been carrying me from world\nto world, and since then his contradictions have reminded me of the\nconvinced Christian with whom I was talking yesterday in a house near\nby.... The same sunlight floods both the book and nature, the doubting\npoet and the believing preacher, as well as the mobile dreamer, who, in\nthe midst of all these various existences, allows himself to be swayed\nby every passing breath, and delights, stretched along the car of his\nballoon, in floating aimlessly through all the sounds and shallows\nof the ether, and in realizing within himself all the harmonies and\ndissonances of the soul, of feeling, and of thought. Idleness and\ncontemplation! Slumber of the will, lapses of the vital force, indolence\nof the whole being--how well I know you! To love, to dream, to feel,\nto learn, to understand--all these are possible to me if only I may be\nrelieved from willing. It is my tendency, my instinct, my fault, my sin.\nI have a sort of primitive horror of ambition, of struggle, of hatred,\nof all which dissipates the soul and makes it dependent upon external\nthings and aims. The joy of becoming once more conscious of myself, of\nlistening to the passage of time and the flow of the universal life,\nis sometimes enough to make me forget every desire, and to quench in\nme both the wish to produce and the power to execute. Intellectual\nEpicureanism is always threatening to overpower me. I can only combat it\nby the idea of duty; it is as the poet has said:\n\n  \u201cCeux qui vivent, ce sont ceux qui luttent; ce sont\n  Ceux dont un dessein ferme emplit l\u2019\u00e2me et le front,\n  Ceux qui d\u2019un haut destin gravissent l\u2019\u00e2pre cime,\n  Ceux qui marchent pensifs, \u00e9pris d\u2019un but sublime,\n  Ayant devant les yeux sans cesse, nuit et jour,\n  Ou quelque saint labeur ou quelque grand amour!\u201d\n\n[Footnote: Victor Hugo, \u201cLes Chatiments.\u201d]\n\n_Five o\u2019clock._--In the afternoon our little society met in general talk\nupon the terrace. Some amount of familiarity and friendliness begins\nto show itself in our relations to each other. I read over again with\nemotion some passages of \u201cJocelyn.\u201d How admirable it is!\n\n  \u201cIl se fit de sa vie une plus m\u00e2le id\u00e9e:\n  Sa douleur d\u2019un seul trait ne l\u2019avait pas vid\u00e9e;\n  Mais, adorant de Dieu le s\u00e9v\u00e8re dessein,\n  Il sut la porter pleine et pure dans son sein,\n  Et ne se h\u00e2tant pas de la r\u00e9pandre toute,\n  Sa r\u00e9signation l\u2019\u00e9pancha goutte \u00e0 goutte,\n  Selon la circonstance et le besoin d\u2019autrui,\n  Pour tout vivifier sur terre autour de lui.\u201d\n\n[Footnote: Epilogue of \u201cJocelyn.\u201d]\n\nThe true poetry is that which raises you, as this does, toward heaven,\nand fills you with divine emotion; which sings of love and death, of\nhope and sacrifice, and awakens the sense of the infinite. \u201cJocelyn\u201d\n always stirs in me impulses of tenderness which it would be hateful\nto me to see profaned by satire. As a tragedy of feeling, it has no\nparallel in French, for purity, except \u201cPaul et Virginie,\u201d and I think\nthat I prefer \u201cJocelyn.\u201d To be just, one ought to read them side by\nside.\n\n_Six o\u2019clock._--One more day is drawing to its close. With the exception\nof Mont Blanc, all the mountains have already lost their color. The\nevening chill succeeds the heat of the afternoon. The sense of the\nimplacable flight of things, of the resistless passage of the hours,\nseizes upon me afresh and oppresses me.\n\n  \u201cNature au front serein, comme vous oubliez!\u201d\n\nIn vain we cry with the poet, \u201cO time, suspend thy flight!\u201d... And what\ndays, after all, would we keep and hold? Not only the happy days, but\nthe lost days! The first have left at least a memory behind them, the\nothers nothing but a regret which is almost a remorse....\n\n_Eleven o\u2019clock._--A gust of wind. A few clouds in the sky. The\nnightingale is silent. On the other hand, the cricket and the river are\nstill singing.\n\nAugust 9, 1862.--Life, which seeks its own continuance, tends to repair\nitself without our help. It mends its spider\u2019s webs when they have been\ntorn; it re-establishes in us the conditions of health, and itself heals\nthe injuries inflicted upon it; it binds the bandage again upon our\neyes, brings back hope into our hearts, breathes health once more into\nour organs, and regilds the dream of our imagination. But for this,\nexperience would have hopelessly withered and faded us long before the\ntime, and the youth would be older than the centenarian. The wise part\nof us, then, is that which is unconscious of itself; and what is\nmost reasonable in man are those elements in him which do not reason.\nInstinct, nature, a divine, an impersonal activity, heal in us the\nwounds made by our own follies; the invisible _genius_ of our life is\nnever tired of providing material for the prodigalities of the self.\nThe essential, maternal basis of our conscious life, is therefore that\nunconscious life which we perceive no more than the outer hemisphere\nof the moon perceives the earth, while all the time indissolubly and\neternally bound to it. It is our [Greek: antichoon], to speak with\nPythagoras.\n\nNovember 7, 1862.--How malign, infectious, and unwholesome is the\neternal smile of that indifferent criticism, that attitude of ironical\ncontemplation, which corrodes and demolishes everything, that mocking\npitiless temper, which holds itself aloof from every personal duty\nand every vulnerable affection, and cares only to understand without\ncommitting itself to action! Criticism become a habit, a fashion, and\na system, means the destruction of moral energy, of faith, and of all\nspiritual force. One of my tendencies leads me in this direction, but I\nrecoil before its results when I come across more emphatic types of\nit than myself. And at least I cannot reproach myself with having ever\nattempted to destroy the moral force of others; my reverence for life\nforbade it, and my self-distrust has taken from me even the temptation\nto it.\n\nThis kind of temper is very dangerous among us, for it flatters all\nthe worst instincts of men--indiscipline, irreverence, selfish\nindividualism--and it ends in social atomism. Minds inclined to mere\nnegation are only harmless in great political organisms, which go\nwithout them and in spite of them. The multiplication of them among\nourselves will bring about the ruin of our little countries, for small\nstates only live by faith and will. Woe to the society where negation\nrules, for life is an affirmation; and a society, a country, a nation,\nis a living whole capable of death. No nationality is possible without\nprejudices, for public spirit and national tradition are but webs woven\nout of innumerable beliefs which have been acquired, admitted, and\ncontinued without formal proof and without discussion. To act, we must\nbelieve; to believe, we must make up our minds, affirm, decide, and\nin reality prejudge the question. He who will only act upon a full\nscientific certitude is unfit for practical life. But we are made\nfor action, and we cannot escape from duty. Let us not, then, condemn\nprejudice so long as we have nothing but doubt to put in its place, or\nlaugh at those whom we should be incapable of consoling! This, at least,\nis my point of view.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBeyond the element which is common to all men there is an element\nwhich separates them. This element may be religion, country, language,\neducation. But all these being supposed common, there still remains\nsomething which serves as a line of demarcation--namely, the ideal. To\nhave an ideal or to have none, to have this ideal or that--this is what\ndigs gulfs between men, even between those who live in the same family\ncircle, under the same roof or in the same room. You must love with the\nsame love, think with the same thought as some one else, if you are to\nescape solitude.\n\nMutual respect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself; it\nmeans preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we\nshare. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire\nto make one\u2019s own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of\nsolicitude.\n\nHow many times we become hypocrites simply by remaining the same\noutwardly and toward others, when we know that inwardly and to ourselves\nwe are different. It is not hypocrisy in the strict sense, for we borrow\nno other personality than our own; still, it is a kind of deception. The\ndeception humiliates us, and the humiliation is a chastisement which the\nmask inflicts upon the face, which our past inflicts upon our present.\nSuch humiliation is good for us; for it produces shame, and shame gives\nbirth to repentance. Thus in an upright soul good springs out of evil,\nand it falls only to rise again.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nJanuary 8, 1863.--This evening I read through the \u201cCid\u201d and \u201cRodogune.\u201d\n My impression is still a mixed and confused one. There is much\ndisenchantment in my admiration, and a good deal of reserve in my\nenthusiasm. What displeases me in this dramatic art, is the mechanical\nabstraction of the characters, and the scolding, shrewish tone of\nthe interlocutors. I had a vague impression of listening to gigantic\nmarionettes, perorating through a trumpet, with the emphasis of\nSpaniards. There is power in it, but we have before us heroic idols\nrather than human beings. The element of artificiality, of strained\npomposity and affectation, which is the plague of classical tragedy, is\neverywhere apparent, and one hears, as it were, the cords and pulleys of\nthese majestic _colossi_ creaking and groaning. I much prefer Racine and\nShakespeare; the one from the point of view of aesthetic sensation, the\nother from that of psychological sensation. The southern theater can\nnever free itself from masks. Comic masks are bearable, but in the case\nof tragic heroes, the abstract type, the mask, make one impatient. I can\nlaugh with personages of tin and pasteboard: I can only weep with the\nliving, or what resembles them. Abstraction turns easily to caricature;\nit is apt to engender mere shadows on the wall, mere ghosts and puppets.\nIt is psychology of the first degree--elementary psychology--just as the\ncolored pictures of Germany are elementary painting. And yet with all\nthis, you have a double-distilled and often sophistical refinement: just\nas savages are by no means simple. The fine side of it all is the manly\nvigor, the bold frankness of ideas, words, and sentiments. Why is it\nthat we find so large an element of factitious grandeur, mingled with\ntrue grandeur, in this drama of 1640, from which the whole dramatic\ndevelopment of monarchical France was to spring? Genius is there, but it\nis hemmed round by a conventional civilization, and, strive as he may,\nno man wears a wig with impunity.\n\nJanuary 13, 1863.--To-day it has been the turn of \u201cPolyeucte\u201d and \u201cLa\nMorte de Pomp\u00e9e.\u201d Whatever one\u2019s objections may be, there is something\ngrandiose in the style of Corneille which reconciles you at last even to\nhis stiff, emphatic manner, and his over-ingenious rhetoric. But it is\nthe dramatic _genre_ which is false. His heroes are r\u00f4les rather than\nmen. They pose as magnanimity, virtue, glory, instead of realizing\nthem before us. They are always _en sc\u00e8ne_, studied by others, or by\nthemselves. With them glory--that is to say, the life of ceremony and of\naffairs, and the opinion of the public--replaces nature--becomes nature.\nThey never speak except _ore rotundo_, in _cothurnus_, or sometimes on\nstilts. And what consummate advocates they all are! The French drama is\nan oratorical tournament, a long suit between opposing parties, on a day\nwhich is to end with the death of somebody, and where all the personages\nrepresented are in haste to speak before the hour of silence strikes.\nElsewhere, speech serves to make action intelligible; in French tragedy\naction is but a decent motive for speech. It is the procedure calculated\nto extract the finest possible speeches from the persons who are\nengaged in the action, and who represent different perceptions of it at\ndifferent moments and from different points of view. Love and nature,\nduty and desire, and a dozen other moral antitheses, are the limbs moved\nby the wire of the dramatist, who makes them fall into all the tragic\nattitudes. What is really curious and amusing is that the people of\nall others the most vivacious, gay, and intelligent, should have always\nunderstood the grand style in this pompous, pedantic fashion. But it was\ninevitable.\n\nApril 8, 1863.--I have been turning over the 3,500 pages of \u201cLes\nMis\u00e9rables,\u201d trying to understand the guiding idea of this vast\ncomposition. The fundamental idea of \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables\u201d seems to be this.\nSociety engenders certain frightful evils--prostitution, vagabondage,\nrogues, thieves, convicts, war, revolutionary clubs and barricades. She\nought to impress this fact on her mind, and not treat all those who\ncome in contact with her law as mere monsters. The task before us is to\nhumanize law and opinion, to raise the fallen as well as the vanquished,\nto create a social redemption. How is this to be done? By enlightening\nvice and lawlessness, and so diminishing the sum of them, and by\nbringing to bear upon the guilty the healing influence of pardon.\nAt bottom is it not a Christianization of society, this extension of\ncharity from the sinner to the condemned criminal, this application to\nour present life of what the church applies more readily to the other?\nStruggle to restore a human soul to order and to righteousness by\npatience and by love, instead of crushing it by your inflexible\nvindictiveness, your savage justice! Such is the cry of the book. It\nis great and noble, but it is a little optimistic and Rousseau-like.\nAccording to it the individual is always innocent and society always\nresponsible, and the ideal before us for the twentieth century is a sort\nof democratic age of gold, a universal republic from which war, capital\npunishment, and pauperism will have disappeared. It is the religion and\nthe city of progress; in a word, the Utopia of the eighteenth century\nrevived on a great scale. There is a great deal of generosity in it,\nmixed with not a little fanciful extravagance. The fancifulness consists\nchiefly in a superficial notion of evil. The author ignores or pretends\nto forget the instinct of perversity, the love of evil for evil\u2019s sake,\nwhich is contained in the human heart.\n\nThe great and salutary idea of the book, is that honesty before the law\nis a cruel hypocrisy, in so far as it arrogates to itself the right\nof dividing society according to its own standard into elect and\nreprobates, and thus confounds the relative with the absolute. The\nleading passage is that in which Javert, thrown off the rails, upsets\nthe whole moral system of the strict Javert, half spy, half priest--of\nthe irreproachable police-officer. In this chapter the writer shows us\nsocial charity illuminating and transforming a harsh and unrighteous\njustice. Suppression of the social hell, that is to say, of all\nirreparable stains, of all social outlawries for which there is neither\nend nor hope--it is an essentially religious idea.\n\nThe erudition, the talent, the brilliancy of execution, shown in the\nbook are astonishing, bewildering almost. Its faults are to be found in\nthe enormous length allowed to digressions and episodical dissertations,\nin the exaggeration of all the combinations and all the theses, and,\nfinally, in something strained, spasmodic, and violent in the style,\nwhich is very different from the style of natural eloquence or of\nessential truth. Effect is the misfortune of Victor Hugo, because he\nmakes it the center of his aesthetic system; and hence exaggeration,\nmonotony of emphasis, theatricality of manner, a tendency to force and\nover-drive. A powerful artist, but one with whom you never forget the\nartist; and a dangerous model, for the master himself is already grazing\nthe rock of burlesque, and passes from the sublime to the repulsive,\nfrom lack of power to produce one harmonious impression of beauty. It is\nnatural enough that he should detest Racine.\n\nBut what astonishing philological and literary power has Victor Hugo! He\nis master of all the dialects contained in our language, dialects of\nthe courts of law, of the stock-exchange, of war, and of the sea,\nof philosophy and the convict-gang, the dialects of trade and of\narchaeology, of the antiquarian and the scavenger. All the bric-\u00e0-brac\nof history and of manners, so to speak, all the curiosities of soil,\nand subsoil, are known and familiar to him. He seems to have turned\nhis Paris over and over, and to know it body and soul as one knows the\ncontents of one\u2019s pocket. What a prodigious memory and what a lurid\nimagination! He is at once a visionary and yet master of his dreams;\nhe summons up and handles at will the hallucinations of opium or of\nhasheesh, without ever becoming their dupe; he makes of madness one\nof his tame animals, and bestrides, with equal coolness, Pegasus or\nNightmare, the Hippogriff or the Chimera. As a psychological phenomenon\nhe is of the deepest interest. Victor Hugo draws in sulphuric acid,\nhe lights his pictures with electric light. He deafens, blinds, and\nbewilders his reader rather than he charms or persuades him. Strength\ncarried to such a point as this is a fascination; without seeming to\ntake you captive, it makes you its prisoner; it does not enchant\nyou, but it holds you spellbound. His ideal is the extraordinary, the\ngigantic, the overwhelming, the incommensurable. His most characteristic\nwords are _immense, colossal, enormous, huge, monstrous_. He finds a\nway of making even child-nature extravagant and bizarre. The only thing\nwhich seems impossible to him is to be natural. In short, his passion\nis grandeur, his fault is excess; his distinguishing mark is a kind of\nTitanic power with strange dissonances of puerility in its magnificence.\nWhere he is weakest is, in measure, taste, and sense of humor: he\nfails in _esprit_, in the subtlest sense of the word. Victor Hugo is a\ngallicized Spaniard, or rather he unites all the extremes of south and\nnorth, the Scandinavian and the African. Gaul has less part in him than\nany other country. And yet, by a caprice of destiny, he is one of the\nliterary geniuses of France in the nineteenth century! His resources are\ninexhaustible, and age seems to have no power over him. What an infinite\nstore of words, forms, and ideas he carries about with him, and what a\npile of works he has left behind him to mark his passage! His eruptions\nare like those of a volcano; and, fabulous workman that he is, he goes\non forever raising, destroying, crushing, and rebuilding a world of his\nown creation, and a world rather Hindoo than Hellenic.\n\nHe amazes me: and yet I prefer those men of genius who awaken in me the\nsense of truth, and who increase the sum of one\u2019s inner liberty. In\nHugo one feels the effort of the laboring Cyclops; give me rather the\nsonorous bow of Apollo, and the tranquil brow of the Olympian Jove.\nHis type is that of the Satyr in the \u201cL\u00e9gende des Si\u00e8cles,\u201d who\ncrushes Olympus, a type midway between the ugliness of the faun and the\noverpowering sublimity of the great Pan.\n\nMay 23, 1863.--Dull, cloudy, misty weather; it rained in the night\nand yet the air is heavy. This somber reverie of earth and sky has\na sacredness of its own, but it fills the spectator with a vague and\nstupefying _ennui_. Light brings life: darkness may bring thought, but\na dull daylight, the uncertain glimmer of a leaden sky, merely make one\nrestless and weary. These indecisive and chaotic states of nature are\nugly, like all amorphous things, like smeared colors, or bats, or the\nviscous polyps of the sea. The source of all attractiveness is to be\nfound in character, in sharpness of outline, in individualization. All\nthat is confused and indistinct, without form, or sex, or accent, is\nantagonistic to beauty; for the mind\u2019s first need is light; light means\norder, and order means, in the first place, the distinction of the\nparts, in the second, their regular action. Beauty is based on reason.\n\nAugust 7, 1863.--A walk after supper, a sky sparkling with stars, the\nMilky Way magnificent. Alas! all the same my heart is heavy. At bottom\nI am always brought up against an incurable distrust of myself and of\nlife, which toward my neighbor has become indulgence, but for myself\nhas led to a _r\u00e9gime_ of absolute abstention. All or nothing! This is\nmy inborn disposition, my primitive stuff, my \u201cold man.\u201d And yet if some\none will but give me a little love, will but penetrate a little into my\ninner feeling, I am happy and ask for scarcely anything else. A child\u2019s\ncaresses, a friend\u2019s talk, are enough to make me gay and expansive.\nSo then I aspire to the infinite, and yet a very little contents me;\neverything disturbs me and the least thing calms me. I have often\nsurprised in my self the wish for death, and yet my ambitions for\nhappiness scarcely go beyond those of the bird: wings! sun! a nest! I\npersist in solitude because of a taste for it, so people think. No, it\nis from distaste, disgust, from shame at my own need of others, shame at\nconfessing it, a fear of passing into bondage if I do confess it.\n\nSeptember 2, 1863.--How shall I find a name for that subtle feeling\nwhich seized hold upon me this morning in the twilight of waking? It was\na reminiscence, charming indeed, but nameless, vague, and featureless,\nlike the figure of a woman seen for an instant by a sick man in the\nuncertainty of delirium, and across the shadows of his darkened room. I\nhad a distinct sense of a form which I had seen somewhere, and which had\nmoved and charmed me once, and then had fallen back with time into the\ncatacombs of oblivion. But all the rest was confused: place, occasion,\nand the figure itself, for I saw neither the face nor its expression.\nThe whole was like a fluttering veil under which the enigma--the secret\nof happiness--might have been hidden. And I was awake enough to be sure\nthat it was not a dream.\n\nIn impressions like these we recognize the last trace of things which\nare sinking out of sight and call within us, of memories which are\nperishing. It is like a shimmering marsh-light falling upon some vague\noutline of which one scarcely knows whether it represents a pain or a\npleasure--a gleam upon a grave. How strange! One might almost call\nsuch things the ghosts of the soul, reflections of past happiness, the\n_manes_ of our dead emotions. If, as the Talmud, I think, says, every\nfeeling of love gives birth involuntarily to an invisible genius or\nspirit which yearns to complete its existence, and these glimmering\nphantoms, which have never taken to themselves form and reality, are\nstill wandering in the limbo of the soul, what is there to astonish us\nin the strange apparitions which sometimes come to visit our pillow? At\nany rate, the fact remains that I was not able to force the phantom\nto tell me its name, nor to give any shape or distinctness to my\nreminiscence.\n\nWhat a melancholy aspect life may wear to us when we are floating down\nthe current of such dreamy thoughts as these! It seems like some vast\nnocturnal shipwreck in which a hundred loving voices are clamoring for\nhelp, while the pitiless mounting wave is silencing all the cries one\nby one, before we have been able, in this darkness of death, to press a\nhand or give the farewell kiss. Prom such a point of view destiny looks\nharsh, savage, and cruel, and the tragedy of life rises like a rock in\nthe midst of the dull waters of daily triviality. It is impossible not\nto be serious under the weight of indefinable anxiety produced in us by\nsuch a spectacle. The surface of things may be smiling or commonplace,\nbut the depths below are austere and terrible. As soon as we touch upon\neternal things, upon the destiny of the soul, upon truth or duty, upon\nthe secrets of life and death, we become grave whether we will or no.\n\nLove at its highest point--love sublime, unique, invincible--leads us\nstraight to the brink of the great abyss, for it speaks to us directly\nof the infinite and of eternity. It is eminently religious; it may even\nbecome religion. When all around a man is wavering and changing, when\neverything is growing dark and featureless to him in the far distance of\nan unknown future, when the world seems but a fiction or a fairy tale,\nand the universe a chimera, when the whole edifice of ideas vanishes in\nsmoke, and all realities are penetrated with doubt, what is the fixed\npoint which may still be his? The faithful heart of a woman! There he\nmay rest his head; there he will find strength to live, strength to\nbelieve, and, if need be, strength to die in peace with a benediction on\nhis lips. Who knows if love and its beatitude, clear manifestation as it\nis of the universal harmony of things, is not the best demonstration\nof a fatherly and understanding God, just as it is the shortest road by\nwhich to reach him? Love is a faith, and one faith leads to another. And\nthis faith is happiness, light and force. Only by it does a man enter\ninto the series of the living, the awakened, the happy, the redeemed--of\nthose true men who know the value of existence and who labor for\nthe glory of God and of the truth. Till then we are but babblers and\nchatterers, spendthrifts of our time, our faculties and our gifts,\nwithout aim, without real joy--weak, infirm, and useless beings, of no\naccount in the scheme of things. Perhaps it is through love that I shall\nfind my way back to faith, to religion, to energy, to concentration. It\nseems to me, at least, that if I could but find my work-fellow and my\ndestined companion, all the rest would be added unto me, as though to\nconfound my unbelief and make me blush for my despair. Believe, then, in\na fatherly Providence, and dare to love!\n\nNovember 25, 1863.--Prayer is the essential weapon of all religions.\nHe who can no longer pray because he doubts whether there is a being\nto whom prayer ascends and from whom blessing descends, he indeed is\ncruelly solitary and prodigiously impoverished. And you, what do you\nbelieve about it? At this moment I should find it very difficult to\nsay. All my positive beliefs are in the crucible ready for any kind of\nmetamorphosis. Truth above all, even when it upsets and overwhelms\nus! But what I believe is that the highest idea we can conceive of the\nprinciple of things will be the truest, and that the truest truth\nis that which makes man the most wholly good, wisest, greatest, and\nhappiest.\n\nMy creed is in transition. Yet I still believe in God, and the\nimmortality of the soul. I believe in holiness, truth, beauty; I believe\nin the redemption of the soul by faith in forgiveness. I believe in\nlove, devotion, honor. I believe in duty and the moral conscience. I\nbelieve even in prayer. I believe in the fundamental intuitions of the\nhuman race, and in the great affirmations of the inspired of all ages. I\nbelieve that our higher nature is our truer nature.\n\nCan one get a theology and a theodicy out of this? Probably, but just\nnow I do not see it distinctly. It is so long since I have ceased to\nthink about my own metaphysic, and since I have lived in the thoughts of\nothers, that I am ready even to ask myself whether the crystallization\nof my beliefs is necessary. Yes, for preaching and acting; less for\nstudying, contemplating and learning.\n\nDecember 4, 1863.--The whole secret of remaining young in spite of\nyears, and even of gray hairs, is to cherish enthusiasm in one\u2019s self\nby poetry, by contemplation, by charity--that is, in fewer words, by\nthe maintenance of harmony in the soul. When everything is in its right\nplace within us, we ourselves are in equilibrium with the whole work of\nGod. Deep and grave enthusiasm for the eternal beauty and the\neternal order, reason touched with emotion and a serene tenderness of\nheart--these surely are the foundations of wisdom.\n\nWisdom! how inexhaustible a theme! A sort of peaceful aureole surrounds\nand illumines this thought, in which are summed up all the treasures of\nmoral experience, and which is the ripest fruit of a well-spent life.\nWisdom never grows old, for she is the expression of order itself--that\nis, of the Eternal. Only the wise man draws from life, and from every\nstage of it, its true savor, because only he feels the beauty, the\ndignity, and the value of life. The flowers of youth may fade, but the\nsummer, the autumn, and even the winter of human existence, have their\nmajestic grandeur, which the wise man recognizes and glorifies. To see\nall things in God; to make of one\u2019s own life a journey toward the ideal;\nto live with gratitude, with devoutness, with gentleness and courage;\nthis was the splendid aim of Marcus Aurelius. And if you add to it the\nhumility which kneels, and the charity which gives, you have the whole\nwisdom of the children of God, the immortal joy which is the heritage of\nthe true Christian. But what a false Christianity is that which slanders\nwisdom and seeks to do without it! In such a case I am on the side of\nwisdom, which is, as it were, justice done to God, even in this life.\nThe relegation of life to some distant future, and the separation of\nthe holy man from the virtuous man, are the signs of a false religious\nconception. This error is, in some degree, that of the whole Middle\nAge, and belongs, perhaps, to the essence of Catholicism. But the true\nChristianity must purge itself from so disastrous a mistake. The eternal\nlife is not the future life; it is life in harmony with the true order\nof things--life in God. We must learn to look upon time as a movement of\neternity, as an undulation in the ocean of being. To live, so as to keep\nthis consciousness of ours in perpetual relation with the eternal, is\nto be wise; to live, so as to personify and embody the eternal, is to be\nreligious.\n\nThe modern leveler, after having done away with conventional\ninequalities, with arbitrary privilege and historical injustice, goes\nstill farther, and rebels against the inequalities of merit, capacity,\nand virtue. Beginning with a just principle, he develops it into an\nunjust one. Inequality may be as true and as just as equality: it\ndepends upon what you mean by it. But this is precisely what nobody\ncares to find out. All passions dread the light, and the modern zeal for\nequality is a disguised hatred which tries to pass itself off as love.\n\nLiberty, equality--bad principles! The only true principle for humanity\nis justice, and justice toward the feeble becomes necessarily protection\nor kindness.\n\nApril 2, 1864.--To-day April has been displaying her showery caprices.\nWe have had floods of sunshine followed by deluges of rain, alternate\ntears and smiles from the petulant sky, gusts of wind and storms. The\nweather is like a spoiled child whose wishes and expression change\ntwenty times in an hour. It is a blessing for the plants, and means\nan influx of life through all the veins of the spring. The circle of\nmountains which bounds the valley is covered with white from top to toe,\nbut two hours of sunshine would melt the snow away. The snow itself is\nbut a new caprice, a simple stage decoration ready to disappear at the\nsignal of the scene-shifter.\n\nHow sensible I am to the restless change which rules the world. To\nappear, and to vanish--there is the biography of all individuals,\nwhatever may be the length of the cycle of existence which they\ndescribe, and the drama of the universe is nothing more. All life is\nthe shadow of a smoke-wreath, a gesture in the empty air, a hieroglyph\ntraced for an instant in the sand, and effaced a moment afterward by a\nbreath of wind, an air-bubble expanding and vanishing on the surface of\nthe great river of being--an appearance, a vanity, a nothing. But this\nnothing is, however, the symbol of the universal being, and this passing\nbubble is the epitome of the history of the world.\n\nThe man who has, however imperceptibly, helped in the work of the\nuniverse, has lived; the man who has been conscious, in however small a\ndegree, of the cosmical movement, has lived also. The plain man serves\nthe world by his action and as a wheel in the machine; the thinker\nserves it by his intellect, and as a light upon its path. The man of\nmeditative soul, who raises and comforts and sustains his traveling\ncompanions, mortal and fugitive like himself, plays a nobler part still,\nfor he unites the other two utilities. Action, thought, speech, are the\nthree modes of human life. The artisan, the savant, and the orator,\nare all three God\u2019s workmen. To do, to discover, to teach--these three\nthings are all labor, all good, all necessary. Will-o\u2019-the-wisps that we\nare, we may yet leave a trace behind us; meteors that we are, we may yet\nprolong our perishable being in the memory of men, or at least in the\ncontexture of after events. Everything disappears, but nothing is lost,\nand the civilization or city of man is but an immense spiritual pyramid,\nbuilt up out of the work of all that has ever lived under the forms of\nmoral being, just as our calcareous mountains are made of the debris\nof myriads of nameless creatures who have lived under the forms of\nmicroscopic animal life.\n\nApril 5, 1864.--I have been reading \u201cPrince Vitale\u201d for the second time,\nand have been lost in admiration of it. What wealth of color, facts,\nideas--what learning, what fine-edged satire, what _esprit_, science,\nand talent, and what an irreproachable finish of style--so limpid, and\nyet so profound! It is not heartfelt and it is not spontaneous, but all\nother kinds of merit, culture, and cleverness the author possesses.\nIt would be impossible to be more penetrating, more subtle, and less\nfettered in mind, than this wizard of language, with his irony and his\nchameleon-like variety. Victor Cherbuliez, like the sphinx, is able to\nplay all lyres, and takes his profit from them all, with a Goethe-like\nserenity. It seems as if passion, grief, and error had no hold on this\nimpassive soul. The key of his thought is to be looked for in Hegel\u2019s\n\u201cPhenomenology of Mind,\u201d remolded by Greek and French influences.\n\nHis faith, if he has one, is that of Strauss-Humanism. But he is\nperfectly master of himself and of his utterances, and will take good\ncare never to preach anything prematurely.\n\nWhat is there quite at the bottom of this deep spring?\n\nIn any case a mind as free as any can possibly be from stupidity and\nprejudice. One might almost say that Cherbuliez knows all that he\nwishes to know, without the trouble of learning it. He is a calm\nMephistopheles, with perfect manners, grace, variety, and an exquisite\nurbanity; and Mephisto is a clever jeweler; and this jeweler is a subtle\nmusician; and this fine singer and storyteller, with his amber-like\ndelicacy and brilliancy, is making mock of us all the while. He takes a\nmalicious pleasure in withdrawing his own personality from scrutiny and\ndivination, while he himself divines everything, and he likes to make us\nfeel that although he holds in his hand the secret of the universe,\nhe will only unfold his prize at his own time, and if it pleases him.\nVictor Cherbuliez is a little like Proudhon and plays with paradoxes, to\nshock the _bourgeois_. Thus he amuses himself with running down Luther\nand the Reformation in favor of the Renaissance. Of the troubles of\nconscience he seems to know nothing. His supreme tribunal is reason.\nAt bottom he is Hegelian and intellectualist. But it is a splendid\norganization. Only sometimes he must be antipathetic to those men of\nduty who make renunciation, sacrifice, and humility the measure of\nindividual worth.\n\nJuly, 1864.--Among the Alps I become a child again, with all the\nfollies and _na\u00efvet\u00e9_ of childhood. Shaking off the weight of years, the\ntrappings of office, and all the tiresome and ridiculous caution with\nwhich one lives, I plunge into the full tide of pleasure, and amuse\nmyself sans fa\u00e7on, as it comes. In this careless light-hearted mood, my\nordinary formulas and habits fall away from me so completely that I feel\nmyself no longer either townsman, or professor, or savant, or bachelor,\nand I remember no more of my past than if it were a dream. It is like a\nbath in Lethe.\n\nIt makes me really believe that the smallest illness would destroy my\nmemory, and wipe out all my previous existence, when I see with what\nease I become a stranger to myself, and fall back once more into\nthe condition of a blank sheet, a _tabula rasa_. Life wears such a\ndream-aspect to me that I can throw myself without any difficulty into\nthe situation of the dying, before whose eyes all this tumult of images\nand forms fades into nothingness. I have the inconsistency of a fluid,\na vapor, a cloud, and all is easily unmade or transformed in me;\neverything passes and is effaced like the waves which follow each other\non the sea. When I say all, I mean all that is arbitrary, indifferent,\npartial, or intellectual in the combinations of one\u2019s life. For I feel\nthat the things of the soul, our immortal aspirations, our deepest\naffections, are not drawn into this chaotic whirlwind of impressions. It\nis the finite things which are mortal and fugitive. Every man feels it\nOH his deathbed. I feel it during the whole of life; that is the only\ndifference between me and others. Excepting only love, thought, and\nliberty, almost everything is now a matter of indifference to me, and\nthose objects which excite the desires of most men, rouse in me\nlittle more than curiosity. What does it mean--detachment of soul,\ndisinterestedness, weakness, or wisdom?\n\nSeptember 19, 1864.--I have been living for two hours with a noble\nsoul--with Eug\u00e9nie de Gu\u00e9rin, the pious heroine of fraternal love. How\nmany thoughts, feelings, griefs, in this journal of six years! How\nit makes one dream, think and live! It produces a certain homesick\nimpression on me, a little like that of certain forgotten melodies\nwhereof the accent touches the heart, one knows not why. It is as though\nfar-off paths came back to me, glimpses of youth, a confused murmur\nof voices, echoes from my past. Purity, melancholy, piety, a thousand\nmemories of a past existence, forms fantastic and intangible, like\nthe fleeting shadows of a dream at waking, began to circle round the\nastonished reader.\n\nSeptember 20, 1864.--Read Eug\u00e9nie de Gu\u00e9rin\u2019s volume again right and\nleft with a growing sense of attraction. Everything is heart, force,\nimpulse, in these pages which have the power of sincerity and a\nbrilliance of suffused poetry. A great and strong soul, a clear mind,\ndistinction, elevation, the freedom of unconscious talent, reserve and\ndepth--nothing is wanting for this S\u00e9vign\u00e9 of the fields, who has to\nhold herself in with both hands lest she should write verse, so strong\nin her is the artistic impulse.\n\nOctober 16, 1864.--I have just read a part of Eug\u00e9nie de Gu\u00e9rin\u2019s\njournal over again. It charmed me a little less than the first time. The\nnature seemed to me as beautiful, but the life of Eug\u00e9nie was too empty,\nand the circle of ideas which occupied her, too narrow.\n\nIt is touching and wonderful to see how little space is enough for\nthought to spread its wings in, but this perpetual motion within the\nfour walls of a cell ends none the less by becoming wearisome to minds\nwhich are accustomed to embrace more objects in their field of vision.\nInstead of a garden, the world; instead of a library, the whole of\nliterature; instead of three or four faces, a whole people and all\nhistory--this is what the virile, the philosophic temper demands. Men\nmust have more air, more room, mere horizon, more positive knowledge,\nand they end by suffocating in this little cage where Eugenie lives and\nmoves, though the breath of heaven blows into it and the radiance of the\nstars shines down upon it.\n\nOctober 27, 1864. (_Promenade de la Treille_).--The air this morning was\nso perfectly clear and lucid that one might have distinguished a figure\non the Vouache. [Footnote: The Vouache is the hill which bounds the\nhorizon of Geneva to the south-west.] This level and brilliant sun had\nset fire to the whole range of autumn colors; amber, saffron, gold,\nsulphur, yellow ochre, orange, red, copper-color, aquamarine, amaranth,\nshone resplendent on the leaves which were still hanging from the boughs\nor had already fallen beneath the trees. It was delicious. The martial\nstep of our two battalions going out to their drilling-ground, the\nsparkle of the guns, the song of the bugles, the sharp distinctness of\nthe house outlines, still moist with the morning dew, the transparent\ncoolness of all the shadows--every detail in the scene was instinct with\na keen and wholesome gayety.\n\nThere are two forms of autumn: there is the misty and dreamy autumn,\nthere is the vivid and brilliant autumn: almost the difference between\nthe two sexes. The very word autumn is both masculine and feminine. Has\nnot every season, in some fashion, its two sexes? Has it not its minor\nand its major key, its two sides of light and shadow, gentleness\nand force? Perhaps. All that is perfect is double; each face has two\nprofiles, each coin two sides. The scarlet autumn stands for vigorous\nactivity: the gray autumn for meditative feeling. The one is expansive\nand overflowing; the other still and withdrawn. Yesterday our thoughts\nwere with the dead. To-day we are celebrating the vintage.\n\nNovember 16, 1864.--Heard of the death of--. Will and intelligence\nlasted till there was an effusion on the brain which stopped everything.\n\nA bubble of air in the blood, a drop of water in the brain, and a man\nis out of gear, his machine falls to pieces, his thought vanishes, the\nworld disappears from him like a dream at morning. On what a spider\nthread is hung our individual existence! Fragility, appearance,\nnothingness. If it were for our powers of self-detraction and\nforgetfulness, all the fairy world which surrounds and draws us would\nseem to us but a broken spectre in the darkness, an empty appearance,\na fleeting hallucination. Appeared--disappeared--there is the whole\nhistory of a man, or of a world, or of an infusoria.\n\nTime is the supreme illusion. It is but the inner prism by which we\ndecompose being and life, the mode under which we perceive successively\nwhat is simultaneous in idea. The eye does not see a sphere all at once\nalthough the sphere exists all at once. Either the sphere must turn\nbefore the eye which is looking at it, or the eye must go round the\nsphere. In the first case it is the world which unrolls, or seems to\nunroll in time; in the second case it is our thought which successively\nanalyzes and recomposes. For the supreme intelligence there is no time;\nwhat will be, is. Time and space are fragments of the infinite for the\nuse of finite creatures. God permits them, that he may not be alone.\nThey are the mode under which creatures are possible and conceivable.\nLet us add that they are also the Jacob\u2019s ladder of innumerable steps\nby which the creation reascends to its Creator, participates in being,\ntastes of life, perceives the absolute, and can adore the fathomless\nmystery of the infinite divinity. That is the other side of the\nquestion. Our life is nothing, it is true, but our life is divine. A\nbreath of nature annihilates us, but we surpass nature in penetrating\nfar beyond her vast phantasmagoria to the changeless and the eternal.\nTo escape by the ecstasy of inward vision from the whirlwind of time,\nto see one\u2019s self _sub specie eterni_ is the word of command of all the\ngreat religions of the higher races; and this psychological possibility\nis the foundation of all great hopes. The soul may be immortal because\nshe is fitted to rise toward that which is neither born nor dies, toward\nthat which exists substantially, necessarily, invariably, that is to say\ntoward God.\n\nTo know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we\nmust be able to guess what will interest; we must learn to read the\nchildish soul as we might a piece of music. Then, by simply changing the\nkey, we keep up the attraction and vary the song.\n\nThe germs of all things are in every heart, and the greatest criminals\nas well as the greatest heroes are but different modes of ourselves.\nOnly evil grows of itself, while for goodness we want effort and\ncourage.\n\nMelancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all\nrivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts,\nwhere all that we have loved or shall love must die? Is death, then, the\nsecret of life? The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or\nless closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the\nuniverse.\n\nA man takes to \u201cpiety\u201d from a thousand different reasons--from imitation\nor from eccentricity, from bravado or from reverence, from shame of the\npast or from terror of the future, from weakness and from pride, for\npleasure\u2019s sake or for punishment\u2019s sake, in order to be able to judge,\nor in order to escape being judged, and for a thousand other reasons;\nbut he only becomes truly religious for religion\u2019s sake.\n\nJanuary 11, 1865.--It is pleasant to feel nobly--that is to say, to live\nabove the lowlands of vulgarity. Manufacturing Americanism and Caesarian\ndemocracy tend equally to the multiplying of crowds, governed by\nappetite, applauding charlatanism, vowed to the worship of mammon and\nof pleasure, and adoring no other God than force. What poor samples of\nmankind they are who make up this growing majority! Oh, let us\nremain faithful to the altars of the ideal! It is possible that the\nspiritualists may become the stoics of a new epoch of Caesarian rule.\nMaterialistic naturalism has the wind in its sails, and a general moral\ndeterioration is preparing. NO matter, so long as the salt does not lose\nits savor, and so long as the friends of the higher life maintain the\nfire of Vesta. The wood itself may choke the flame, but if the flame\npersists, the fire will only be the more splendid in the end. The great\ndemocratic deluge will not after all be able to effect what the invasion\nof the barbarians was powerless to bring about; it will not drown\naltogether the results of the higher culture; but we must resign\nourselves to the fact that it tends in the beginning to deform and\nvulgarize everything. It is clear that aesthetic delicacy, elegance,\ndistinction, and nobleness--that atticism, urbanity, whatever is suave\nand exquisite, fine and subtle--all that makes the charm of the\nhigher kinds of literature and of aristocratic cultivation--vanishes\nsimultaneously with the society which corresponds to it. If, as Pascal,\n[Footnote: The saying of Pascal\u2019s alluded to is in the _Pens\u00e9es_, Art.\nxi. No. 10: \u201cA mesure qu\u2019on a plus d\u2019esprit on trouve qu\u2019il y a plus\nd\u2019hommes originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de diff\u00e9rence\nentre les hommes.\u201d] I think, says, the more one develops, the more\ndifference one observes between man and man, then we cannot say that the\ndemocratic instinct tends to mental development, since it tends to make\na man believe that the pretensions have only to be the same to make the\nmerits equal also.\n\nMarch 20, 1865.--I have just heard of fresh cases of insubordination\namong the students. Our youth become less and less docile, and seem to\ntake for their motto, \u201cOur master is our enemy.\u201d The boy insists upon\nhaving the privileges of the young man, and the young man tries to keep\nthose of the _gamin_. At bottom all this is the natural consequence of\nour system of leveling democracy. As soon as difference of quality\nis, in politics, officially equal to zero, the authority of age, of\nknowledge, and of function disappears.\n\nThe only counterpoise of pure equality is military discipline. In\nmilitary uniform, in the police court, in prison, or on the execution\nground, there is no reply possible. But is it not curious that the\n_r\u00e9gime_ of individual right should lead to nothing but respect for\nbrute strength? Jacobinism brings with it Caesarism; the rule of the\ntongue leads to the rule of the sword. Democracy and liberty are not one\nbut two. A republic supposes a high state of morals, but no such state\nof morals is possible without the habit of respect; and there is no\nrespect without humility. Now the pretension that every man has the\nnecessary qualities of a citizen, simply because he was born twenty-one\nyears ago, is as much as to say that labor, merit, virtue, character,\nand experience are to count for nothing; and we destroy humility when\nwe proclaim that a man becomes the equal of all other men, by the\nmere mechanical and vegetative process of natural growth. Such a claim\nannihilates even the respect for age; for as the elector of twenty-one\nis worth as much as the elector of fifty, the boy of nineteen has no\nserious reason to believe himself in any way the inferior of his elder\nby one or two years. Thus the fiction on which the political order of\ndemocracy is based ends in something altogether opposed to that which\ndemocracy desires: its aim was to increase the whole sum of liberty; but\nthe result is to diminish it for all.\n\nThe modern state is founded on the philosophy of atomism. Nationality,\npublic spirit, tradition, national manners, disappear like so many\nhollow and worn-out entities; nothing remains to create movement but the\naction of molecular force and of dead weight. In such a theory liberty\nis identified with caprice, and the collective reason and age-long\ntradition of an old society are nothing more than soap-bubbles which the\nsmallest urchin may shiver with a snap of the fingers.\n\nDoes this mean that I am an opponent of democracy? Not at all. Fiction\nfor fiction, it is the least harmful. But it is well not to confound its\npromises with realities. The fiction consists in the postulate of all\ndemocratic government, that the great majority of the electors in a\nstate are enlightened, free, honest, and patriotic--whereas such a\npostulate is a mere chimera. The majority in any state is necessarily\ncomposed of the most ignorant, the poorest, and the least capable; the\nstate is therefore at the mercy of accident and passion, and it always\nends by succumbing at one time or another to the rash conditions which\nhave been made for its existence. A man who condemns himself to live\nupon the tight-rope must inevitably fall; one has no need to be a\nprophet to foresee such a result.\n\n\u201c[Greek: Aridton men udor],\u201d said Pindar; the best thing in the world\nis wisdom, and, in default of wisdom, science. States, churches, society\nitself, may fall to pieces; science alone has nothing to fear--until at\nleast society once more falls a prey to barbarism. Unfortunately this\ntriumph of barbarism is not impossible. The victory of the socialist\nUtopia, or the horrors of a religious war, reserve for us perhaps even\nthis lamentable experience.\n\nApril 3, 1865.--What doctor possesses such curative resources as those\nlatent in a spark of happiness or a single ray of hope? The mainspring\nof life is in the heart. Joy is the vital air of the soul, and grief is\na kind of asthma complicated by atony. Our dependence upon surrounding\ncircumstances increases with our own physical weakness, and on the other\nhand, in health there is liberty. Health is the first of all liberties,\nand happiness gives us the energy which is the basis of health. To\nmake any one happy, then, is strictly to augment his store of being, to\ndouble the intensity of his life, to reveal him to himself, to ennoble\nhim and transfigure him. Happiness does away with ugliness, and even\nmakes the beauty of beauty. The man who doubts it, can never have\nwatched the first gleams of tenderness dawning in the clear eyes of\none who loves; sunrise itself is a lesser marvel. In paradise, then,\neverybody will be beautiful. For, as the righteous soul is naturally\nbeautiful, as the spiritual body is but the _visibility_ of the soul,\nits impalpable and angelic form, and as happiness beautifies all that\nit penetrates or even touches, ugliness will have no more place in the\nuniverse, and will disappear with grief, sin, and death.\n\nTo the materialist philosopher the beautiful is a mere accident, and\ntherefore rare. To the spiritualist philosopher the beautiful is the\nrule, the law, the universal foundation of things, to which every form\nreturns as soon as the force of accident is withdrawn. Why are we ugly?\nBecause we are not in the angelic state, because we are evil, morose,\nand unhappy.\n\nHeroism, ecstasy, prayer, love, enthusiasm, weave a halo round the brow,\nfor they are a setting free of the soul, which through them gains force\nto make its envelope transparent and shine through upon all around\nit. Beauty is, then, a phenomenon belonging to the spiritualization of\nmatter. It is a momentary transfiguration of the privileged object or\nbeing--a token fallen from heaven to earth in order to remind us of\nthe ideal world. To study it, is to Platonize almost inevitably. As a\npowerful electric current can render metals luminous, and reveal their\nessence by the color of their flame, so intense life and supreme joy\ncan make the most simple mortal dazzlingly beautiful. Man, therefore, is\nnever more truly man than in these divine states.\n\nThe ideal, after all, is truer than the real: for the ideal is the\neternal element in perishable things: it is their type, their sum, their\n_raison d\u2019\u00eatre_, their formula in the book of the Creator, and therefore\nat once the most exact and the most condensed expression of them.\n\nApril 11, 1865.--I have been measuring and making a trial of the new\ngray plaid which is to take the place of my old mountain shawl. The old\nservant which has been my companion for ten years, and which recalls to\nme so many poetical and delightful memories, pleases me better than its\nbrilliant successor, even though this last has been a present from a\nfriendly hand. But can anything take the place of the past, and have\nnot even the inanimate witnesses of our life voice and language for us?\nGlion, Villars, Albisbrunnen, the Righi, the Chamossaire, and a hundred\nother places, have left something of themselves behind them in the\nmeshes of this woolen stuff which makes a part of my most intimate\nhistory. The shawl, besides, is the only _chivalrous_ article of dress\nwhich is still left to the modern traveler, the only thing about him\nwhich may be useful to others than himself, and by means of which he may\nstill do his _devoir_ to fair women! How many times mine has served them\nfor a cushion, a cloak, a shelter, on the damp grass of the Alps, on\nseats of hard rock, or in the sudden cool of the pinewood, during the\nwalks, the rests, the readings, and the chats of mountain life! How many\nkindly smiles it has won for me! Even its blemishes are dear to me, for\neach darn and tear has its story, each scar is an armorial bearing. This\ntear was made by a hazel tree under Jaman--that by the buckle of a strap\non the Frohnalp--that, again, by a bramble at Charnex; and each time\nfairy needles have repaired the injury.\n\n  \u201cMon vieux manteau, que je vous remercie\n  Car c\u2019est \u00e0 vous que je dois ces plaisirs!\u201d\n\nAnd has it not been to me a friend in suffering, a companion in good and\nevil fortune? It reminds me of that centaur\u2019s tunic which could not be\ntorn off without carrying away the flesh and blood of its wearer. I am\nunwilling to give it up; whatever gratitude for the past, and whatever\npiety toward my vanished youth is in me, seem to forbid it. The warp\nof this rag is woven out of Alpine joys, and its woof out of human\naffections. It also says to me in its own way:\n\n  \u201cPauvre bouquet, fleurs aujourd\u2019hui fan\u00e9es!\u201d\n\nAnd the appeal is one of those which move the heart, although profane\nears neither hear it nor understand it.\n\nWhat a stab there is in those words, _thou hast been_! when the sense\nof them becomes absolutely clear to us. One feels one\u2019s self sinking\ngradually into one\u2019s grave, and the past tense sounds the knell of our\nillusions as to ourselves. What is past is past: gray hairs will never\nbecome black curls again; the forces, the gifts, the attractions of\nyouth, have vanished with our young days.\n\n  \u201cPlus d\u2019amour; partant plus de joie.\u201d\n\nHow hard it is to grow old, when we have missed our life, when we have\nneither the crown of completed manhood nor of fatherhood! How sad it\nis to feel the mind declining before it has done its work, and the body\ngrowing weaker before it has seen itself renewed in those who might\nclose our eyes and honor our name! The tragic solemnity of existence\nstrikes us with terrible force, on that morning when we wake to find\nthe mournful word _too late_ ringing in our ears! \u201cToo late, the sand is\nturned, the hour is past! Thy harvest is unreaped--too late! Thou\nhast been dreaming, forgetting, sleeping--so much the worse! Every\nman rewards or punishes himself. To whom or of whom wouldst thou\ncomplain?\u201d--Alas!\n\nApril 21, 1865. (_Mornex_).--A morning of intoxicating beauty, fresh\nas the feelings of sixteen, and crowned with flowers like a bride. The\npoetry of youth, of innocence, and of love, overflowed my soul. Even\nto the light mist hovering over the bosom of the plain--image of that\ntender modesty which veils the features and shrouds in mystery the\ninmost thoughts of the maiden--everything that I saw delighted my eyes\nand spoke to my imagination. It was a sacred, a nuptial day! and the\nmatin bells ringing in some distant village harmonized marvelously with\nthe hymn of nature. \u201cPray,\u201d they said, \u201cand love! Adore a fatherly and\nbeneficent God.\u201d They recalled to me the accent of Haydn; there was in\nthem and in the landscape a childlike joyousness, a na\u00efve gratitude,\na radiant heavenly joy innocent of pain and sin, like the sacred,\nsimple-hearted ravishment of Eve on the first day of her awakening in\nthe new world. How good a thing is feeling, admiration! It is the bread\nof angels, the eternal food of cherubim and seraphim.\n\nI have not yet felt the air so pure, so life-giving, so ethereal, during\nthe five days that I have been here. To breathe is a beatitude. One\nunderstands the delights of a bird\u2019s existence--that emancipation from\nall encumbering weight--that luminous and empyrean life, floating in\nblue space, and passing from one horizon to another with a stroke of\nthe wing. One must have a great deal of air below one before one can\nbe conscious of such inner freedom as this, such lightness of the whole\nbeing. Every element has its poetry, but the poetry of air is liberty.\nEnough; to your work, dreamer!\n\nMay 30, 1865.--All snakes fascinate their prey, and pure wickedness\nseems to inherit the power of fascination granted to the serpent.\nIt stupefies and bewilders the simple heart, which sees it without\nunderstanding it, which touches it without being able to believe in it,\nand which sinks engulfed in the problem of it, like Empedocles in Etna.\n_Non possum capere te, cape me_, says the Aristotelian motto. Every\ndiminutive of Beelzebub is an abyss, each demoniacal act is a gulf\nof darkness. Natural cruelty, inborn perfidy and falseness, even in\nanimals, cast lurid gleams, as it were, into that fathomless pit of\nSatanic perversity which is a moral reality.\n\nNevertheless behind this thought there rises another which tells me that\nsophistry is at the bottom of human wickedness, that the majority of\nmonsters like to justify themselves in their own eyes, and that the\nfirst attribute of the Evil One is to be the father of lies. Before\ncrime is committed conscience must be corrupted, and every bad man who\nsucceeds in reaching a high point of wickedness begins with this. It\nis all very well to say that hatred is murder; the man who hates is\ndetermined to see nothing in it but an act of moral hygiene. It is to\ndo himself good that he does evil, just as a mad dog bites to get rid of\nhis thirst.\n\nTo injure others while at the same time knowingly injuring one\u2019s self is\na step farther; evil then becomes a frenzy, which, in its turn, sharpens\ninto a cold ferocity.\n\nWhenever a man, under the influence of such a diabolical passion,\nsurrenders himself to these instincts of the wild or venomous beast he\nmust seem to the angels a madman--a lunatic, who kindles his own Gehenna\nthat he may consume the world in it, or as much of it as his devilish\ndesires can lay hold upon. Wickedness is forever beginning a new spiral\nwhich penetrates deeper still into the abysses of abomination, for the\ncircles of hell have this property--that they have no end. It seems as\nthough divine perfection were an infinite of the first degree, but as\nthough diabolical perfection were an infinite of unknown power. But\nno; for if so, evil would be the true God, and hell would swallow up\ncreation. According to the Persian and the Christian faiths, good is\nto conquer evil, and perhaps even Satan himself will be restored\nto grace--which is as much as to say that the divine order will be\neverywhere re-established. Love will be more potent than hatred; God\nwill save his glory, and his glory is in his goodness. But it is very\ntrue that all gratuitous wickedness troubles the soul, because it seems\nto make the great lines of the moral order tremble within us by the\nsudden withdrawal of the curtain which hides from us the action of those\ndark corrosive forces which have ranged themselves in battle against the\ndivine plan.\n\nJune 26, 1865.--One may guess the why and wherefore of a tear and yet\nfind it too subtle to give any account of. A tear may be the poetical\n_resum\u00e9_ of so many simultaneous impressions, the quintessence of so\nmany opposing thoughts! It is like a drop of one of those precious\nelixirs of the East which contain the life of twenty plants fused into a\nsingle aroma. Sometimes it is the mere overflow of the soul, the running\nover of the cup of reverie. All that one cannot or will not say, all\nthat one refuses to confess even to one\u2019s self--confused desires, secret\ntrouble, suppressed grief, smothered conflict, voiceless regret, the\nemotions we have struggled against, the pain we have sought to hide, our\nsuperstitious fears, our vague sufferings, our restless presentiments,\nour unrealized dreams, the wounds inflicted upon our ideal, the\ndissatisfied languor, the vain hopes, the multitude of small\nindiscernible ills which accumulate slowly in a corner of the heart\nlike water dropping noiselessly from the roof of a cavern--all these\nmysterious movements of the inner life end in an instant of emotion, and\nthe emotion concentrates itself in a tear just visible on the edge of\nthe eyelid.\n\nFor the rest, tears express joy as well as sadness. They are the symbol\nof the powerlessness of the soul to restrain its emotion and to remain\nmistress of itself. Speech implies analysis; when we are overcome by\nsensation or by feeling analysis ceases, and with it speech and\nliberty. Our only resource, after silence and stupor, is the language of\naction--pantomime. Any oppressive weight of thought carries us back to\na stage anterior to humanity, to a gesture, a cry, a sob, and at last\nto swooning and collapse; that is to say, incapable of bearing the\nexcessive strain of sensation as men, we fall back successively to the\nstage of mere animate being, and then to that of the vegetable. Dante\nswoons at every turn in his journey through hell, and nothing paints\nbetter the violence of his emotions and the ardor of his piety.\n\n... And intense joy? It also withdraws into itself and is silent. To\nspeak is to disperse and scatter. Words isolate and localize life in a\nsingle point; they touch only the circumference of being; they analyze,\nthey treat one thing at a time. Thus they decentralize emotion, and\nchill it in doing so. The heart would fain brood over its feeling,\ncherishing and protecting it. Its happiness is silent and meditative; it\nlistens to its own beating and feeds religiously upon itself.\n\nAugust 8, 1865. (_Gryon sur Bex_).--Splendid moonlight without a cloud.\nThe night is solemn and majestic. The regiment of giants sleeps while\nthe stars keep sentinel. In the vast shadow of the valley glimmer a few\nscattered roofs, while the torrent, organ-like, swells its eternal note\nin the depths of this mountain cathedral which has the heavens for roof.\n\nA last look at this blue night and boundless landscape. Jupiter is just\nsetting on the counterscarp of the Dent du Midi. Prom the starry vault\ndescends an invisible snow-shower of dreams, calling us to a pure sleep.\nNothing of voluptuous or enervating in this nature. All is strong,\naustere and pure. Good night to all the world!--to the unfortunate\nand to the happy. Rest and refreshment, renewal and hope; a day is\ndead--_vive le lendemain!_ Midnight is striking. Another step made\ntoward the tomb.\n\nAugust 13, 1865.--I have just read through again the letter of J. J.\nRousseau to Archbishop Beaumont with a little less admiration than\nI felt for it--was it ten or twelve years ago? This emphasis, this\nprecision, which never tires of itself, tires the reader in the long\nrun. The intensity of the style produces on one the impression of a\ntreatise on mathematics. One feels the need of relaxation after it in\nsomething easy, natural, and gay. The language of Rousseau demands an\namount of labor which makes one long for recreation and relief.\n\nBut how many writers and how many books descend from our Rousseau! On\nmy way I noticed the points of departure of Ch\u00e2teaubriand, Lamennais,\nProudhon. Proudhon, for instance, modeled the plan of his great work,\n\u201cDe la Justice dang l\u2019Eglise et dans la R\u00e9volution,\u201d upon the letter of\nRousseau to Beaumont; his three volumes are a string of letters to an\narchbishop; eloquence, daring, and elocution are all fused in a kind of\n_persiflage_, which is the foundation of the whole.\n\nHow many men we may find in one man, how many styles in a great writer!\nRousseau, for instance, has created a number of different _genres_.\nImagination transforms him, and he is able to play the most varied\nparts with credit, among them even that of the pure logician. But as the\nimagination is his intellectual axis--his master faculty--he is, as it\nwere, in all his works only half sincere, only half in earnest. We feel\nthat his talent has laid him the wager of Carneades; it will lose no\ncause, however bad, as soon as the point of honor Is engaged. It is\nindeed the temptation of all talent to subordinate things to itself and\nnot itself to things; to conquer for the sake of conquest, and to put\nself-love in the place of conscience. Talent is glad enough, no doubt,\nto triumph in a good cause; but it easily becomes a free lance, content,\nwhatever the cause, so long as victory follows its banner. I do not know\neven whether success in a weak and bad cause is not the most flattering\nfor talent, which then divides the honors of its triumph with nothing\nand no one.\n\nParadox is the delight of clever people and the joy of talent. It is\nso pleasant to pit one\u2019s self against the world, and to overbear mere\ncommonplace good sense and vulgar platitudes! Talent and love of truth\nare then not identical; their tendencies and their paths are different.\nIn order to make talent obey when its instinct is rather to command,\na vigilant moral sense and great energy of character are needed. The\nGreeks--those artists of the spoken or written word--were artificial\nby the time of Ulysses, sophists by the time of Pericles, cunning,\nrhetorical, and versed in all the arts of the courtier down to the end\nof the lower empire. From the talent of the nation sprang its vices.\n\nFor a man to make his mark, like Rousseau by polemics, is to condemn\nhimself to perpetual exaggeration and conflict. Such a man expiates his\ncelebrity by a double bitterness; he is never altogether true, and he\nis never able to recover the free disposal of himself. To pick a quarrel\nwith the world is attractive, but dangerous.\n\nJ. J. Rousseau is an ancestor in all things. It was he who founded\ntraveling on foot before T\u00f6pffer, reverie before \u201cRen\u00e9,\u201d literary botany\nbefore George Sand, the worship of nature before Bernardin de S.\nPierre, the democratic theory before the Revolution of 1789, political\ndiscussion and theological discussion before Mirabeau and Renan, the\nscience of teaching before Pestalozzi, and Alpine description before\nDe Saussure. He made music the fashion, and created the taste for\nconfessions to the public. He formed a new French style--the close,\nchastened, passionate, interwoven style we know so well. Nothing indeed\nof Rousseau has been lost, and nobody has had more influence than he\nupon the French Revolution, for he was the demigod of it, and stands\nbetween Neckar and Napoleon. Nobody, again, has had more than he upon\nthe nineteenth century, for Byron, Ch\u00e2teaubriand, Madame de Sta\u00ebl, and\nGeorge Sand all descend from him.\n\nAnd yet, with these extraordinary talents, he was an extremely unhappy\nman--why? Because he always allowed himself to be mastered by his\nimagination and his sensations; because he had no judgment in deciding,\nno self-control in acting. Regret indeed on this score would be hardly\nreasonable, for a calm, judicious, orderly Rousseau would never have\nmade so great an impression. He came into collision with his time: hence\nhis eloquence and his misfortunes. His na\u00efve confidence in life and\nhimself ended in jealous misanthropy and hypochondria.\n\nWhat a contrast to Goethe or Voltaire, and how differently they\nunderstood the practical wisdom of life and the management of literary\ngifts! They were the able men--Rousseau is a visionary. They knew\nmankind as it is--he always represented it to himself either whiter or\nblacker than it is; and having begun by taking life the wrong way, he\nended in madness. In the talent of Rousseau there is always something\nunwholesome, uncertain, stormy, and sophistical, which destroys the\nconfidence of the reader; and the reason is no doubt that we feel\npassion to have been the governing force in him as a writer: passion\nstirred his imagination, and ruled supreme over his reason.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOur systems, perhaps, are nothing more than an unconscious apology for\nour faults--a gigantic scaffolding whose object is to hide from us our\nfavorite sin.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe unfinished is nothing.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGreat men are the true men, the men in whom nature has succeeded. They\nare not extraordinary--they are in the true order. It is the other\nspecies of men who are not what they ought to be.\n\nJanuary 7, 1866.--Our life is but a soap-bubble hanging from a reed; it\nis formed, expands to its full size, clothes itself with the loveliest\ncolors of the prism, and even escapes at moments from the law of\ngravitation; but soon the black speck appears in it, and the globe of\nemerald and gold vanishes into space, leaving behind it nothing but a\nsimple drop of turbid water. All the poets have made this comparison,\nit is so striking and so true. To appear, to shine, to disappear; to\nbe born, to suffer, and to die; is it not the whole sum of life, for a\nbutterfly, for a nation, for a star?\n\nTime is but the measure of the difficulty of a conception. Pure thought\nhas scarcely any need of time, since it perceives the two ends of an\nidea almost at the same moment. The thought of a planet can only be\nworked out by nature with labor and effort, but supreme intelligence\nsums up the whole in an instant. Time is then the successive dispersion\nof being, just as speech is the successive analysis of an intuition or\nof an act of will. In itself it is relative and negative, and disappears\nwithin the absolute being. God is outside time because he thinks all\nthought at once; Nature is within time, because she is only speech--the\ndiscursive unfolding of each thought contained within the infinite\nthought. But nature exhausts herself in this impossible task, for the\nanalysis of the infinite is a contradiction. With limitless duration,\nboundless space, and number without end, Nature does at least what she\ncan to translate into visible form the wealth of the creative formula.\nBy the vastness of the abysses into which she penetrates, in the\neffort--the unsuccessful effort--to house and contain the eternal\nthought, we may measure the greatness of the divine mind. For as soon as\nthis mind goes out of itself and seeks to explain itself, the effort at\nutterance heaps universe upon universe, during myriads of centuries, and\nstill it is not expressed, and the great harangue must go on for ever\nand ever.\n\nThe East prefers immobility as the form of the Infinite: the West,\nmovement. It is because the West is infected by the passion for details,\nand sets proud store by individual worth. Like a child upon whom a\nhundred thousand francs have been bestowed, he thinks she is multiplying\nher fortune by counting it out in pieces of twenty sous, or five\ncentimes. Her passion for progress is in great part the product of an\ninfatuation, which consists in forgetting the goal to be aimed at, and\nabsorbing herself in the pride and delight of each tiny step, one after\nthe other. Child that she is, she is even capable of confounding change\nwith improvement--beginning over again, with growth in perfectness.\n\nAt the bottom of the modern man there is always a great thirst for\nself-forgetfulness, self-distraction; he has a secret horror of all\nwhich makes him feel his own littleness; the eternal, the infinite,\nperfection, therefore scare and terrify him. He wishes to approve\nhimself, to admire and congratulate himself; and therefore he turns away\nfrom all those problems and abysses which might recall to him his own\nnothingness. This is what makes the real pettiness of so many of\nour great minds, and accounts for the lack of personal dignity among\nus--civilized parrots that we are--as compared with the Arab of the\ndesert; or explains the growing frivolity of our masses, more and more\neducated, no doubt, but also more and more superficial in all their\nconceptions of happiness.\n\nHere, then, is the service which Christianity--the oriental element in\nour culture--renders to us Westerns. It checks and counterbalances our\nnatural tendency toward the passing, the finite, and the changeable,\nby fixing the mind upon the contemplation of eternal things, and by\nPlatonizing our affections, which otherwise would have too little\noutlook upon the ideal world. Christianity leads us back from dispersion\nto concentration, from worldliness to self-recollection. It restores to\nour souls, fevered with a thousand sordid desires, nobleness, gravity,\nand calm. Just as sleep is a bath of refreshing for our actual life, so\nreligion is a bath of refreshing for our immortal being. What is sacred\nhas a purifying virtue; religious emotion crowns the brow with an\naureole, and thrills the heart with an ineffable joy.\n\nI think that the adversaries of religion as such deceive themselves as\nto the needs of the western man, and that the modern world will lose its\nbalance as soon as it has passed over altogether to the crude doctrine\nof progress. We have always need of the infinite, the eternal, the\nabsolute; and since science contents itself with what is relative,\nit necessarily leaves a void, which it is good for man to fill with\ncontemplation, worship, and adoration. \u201cReligion,\u201d said Bacon, \u201cis\nthe spice which is meant to keep life from corruption,\u201d and this is\nespecially true to-day of religion taken in the Platonist and oriental\nsense. A capacity for self-recollection--for withdrawal from the\noutward to the inward--is in fact the condition of all noble and useful\nactivity.\n\nThis return, indeed, to what is serious, divine, and sacred, is becoming\nmore and more difficult, because of the growth of critical anxiety\nwithin the church itself, the increasing worldliness of religious\npreaching, and the universal agitation and disquiet of society. But such\na return is more and more necessary. Without it there is no inner life,\nand the inner life is the only means whereby we may oppose a profitable\nresistance to circumstance. If the sailor did not carry with him his\nown temperature he could not go from the pole to the equator, and remain\nhimself in spite of all. The man who has no refuge in himself, who\nlives, so to speak, in his front rooms, in the outer whirlwind of things\nand opinions, is not properly a personality at all; he is not distinct,\nfree, original, a cause--in a word, _some one_. He is one of a crowd, a\ntaxpayer, an elector, an anonymity, but not a man. He helps to make up\nthe mass--to fill up the number of human consumers or producers; but he\ninterests nobody but the economist and the statistician, who take the\nheap of sand as a whole into consideration, without troubling themselves\nabout the uninteresting uniformity of the individual grains. The crowd\ncounts only as a massive elementary force--why? because its constituent\nparts are individually insignificant: they are all like each other, and\nwe add them up like the molecules of water in a river, gauging them by\nthe fathom instead of appreciating them as individuals. Such men are\nreckoned and weighed merely as so many bodies: they have never been\nindividualized by conscience, after the manner of souls.\n\nHe who floats with the current, who does not guide himself according\nto higher principles, who has no ideal, no convictions--such a man is\na mere article of the world\u2019s furniture--a thing moved, instead of a\nliving and moving being--an echo, not a voice. The man who has no inner\nlife is the slave of his surroundings, as the barometer is the obedient\nservant of the air at rest, and the weathercock the humble servant of\nthe air in motion.\n\nJanuary 21, 1866.--This evening after supper I did not know whither\nto betake my solitary self. I was hungry for conversation, society,\nexchange of ideas. It occurred to me to go and see our friends,\nthe----s; they were at supper. Afterward we went into the _salon_:\nmother and daughter sat down to the piano and sang a duet by Bo\u00efeldieu.\nThe ivory keys of the old grand piano, which the mother had played on\nbefore her marriage, and which has followed and translated into music\nthe varying fortunes of the family, were a little loose and jingling;\nbut the poetry of the past sang in this faithful old servant, which\nhad been a friend in trouble, a companion in vigils, and the echo of a\nlifetime of duty, affection, piety and virtue. I was more moved than I\ncan say. It was like a scene of Dickens, and I felt a rush of sympathy,\nuntouched either by egotism or by melancholy.\n\nTwenty-five years! It seems to me a dream as far as I am concerned, and\nI can scarcely believe my eyes, or this inanimate witness to so many\nlustres passed away. How strange a thing _to have lived_, and to feel\nmyself so far from a past which yet is so present to me! One does not\nknow whether one is sleeping or waking. Time is but the space between\nour memories; as soon as we cease to perceive this space, time has\ndisappeared. The whole life of an old man may appear to him no longer\nthan an hour, or less still; and as soon as time is but a moment to us,\nwe have entered upon eternity. Life is but the dream of a shadow; I felt\nit anew this evening with strange intensity.\n\nJanuary 29, 1866. (_Nine o\u2019clock in the morning_).--The gray curtain of\nmist has spread itself again over the town; everything is dark and\ndull. The bells are ringing in the distance for some festival; with this\nexception everything is calm and silent. Except for the crackling of the\nfire, no noise disturbs my solitude in this modest home, the shelter of\nmy thoughts and of my work, where the man of middle age carries on the\nlife of his student-youth without the zest of youth, and the sedentary\nprofessor repeats day by day the habits which he formed as a traveler.\n\nWhat is it which makes the charm of this existence outwardly so barren\nand empty? Liberty! What does the absence of comfort and of all\nelse that is wanting to these rooms matter to me? These things are\nindifferent to me. I find under this roof light, quiet, shelter. I am\nnear to a sister and her children, whom I love; my material life is\nassured--that ought to be enough for a bachelor.... Am I not, besides,\na creature of habit? more attached to the _ennuis_ I know, than in love\nwith pleasures unknown to me. I am, then, free and not unhappy. Then I\nam well off here, and I should be ungrateful to complain. Nor do I. It\nis only the heart which sighs and seeks for something more and better.\nThe heart is an insatiable glutton, as we all know--and for the rest,\nwho is without yearnings? It is our destiny here below. Only some go\nthrough torments and troubles in order to satisfy themselves, and all\nwithout success; others foresee the inevitable result, and by a timely\nresignation save themselves a barren and fruitless effort. Since we\ncannot be happy, why give ourselves so much trouble? It is best to limit\none\u2019s self to what is strictly necessary, to live austerely and by rule,\nto content one\u2019s self with a little, and to attach no value to anything\nbut peace of conscience and a sense of duty done.\n\nIt is true that this itself is no small ambition, and that it only lands\nus in another impossibility. No--the simplest course is to submit\none\u2019s self wholly and altogether to God. Everything else, as saith the\npreacher, is but vanity and vexation of spirit.\n\nIt is a long while now since this has been plain to me, and since this\nreligious renunciation has been sweet and familiar to me. It is the\noutward distractions of life, the examples of the world, and the\nirresistible influence exerted upon us by the current of things which\nmake us forget the wisdom we have acquired and the principles we have\nadopted. That is why life is such weariness! This eternal beginning over\nagain is tedious, even to repulsion. It would be so good to go to sleep\nwhen we have gathered the fruit of experience, when we are no longer\nin opposition to the supreme will, when we have broken loose from self,\nwhen we are at peace with all men. Instead of this, the old round of\ntemptations, disputes, _ennuis_, and forgettings, has to be faced again\nand again, and we fall back into prose, into commonness, into vulgarity.\nHow melancholy, how humiliating! The poets are wise in withdrawing their\nheroes more quickly from the strife, and in not dragging them after\nvictory along the common rut of barren days. \u201cWhom the gods love die\nyoung,\u201d said the proverb of antiquity.\n\nYes, but it is our secret self-love which is set upon this favor from on\nhigh; such may be our desire, but such is not the will of God. We are\nto be exercised, humbled, tried, and tormented to the end. It is our\npatience which is the touchstone of our virtue. To bear with life even\nwhen illusion and hope are gone; to accept this position of perpetual\nwar, while at the same time loving only peace; to stay patiently in the\nworld, even when it repels us as a place of low company, and seems to\nus a mere arena of bad passions; to remain faithful to one\u2019s own faith\nwithout breaking with the followers of the false gods; to make no\nattempt to escape from the human hospital, long-suffering and patient as\nJob upon his dung hill--this is duty. When life ceases to be a promise\nit does not cease to be a task; its true name even is trial.\n\nApril 2, 1866. (_Mornex_).--The snow is melting and a damp fog is spread\nover everything. The asphalt gallery which runs along the _salon_ is\na sheet of quivering water starred incessantly by the hurrying drops\nfalling from the sky. It seems as if one could touch the horizon with\none\u2019s hand, and the miles of country which were yesterday visible are\nall hidden under a thick gray curtain.\n\nThis imprisonment transports me to Shetland, to Spitzbergen, to Norway,\nto the Ossianic countries of mist, where man, thrown back upon himself,\nfeels his heart beat more quickly and his thought expand more freely--so\nlong, at least, as he is not frozen and congealed by cold. Fog has\ncertainly a poetry of its own--a grace, a dreamy charm. It does for\nthe daylight what a lamp does for us at night; it turns the mind toward\nmeditation; it throws the soul back on itself. The sun, as it were,\nsheds us abroad in nature, scatters and disperses us; mist draws us\ntogether and concentrates us--it is cordial, homely, charged with\nfeeling. The poetry of the sun has something of the epic in it; that of\nfog and mist is elegaic and religious. Pantheism is the child of light;\nmist engenders faith in near protectors. When the great world is shut\noff from us, the house becomes itself a small universe. Shrouded in\nperpetual mist, men love each other better; for the only reality then is\nthe family, and, within the family, the heart; and the greatest thoughts\ncome from the heart--so says the moralist.\n\nApril 6, 1866.--The novel by Miss Mulock, \u201cJohn Halifax, Gentleman,\u201d\n is a bolder book than it seems, for it attacks in the English way the\nsocial problem of equality. And the solution reached is that every one\nmay become a gentleman, even though he may be born in the gutter. In\nits way the story protests against conventional superiorities, and shows\nthat true nobility consists in character, in personal merit, in moral\ndistinction, in elevation of feeling and of language, in dignity of\nlife, and in self-respect. This is better than Jacobinism, and the\nopposite of the mere brutal passion for equality. Instead of dragging\neverybody down, the author simply proclaims the right of every one to\nrise. A man may be born rich and noble--he is not born a gentleman. This\nword is the Shibboleth of England; it divides her into two halves, and\ncivilized society into two castes. Among gentlemen--courtesy, equality,\nand politeness; toward those below--contempt, disdain, coldness and\nindifference. It is the old separation between the _ingenui_ and all\nothers; between the [Greek: eleutheroi] and the [Greek: banauphoi],\nthe continuation of the feudal division between the gentry and the\n_roturiers_.\n\nWhat, then, is a gentleman? Apparently he is the free man, the man who\nis stronger than things, and believes in personality as superior to\nall the accessory attributes of fortune, such as rank and power, and as\nconstituting what is essential, real, and intrinsically valuable in\nthe individual. Tell me what you are, and I will tell you what you are\nworth. \u201cGod and my Right;\u201d there is the only motto he believes in.\nSuch an ideal is happily opposed to that vulgar ideal which is equally\nEnglish, the ideal of wealth, with its formula, \u201c_How much_ is he\nworth?\u201d In a country where poverty is a crime, it is good to be able to\nsay that a nabob need not as such be a gentleman. The mercantile ideal\nand the chivalrous ideal counterbalance each other; and if the one\nproduces the ugliness of English society and its brutal side, the other\nserves as a compensation.\n\nThe gentleman, then, is the man who is master of himself, who respects\nhimself, and makes others respect him. The essence of gentlemanliness\nis self-rule, the sovereignty of the soul. It means a character which\npossesses itself, a force which governs itself, a liberty which affirms\nand regulates itself, according to the type of true dignity. Such an\nideal is closely akin to the Roman type of _dignitas cum auctoritate_.\nIt is more moral than intellectual, and is particularly suited\nto England, which is pre-eminently the country of will. But from\nself-respect a thousand other things are derived--such as the care of\na man\u2019s person, of his language, of his manners; watchfulness over his\nbody and over his soul; dominion over his instincts and his passions;\nthe effort to be self-sufficient; the pride which will accept no favor;\ncarefulness not to expose himself to any humiliation or mortification,\nand to maintain himself independent of any human caprice; the constant\nprotection of his honor and of his self-respect. Such a condition of\nsovereignty, insomuch as it is only easy to the man who is well-born,\nwell-bred, and rich, was naturally long identified with birth, rank,\nand above all with property. The idea \u201cgentleman\u201d is, then, derived from\nfeudality; it is, as it were, a milder version of the seigneur.\n\nIn order to lay himself open to no reproach, a gentleman will keep\nhimself irreproachable; in order to be treated with consideration,\nhe will always be careful himself to observe distances, to apportion\nrespect, and to observe all the gradations of conventional politeness,\naccording to rank, age, and situation. Hence it follows that he will\nbe imperturbably cautious in the presence of a stranger, whose name and\nworth are unknown to him, and to whom he might perhaps show too much or\ntoo little courtesy. He ignores and avoids him; if he is approached, he\nturns away, if he is addressed, he answers shortly and with _hauteur_.\nHis politeness is not human and general, but individual and relative to\npersons. This is why every Englishman contains two different men--one\nturned toward the world, and another. The first, the outer man, is\na citadel, a cold and angular wall; the other, the inner man, is a\nsensible, affectionate, cordial, and loving creature. Such a type is\nonly formed in a moral climate full of icicles, where, in the face of an\nindifferent world, the hearth alone is hospitable.\n\nSo that an analysis of the national type of gentlemen reveals to us the\nnature and the history of the nation, as the fruit reveals the tree.\n\nApril 7, 1866.--If philosophy is the art of understanding, it is evident\nthat it must begin by saturating itself with facts and realities,\nand that premature abstraction kills it, just as the abuse of fasting\ndestroys the body at the age of growth. Besides, we only understand\nthat which is already within us. To understand is to possess the thing\nunderstood, first by sympathy and then by intelligence. Instead, then,\nof first dismembering and dissecting the object to be conceived,\nwe should begin by laying hold of it in its _ensemble_, then in its\nformation, last of all in its parts. The procedure is the same, whether\nwe study a watch or a plant, a work of art or a character. We must\nstudy, respect, and question what we want to know, instead of massacring\nit. We must assimilate ourselves to things and surrender ourselves to\nthem; we must open our minds with docility to their influence, and steep\nourselves in their spirit and their distinctive form, before we offer\nviolence to them by dissecting them.\n\nApril 14, 1866.--Panic, confusion, _sauve qui peut_ on the Bourse at\nParis. In our epoch of individualism, and of \u201ceach man for himself\nand God for all,\u201d the movements of the public funds are all that\nnow represent to us the beat of the common heart. The solidarity of\ninterests which they imply counterbalances the separateness of modern\naffections, and the obligatory sympathy they impose upon us recalls to\none a little the patriotism which bore the forced taxes of old days. We\nfeel ourselves bound up with and compromised in all the world\u2019s affairs,\nand we must interest ourselves whether we will or no in the terrible\nmachine whose wheels may crush us at any moment. Credit produces\na restless society, trembling perpetually for the security of its\nartificial basis. Sometimes society may forget for awhile that it is\ndancing upon a volcano, but the least rumor of war recalls the fact to\nit inexorably. Card-houses are easily ruined.\n\nAll this anxiety is intolerable to those humble little investors who,\nhaving no wish to be rich, ask only to be able to go about their work\nin peace. But no; tyrant that it is, the world cries to us, \u201cPeace,\npeace--there is no peace: whether you will or no you shall suffer and\ntremble with me!\u201d To accept humanity, as one does nature, and to resign\none\u2019s self to the will of an individual, as one does to destiny, is not\neasy. We bow to the government of God, but we turn against the despot.\nNo man likes to share in the shipwreck of a vessel in which he has been\nembarked by violence, and which has been steered contrary to his wish\nand his opinion. And yet such is perpetually the case in life. We all of\nus pay for the faults of the few.\n\nHuman solidarity is a fact more evident and more certain than personal\nresponsibility, and even than individual liberty. Our dependence has it\nover our independence; for we are only independent in will and desire,\nwhile we are dependent upon our health, upon nature and society; in\nshort, upon everything in us and without us. Our liberty is confined to\none single point. We may protest against all these oppressive and fatal\npowers; we may say, Crush me--you will never win my consent! We may, by\nan exercise of will, throw ourselves into opposition to necessity, and\nrefuse it homage and obedience. In that consists our moral liberty. But\nexcept for that, we belong, body and goods, to the world. We are its\nplaythings, as the dust is the plaything of the wind, or the dead leaf\nof the floods. God at least respects our dignity, but the world rolls us\ncontemptuously along in its merciless waves, in order to make it plain\nthat we are its thing and its chattel.\n\nAll theories of the nullity of the individual, all pantheistic and\nmaterialist conceptions, are now but so much forcing of an open door,\nso much slaying of the slain. As soon as we cease to glorify this\nimperceptible point of conscience, and to uphold the value of it, the\nindividual becomes naturally a mere atom in the human mass, which is but\nan atom in the planetary mass, which is a mere nothing in the universe.\nThe individual is then but a nothing of the third power, with a capacity\nfor measuring its nothingness! Thought leads to resignation. Self-doubt\nleads to passivity, and passivity to servitude. From this a voluntary\nsubmission is the only escape, that is to say, a state of dependence\nreligiously accepted, a vindication of ourselves as free beings, bowed\nbefore duty only. Duty thus becomes our principle of action, our source\nof energy, the guarantee of our partial independence of the world,\nthe condition of our dignity, the sign of our nobility. The world can\nneither make me will nor make me will my duty; here I am my own and only\nmaster, and treat with it as sovereign with sovereign. It holds my body\nin its clutches; but my soul escapes and braves it. My thought and my\nlove, my faith and my hope, are beyond its reach. My true being, the\nessence of my nature, myself, remain inviolate and inaccessible to the\nworld\u2019s attacks. In this respect we are greater than the universe, which\nhas mass and not will; we become once more independent even in relation\nto the human mass, which also can destroy nothing more than our\nhappiness, just as the mass of the universe can destroy nothing more\nthan our body. Submission, then, is not defeat; on the contrary, it is\nstrength.\n\nApril 28, 1866.--I have just read the _proc\u00e8s-verbal_ of the Conference\nof Pastors held on the 15th and 16th of April at Paris. The question\nof the supernatural has split the church of France in two. The liberals\ninsist upon individual right; the orthodox upon the notion of a church.\nAnd it is true indeed that a church is an affirmation, that it subsists\nby the positive element in it, by definite belief; the pure critical\nelement dissolves it. Protestantism is a combination of two factors--the\nauthority of the Scriptures and free inquiry; as soon as one of these\nfactors is threatened or disappears, Protestantism disappears; a new\nform of Christianity succeeds it, as, for example, the church of the\nBrothers of the Holy Ghost, or that of Christian Theism. As far as I am\nconcerned, I see nothing objectionable in such a result, but I think the\nfriends of the Protestant church are logical in their refusal to abandon\nthe apostle\u2019s creed, and the individualists are illogical in imagining\nthat they can keep Protestantism and do away with authority.\n\nIt is a question of method which separates the two camps. I am\nfundamentally separated from both. As I understand it, Christianity\nis above all religions, and religion is not a method, it is a life, a\nhigher and supernatural life, mystical in its root and practical in its\nfruits, a communion with God, a calm and deep enthusiasm, a love which\nradiates, a force which acts, a happiness which overflows. Religion, in\nshort, is a state of the soul. These quarrels as to method have their\nvalue, but it is a secondary value; they will never console a heart\nor edify a conscience. This is why I feel so little interest in these\necclesiastical struggles. Whether the one party or the other gain the\nmajority and the victory, what is essential is in no way profited, for\ndogma, criticism, the church, are not religion; and it is religion, the\nsense of a divine life, which matters. \u201cSeek ye first the kingdom of God\nand his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.\u201d\n The most holy is the most Christian; this will always be the criterion\nwhich is least deceptive. \u201cBy this ye shall know my disciples, if they\nhave love one to another.\u201d\n\nAs is the worth of the individual, so is the worth of his religion.\nPopular instinct and philosophic reason are at one on this point. Be\ngood and pious, patient and heroic, faithful and devoted, humble and\ncharitable; the catechism which has taught you these things is beyond\nthe reach of blame. By religion we live in God; but all these quarrels\nlead to nothing but life with men or with cassocks. There is therefore\nno equivalence between the two points of view.\n\nPerfection as an end--a noble example for sustenance on the way--the\ndivine proved by its own excellence, is not this the whole of\nChristianity? God manifest in all men, is not this its true goal and\nconsummation?\n\nSeptember 20, 1866.--My old friends are, I am afraid, disappointed\nin me; they think that I do nothing, that I have deceived their\nexpectations and their hopes. I, too, am disappointed. All that would\nrestore my self-respect and give me a right to be proud of myself, seems\nto me unattainable and impossible, and I fall back upon trivialities,\ngay talk, distractions. I am always equally lacking in hope, in faith,\nin resolution. The only difference is that my weakness takes sometimes\nthe form of despairing melancholy and sometimes that of a cheerful\nquietism. And yet I read, I talk, I teach, I write, but to no effect;\nit is as though I were walking in my sleep. The Buddhist tendency in\nme blunts the faculty of free self-government and weakens the power of\naction; self-distrust kills all desire, and reduces me again and again\nto a fundamental skepticism. I care for nothing but the serious and the\nreal, and I can take neither myself nor my circumstances seriously.\nI hold my own personality, my own aptitudes, my own aspirations, too\ncheap. I am forever making light of myself in the name of all that\nis beautiful and admirable. In a word, I bear within me a perpetual\nself-detractor, and this is what takes all spring out of my life. I have\nbeen passing the evening with Charles Heim, who, in his sincerity, has\nnever paid me any literary compliment. As I love and respect him, he is\nforgiven. Self-love has nothing to do with it--and yet it would be sweet\nto be praised by so upright a friend! It is depressing to feel one\u2019s\nself silently disapproved of; I will try to satisfy him, and to think of\na book which may please both him and Scherer.\n\nOctober 6, 1866.--I have just picked up on the stairs a little yellowish\ncat, ugly and pitiable. Now, curled up in a chair at my side, he seems\nperfectly happy, and as if he wanted nothing more. Far from being wild,\nnothing will induce him to leave me, and he has followed me from room\nto room all day. I have nothing at all that is eatable in the house, but\nwhat I have I give him--that is to say, a look and a caress--and that\nseems to be enough for him, at least for the moment. Small animals,\nsmall children, young lives--they are all the same as far as the need of\nprotection and of gentleness is concerned.... People have sometimes said\nto me that weak and feeble creatures are happy with me. Perhaps such a\nfact has to do with some special gift or beneficent force which flows\nfrom one when one is in the sympathetic state. I have often a direct\nperception of such a force; but I am no ways proud of it, nor do I look\nupon it as anything belonging to me, but simply as a natural gift. It\nseems to me sometimes as though I could woo the birds to build in my\nbeard as they do in the headgear of some cathedral saint! After all,\nthis is the natural state and the true relation of man toward all\ninferior creatures. If man was what he ought to be he would be adored\nby the animals, of whom he is too often the capricious and sanguinary\ntyrant. The legend of Saint Francis of Assisi is not so legendary as we\nthink; and it is not so certain that it was the wild beasts who attacked\nman first.... But to exaggerate nothing, let us leave on one side\nthe beasts of prey, the carnivora, and those that live by rapine and\nslaughter. How many other species are there, by thousands and tens of\nthousands, who ask peace from us and with whom we persist in waging a\nbrutal war? Our race is by far the most destructive, the most hurtful,\nand the most formidable, of all the species of the planet. It has even\ninvented for its own use the right of the strongest--a divine right\nwhich quiets its conscience in the face of the conquered and the\noppressed; we have outlawed all that lives except ourselves. Revolting\nand manifest abuse; notorious and contemptible breach of the law of\njustice! The bad faith and hypocrisy of it are renewed on a small scale\nby all successful usurpers. We are always making God our accomplice,\nthat so we may legalize our own iniquities. Every successful massacre\nis consecrated by a Te Deum, and the clergy have never been wanting\nin benedictions for any victorious enormity. So that what, in the\nbeginning, was the relation of man to the animal becomes that of people\nto people and man to man.\n\nIf so, we have before us an expiation too seldom noticed but altogether\njust. All crime must be expiated, and slavery is the repetition among\nmen of the sufferings brutally imposed by man upon other living beings;\nit is the theory bearing its fruits. The right of man over the animal\nseems to me to cease with the need of defense and of subsistence. So\nthat all unnecessary murder and torture are cowardice and even crime.\nThe animal renders a service of utility; man in return owes it a need of\nprotection and of kindness. In a word, the animal has claims on man, and\nthe man has duties to the animal. Buddhism, no doubt, exaggerates this\ntruth, but the Westerns leave it out of count altogether. A day will\ncome, however, when our standard will be higher, our humanity more\nexacting, than it is to-day. _Homo homini lupus_, said Hobbes: the time\nwill come when man will be humane even for the wolf--_homo lupo homo_.\n\nDecember 30, 1866.--Skepticism pure and simple as the only safeguard of\nintellectual independence--such is the point of view of almost all our\nyoung men of talent. Absolute freedom from credulity seems to them\nthe glory of man. My impression has always been that this excessive\ndetachment of the individual from all received prejudices and opinions\nin reality does the work of tyranny. This evening, in listening to\nthe conversation of some of our most cultivated men, I thought of the\nRenaissance, of the Ptolemies, of the reign of Louis XV., of all those\ntimes in which the exultant anarchy of the intellect has had despotic\ngovernment for its correlative, and, on the other hand, of England, of\nHolland, of the United States, countries in which political liberty is\nbought at the price of necessary prejudices and _\u00e0 priori_ opinions.\n\nThat society may hold together at all, we must have a principle of\ncohesion--that is to say, a common belief, principles recognized and\nundisputed, a series of practical axioms and institutions which are not\nat the mercy of every caprice of public opinion. By treating everything\nas if it were an open question, we endanger everything.\n\nDoubt is the accomplice of tyranny. \u201cIf a people will not believe it\nmust obey,\u201d said Tocqueville. All liberty implies dependence, and has\nits conditions; this is what negative and quarrelsome minds are apt to\nforget. They think they can do away with religion; they do not know that\nreligion is indestructible, and that the question is simply, Which will\nyou have? Voltaire plays the game of Loyola, and _vice vers\u00e2_. Between\nthese two there is no peace, nor can there be any for the society which\nhas once thrown itself into the dilemma. The only solution lies in a\nfree religion, a religion of free choice and free adhesion.\n\nDecember 23, 1866.--It is raining over the whole sky--as far at least as\nI can see from my high point of observation. All is gray from the Sal\u00e8ve\nto the Jura, and from the pavement to the clouds; everything that one\nsees or touches is gray; color, life, and gayety are dead--each living\nthing seems to lie hidden in its own particular shell. What are the\nbirds doing in such weather as this? We who have food and shelter, fire\non the hearth, books around us, portfolios of engravings close at hand,\na nestful of dreams in the heart, and a whirlwind of thoughts ready to\nrise from the ink-bottle--we find nature ugly and _triste_, and turn\naway our eyes from it; but you, poor sparrows, what can you be doing?\nBearing and hoping and waiting? After all, is not this the task of each\none of us?\n\nI have just been reading over a volume of this Journal, and feel a\nlittle ashamed of the languid complaining tone of so much of it. These\npages reproduce me very imperfectly, and there are many things in me\nof which I find no trace in them. I suppose it is because, in the first\nplace, sadness takes up the pen more readily than joy; and in the next,\nbecause I depend so much upon surrounding circumstances. When there is\nno call upon me, and nothing to put me to the test, I fall back into\nmelancholy; and so the practical man, the cheerful man, the literary\nman, does not appear in these pages. The portrait is lacking in\nproportion and breadth; it is one-sided, and wants a center; it has, as\nit were, been painted from too near.\n\nThe true reason why we know ourselves so little lies in the difficulty\nwe find in standing at a proper distance from ourselves, in taking up\nthe right point of view, so that the details may help rather than hide\nthe general effect. We must learn to look at ourselves socially and\nhistorically if we wish to have an exact idea of our relative worth, and\nto look at our life as a whole, or at least as one complete period of\nlife, if we wish to know what we are and what we are not. The ant which\ncrawls to and fro over a face, the fly perched upon the forehead of a\nmaiden, touch them indeed, but do not see them, for they never embrace\nthe whole at a glance.\n\nIs it wonderful that misunderstandings should play so great a part\nin the world, when one sees how difficult it is to produce a faithful\nportrait of a person whom one has been studying for more than twenty\nyears? Still, the effort has not been altogether lost; its reward has\nbeen the sharpening of one\u2019s perceptions of the outer world. If I have\nany special power of appreciating different shades of mind, I owe it no\ndoubt to the analysis I have so perpetually and unsuccessfully practiced\non myself. In fact, I have always regarded myself as matter for study,\nand what has interested me most in myself has been the pleasure of\nhaving under my hand a man, a person, in whom, as an authentic specimen\nof human nature, I could follow, without importunity or indiscretion,\nall the metamorphoses, the secret thoughts, the heart-beats, and\nthe temptations of humanity. My attention has been drawn to myself\nimpersonally and philosophically. One uses what one has, and one must\nshape one\u2019s arrow out of one\u2019s own wood.\n\nTo arrive at a faithful portrait, succession must be converted into\nsimultaneousness, plurality into unity, and all the changing phenomena\nmust be traced back to their essence. There are ten men in me, according\nto time, place, surrounding, and occasion; and in their restless\ndiversity I am forever escaping myself. Therefore, whatever I may reveal\nof my past, of my Journal, or of myself, is of no use to him who is\nwithout the poetic intuition, and cannot recompose me as a whole, with\nor in spite of the elements which I confide to him.\n\nI feel myself a chameleon, a kaleidoscope, a Proteus; changeable in\nevery way, open to every kind of polarization; fluid, virtual, and\ntherefore latent--latent even in manifestation, and absent even in\npresentation. I am a spectator, so to speak, of the molecular whirlwind\nwhich men call individual life; I am conscious of an incessant\nmetamorphosis, an irresistible movement of existence, which is going on\nwithin me. I am sensible of the flight, the revival, the modification,\nof all the atoms of my being, all the particles of my river, all the\nradiations of my special force.\n\nThis phenomenology of myself serves both as the magic lantern of my own\ndestiny, and as a window opened upon the mystery of the world. I am,\nor rather, my sensible consciousness is concentrated upon this ideal\nstanding-point, this invisible threshold, as it were, whence one hears\nthe impetuous passage of time, rushing and foaming as it flows out into\nthe changeless ocean of eternity. After all the bewildering distractions\nof life, after having drowned myself in a multiplicity of trifles and in\nthe caprices of this fugitive existence, yet without ever attaining to\nself-intoxication or self-delusion, I come again upon the fathomless\nabyss, the silent and melancholy cavern where dwell \u201c_Die M\u00fctter_,\u201d\n [Footnote: \u201c_Die M\u00fctter_\u201d--an allusion to a strange and enigmatical,\nbut very effective conception in \u201cFaust\u201d (Part II. Act I. Scene v.) _Die\nM\u00fctter_ are the prototypes, the abstract forms, the generative ideas,\nof things. \u201cSie sehn dich nicht, denn Schemen sehn sie nur.\u201d Goethe\nborrowed the term from a passage of Plutarch\u2019s, but he has made the idea\nhalf Platonic, half legendary. Amiel, however, seems rather to have in\nhis mind Faust\u2019s speech in Scene vii. than the speech of Mephistopheles\nin Scene v:\n\n  \u201cIn eurem Namen, M\u00fctter, die ihr thront\n  Im Gr\u00e4nzenlosen, ewig einsam wohnt,\n  Und doch gesellig! Euer haupt umschweben\n  Des Lebens Bilder, regsam, ohne Leben.\u201d]\n\nwhere sleeps that which neither lives nor dies, that which has neither\nmovement, nor change, nor extension, nor form, and which lasts when all\nelse passes away.\n\n  \u201cDans l\u2019\u00e9ternel azur de l\u2019insondable espace\n  S\u2019enveloppe de paix notre globe agit\u00e9e:\n  Homme, enveloppe ainsi tes jours, r\u00eave qui passe,\n  Du calme firmament de ton \u00e9ternit\u00e9.\u201d\n\n(H. P. AMIEL, _Penseroso_.)\n\nGeneva, January 11, 1867.\n\n  \u201cEheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntar anni....\u201d\n\nI hear the drops of my life falling distinctly one by one into the\ndevouring abyss of eternity. I feel my days flying before the pursuit of\ndeath. All that remains to me of weeks, or months, or years, in which\nI may drink in the light of the sun, seems to me no more than a single\nnight, a summer night, which scarcely counts, because it will so soon be\nat an end.\n\nDeath! Silence! Eternity! What mysteries, what names of terror to the\nbeing who longs for happiness, immortality, perfection! Where shall I be\nto-morrow--in a little while--when the breath of life has forsaken me?\nWhere will those be whom I love? Whither are we all going? The eternal\nproblems rise before us in their implacable solemnity. Mystery on all\nsides! And faith the only star in this darkness and uncertainty!\n\nNo matter!--so long as the world is the work of eternal goodness, and\nso long as conscience has not deceived us. To give happiness and to do\ngood, there is our only law, our anchor of salvation, our beacon light,\nour reason for existing. All religions may crumble away; so long as this\nsurvives we have still an ideal, and life is worth living.\n\nNothing can lessen the dignity and value of humanity\n\n  Was einmal war, in allem Glanz und Schein,\n  Es regt sich dort; denn es will ewig sein.\n  Und ihr vertheilt es, allgewaltige M\u00e4chte,\n  Zum Zelt des Tages, zum Gew\u00f6lb\u2019 der N\u00e4chte.\n\nso long as the religion of love, of unselfishness and devotion endures;\nand none can destroy the altars of this faith for us so long as we feel\nourselves still capable of love.\n\nApril 15,1867--(_Seven_ A. M.).--Rain storms in the night--the weather\nis showing its April caprice. From the window one sees a gray and\nmelancholy sky, and roofs glistering with rain. The spring is at its\nwork. Yes, and the implacable flight of time is driving us toward the\ngrave. Well--each has his turn!\n\n  \u201cAllez, allez, \u00f4 jeunes filles,\n  Cueillir des bleuets dans les bl\u00e9s!\u201d\n\nI am overpowered with melancholy, languor, lassitude. A longing for the\nlast great sleep has taken possession of me, combated, however, by a\nthirst for sacrifice--sacrifice heroic and long-sustained. Are not both\nsimply ways of escape from one\u2019s self? \u201cSleep, or self-surrender, that I\nmay die to self!\u201d--such is the cry of the heart. Poor heart!\n\nApril 17, 1867.--Awake, thou that sleepest, and rise from the dead.\n\nWhat needs perpetually refreshing and renewing in me is my store of\ncourage. By nature I am so easily disgusted with life, I fall a prey so\nreadily to despair and pessimism.\n\n\u201cThe happy man, as this century is able to produce him,\u201d according to\nMadame ----, is a _Weltm\u00fcde_, one who keeps a brave face before the\nworld, and distracts himself as best he can from dwelling upon the\nthought which is hidden at his heart--a thought which has in it the\nsadness of death--the thought of the irreparable. The outward peace of\nsuch a man is but despair well masked; his gayety is the carelessness of\na heart which has lost all its illusions, and has learned to acquiesce\nin an indefinite putting off of happiness. His wisdom is really\nacclimatization to sacrifice, his gentleness should be taken to mean\nprivation patiently borne rather than resignation. In a word, he submits\nto an existence in which he feels no joy, and he cannot hide from\nhimself that all the alleviations with which it is strewn cannot satisfy\nthe soul. The thirst for the infinite is never appeased. God is wanting.\n\nTo win true peace, a man needs to feel himself directed, pardoned, and\nsustained by a supreme power, to feel himself in the right road, at the\npoint where God would have him be--in order with God and the universe.\nThis faith gives strength and calm. I have not got it. All that is,\nseems to me arbitrary and fortuitous. It may as well not be, as be.\nNothing in my own circumstances seems to me providential. All appears to\nme left to my own responsibility, and it is this thought which disgusts\nme with the government of my own life. I longed to give myself up wholly\nto some great love, some noble end; I would willingly have lived and\ndied for the ideal--that is to say, for a holy cause. But once the\nimpossibility of this made clear to me, I have never since taken a\nserious interest in anything, and have, as it were, but amused myself\nwith a destiny of which I was no longer the dupe.\n\nSybarite and dreamer, will you go on like this to the end--forever\ntossed backward and forward between duty and happiness, incapable of\nchoice, of action? Is not life the test of our moral force, and all\nthese inward waverings, are they not temptations of the soul?\n\nSeptember 6, 1867, _Weissenstein_. [Footnote: Weissenstein is a high\npoint in the Jura, above Soleure.] (_Ten o\u2019clock in the morning_).--A\nmarvelous view of blinding and bewildering beauty. Above a milky sea\nof cloud, flooded with morning light, the rolling waves of which are\nbeating up against the base of the wooded steeps of the Weissenstein,\nthe vast circle of the Alps soars to a sublime height. The eastern side\nof the horizon is drowned in the splendors of the rising mists; but from\nthe T\u00f6di westward, the whole chain floats pure and clear between the\nmilky plain and the pale blue sky. The giant assembly is sitting in\ncouncil above the valleys and the lakes still submerged in vapor. The\nClariden, the Spann\u00f6rter, the Titlis, then the Bernese _colossi_ from\nthe Wetterhorn to the Diablerets, then the peaks of Vaud, Valais, and\nFribourg, and beyond these high chains the two kings of the Alps, Mont\nBlanc, of a pale pink, and the bluish point of Monte Rosa, peering out\nthrough a cleft in the Doldenhorn--such is the composition of the great\nsnowy amphitheatre. The outline of the horizon takes all possible forms:\nneedles, ridges, battlements, pyramids, obelisks, teeth, fangs, pincers,\nhorns, cupolas; the mountain profile sinks, rises again, twists and\nsharpens itself in a thousand ways, but always so as to maintain an\nangular and serrated line. Only the inferior and secondary groups of\nmountains show any large curves or sweeping undulations of form. The\nAlps are more than an upheaval; they are a tearing and gashing of\nthe earth\u2019s surface. Their granite peaks bite into the sky instead\nof caressing it. The Jura, on the contrary, spreads its broad back\ncomplacently under the blue dome of air.\n\n_Eleven o\u2019clock_.--The sea of vapor has risen and attacked the\nmountains, which for a long time overlooked it like so many huge reefs.\nFor awhile it surged in vain over the lower slopes of the Alps. Then\nrolling back upon itself, it made a more successful onslaught upon the\nJura, and now we are enveloped in its moving waves. The milky sea\nhas become one vast cloud, which has swallowed up the plain and the\nmountains, observatory and observer. Within this cloud one may hear the\nsheep-bells ringing, and see the sunlight darting hither and thither.\nStrange and fanciful sight!\n\nThe Hanoverian pianist has gone; the family from Colmar has gone; a\nyoung girl and her brother have arrived. The girl is very pretty, and\nparticularly dainty and elegant in all her ways; she seems to touch\nthings only with the tips of her fingers; one compares her to an ermine,\na gazelle. But at the same time she has no interests, does not know\nhow to admire, and thinks of herself more than of anything else. This\nperhaps is a drawback inseparable from a beauty and a figure which\nattract all eyes. She is, besides, a townswoman to the core, and feels\nherself out of place in this great nature, which probably seems to her\nbarbarous and ill-bred. At any rate she does not let it interfere with\nher in any way, and parades herself on the mountains with her little\nbonnet and her scarcely perceptible sunshade, as though she were on the\nboulevard. She belongs to that class of tourists so amusingly drawn by\nT\u00f6pffer. Character: _na\u00efve_ conceit. Country: France. Standard of life:\nfashion. Some cleverness but no sense of reality, no understanding of\nnature, no consciousness of the manifold diversities of the world and\nof the right of life to be what it is, and to follow its own way and not\nours.\n\nThis ridiculous element in her is connected with the same national\nprejudice which holds France to be the center point of the world, and\nleads Frenchmen to neglect geography and languages. The ordinary French\ntownsman is really deliciously stupid in spite of all his natural\ncleverness, for he understands nothing but himself. His pole, his axis,\nhis center, his all is Paris--or even less--Parisian manners, the\ntaste of the day, fashion. Thanks to this organized fetishism, we have\nmillions of copies of one single original pattern; a whole people moving\ntogether like bobbins in the same machine, or the legs of a single\n_corps d\u2019arm\u00e9e_. The result is wonderful but wearisome; wonderful\nin point of material strength, wearisome psychologically. A hundred\nthousand sheep are not more instructive than one sheep, but they furnish\na hundred thousand times more wool, meat, and manure. This is all, you\nmay say, that the shepherd--that is, the master--requires. Very\nwell, but one can only maintain breeding-farms or monarchies on these\nprinciples. For a republic you must have men: it cannot get on without\nindividualities.\n\n_Noon_.--An exquisite effect. A great herd of cattle are running across\nthe meadows under my window, which is just illuminated by a furtive ray\nof sunshine. The picture has a ghostly suddenness and brilliancy;\nit pierces the mists which close upon it, like the slide of a magic\nlantern.\n\nWhat a pity I must leave this place now that everything is so bright!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe calm sea says more to the thoughtful soul than the same sea in storm\nand tumult. But we need the understanding of eternal things and the\nsentiment of the infinite to be able to feel this. The divine state _par\nexcellence_ is that of silence and repose, because all speech and all\naction are in themselves limited and fugitive. Napoleon with his arms\ncrossed over his breast is more expressive than the furious Hercules\nbeating the air with his athlete\u2019s fists. People of passionate\ntemperament never understand this. They are only sensitive to the energy\nof succession; they know nothing of the energy of condensation. They can\nonly be impressed by acts and effects, by noise and effort. They have no\ninstinct of contemplation, no sense of the pure cause, the fixed source\nof all movement, the principle of all effects, the center of all light,\nwhich does not need to spend itself in order to be sure of its own\nwealth, nor to throw itself into violent motion to be certain of its own\npower. The art of passion is sure to please, but it is not the highest\nart; it is true, indeed, that under the rule of democracy, the serener\nand calmer forms of art become more and more difficult; the turbulent\nherd no longer knows the gods.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMinds accustomed to analysis never allow objections more than a\nhalf-value, because they appreciate the variable and relative elements\nwhich enter in.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA well-governed mind learns in time to find pleasure in nothing but the\ntrue and the just.\n\nJanuary 10, 1868. (_Eleven_ P. M.).--We have had a philosophical meeting\nat the house of Edouard Clapar\u00e8de. [Footnote: Edouard Clapar\u00e8de, a\nGenevese naturalist, born 1832, died 1871.] The question on the order\nof the day was the nature of sensation. Clapar\u00e8de pronounced for the\nabsolute subjectivity of all experience--in other words, for pure\nidealism--which is amusing, from a naturalist. According to him the\n_ego_ alone exists, and the universe is but a projection of the _ego_,\na phantasmagoria which we ourselves create without suspecting it,\nbelieving all the time that we are lookers-on. It is our no\u00fcmenon which\nobjectifies itself as phenomenon. The _ego_, according to him, is a\nradiating force which, modified without knowing what it is that modifies\nit, imagines it, by virtue of the principle of causality--that is to\nsay, produces the great illusion of the objective world in order so\nto explain itself. Our waking life, therefore, is but a more connected\ndream. The self is an unknown which gives birth to an infinite number\nof unknowns, by a fatality of its nature. Science is summed up in the\nconsciousness that nothing exists but consciousness. In other words, the\nintelligent issues from the unintelligible in order to return to it, or\nrather the ego explains itself by the hypothesis of the _non-ego_,\nwhile in reality it is but a dream, dreaming itself. We might say with\nScarron:\n\n  \u201cEt je vis l\u2019ombre d\u2019un esprit\n  Qui tra\u00e7ait l\u2019ombre d\u2019um syst\u00e8me\n  Avec l\u2019ombre de l\u2019ombre m\u00eame.\u201d\n\nThis abolition of nature by natural science is logical, and it was, in\nfact, Schelling\u2019s starting-point. From the standpoint of physiology,\nnature is but a necessary illusion, a constitutional hallucination. We\nonly escape from this bewitchment by the moral activity of the\n_ego_, which feels itself a cause and a free cause, and which by its\nresponsibility breaks the spell and issues from the enchanted circle of\nMa\u00efa.\n\nMa\u00efa! Is she indeed the true goddess? Hindoo wisdom long ago regarded\nthe world as the dream of Brahma. Must we hold with Fichte that it is\nthe individual dream of each individual _ego_? Every fool would then be\na cosmogonic poet producing the firework of the universe under the dome\nof the infinite. But why then give ourselves such gratuitous trouble to\nlearn? In our dreams, at least, nightmare excepted, we endow ourselves\nwith complete ubiquity, liberty and omniscience. Are we then less\ningenious and inventive awake than asleep?\n\nJanuary 25, 1868.--It is when the outer man begins to decay that it\nbecomes vitally important to us to believe in immortality, and to feel\nwith the apostle that the inner man is renewed from day to day. But for\nthose who doubt it and have no hope of it? For them the remainder of\nlife can only be the compulsory dismemberment of their small empire, the\ngradual dismantling of their being by inexorable destiny. How hard it is\nto bear--this long-drawn death, of which the stages are melancholy\nand the end inevitable! It is easy to see why it was that stoicism\nmaintained the right of suicide. What is my real faith? Has the\nuniversal, or at any rate the very general and common doubt of science,\ninvaded me in my turn? I have defended the cause of the immortality of\nthe soul against those who questioned it, and yet when I have reduced\nthem to silence, I have scarcely known whether at bottom I was not after\nall on their side. I try to do without hope; but it is possible that I\nhave no longer the strength for it, and that, like other men, I must\nbe sustained and consoled by a belief, by the belief in pardon and\nimmortality--that is to say, by religious belief of the Christian type.\nReason and thought grow tired, like muscles and nerves. They must\nhave their sleep, and this sleep is the relapse into the tradition of\nchildhood, into the common hope. It takes so much effort to maintain\none\u2019s self in an exceptional point of view, that one falls back into\nprejudice by pure exhaustion, just as the man who stands indefinitely\nalways ends by sinking to the ground and reassuming the horizontal\nposition.\n\nWhat is to become of us when everything leaves us--health, joy,\naffections, the freshness of sensation, memory, capacity for work--when\nthe sun seems to us to have lost its warmth, and life is stripped of all\nits charm? What is to become of us without hope? Must we either harden\nor forget? There is but one answer--keep close to duty. Never mind\nthe future, if only you have peace of conscience, if you feel yourself\nreconciled, and in harmony with the order of things. Be what you ought\nto be; the rest is God\u2019s affair. It is for him to know what is best, to\ntake care of his own glory, to ensure the happiness of what depends\non him, whether by another life or by annihilation. And supposing that\nthere were no good and holy God, nothing but universal being, the law of\nthe all, an ideal without hypostasis or reality, duty would still be the\nkey of the enigma, the pole-star of a wandering humanity.\n\n  \u201cFais ce que dois, advienne que pourra.\u201d\n\nJanuary 26, 1868.--Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of\nheaven into the midst of our rough earthliness. These eighty thousand\ndaily births, of which statistics tell us, represent as it were an\neffusion of innocence and freshness, struggling not only against the\ndeath of the race, but against human corruption, and the universal\ngangrene of sin. All the good and wholesome feeling which is intertwined\nwith childhood and the cradle is one of the secrets of the providential\ngovernment of the world. Suppress this life-giving dew, and human\nsociety would be scorched and devastated by selfish passion. Supposing\nthat humanity had been composed of a thousand millions of immortal\nbeings, whose number could neither increase nor diminish, where should\nwe be, and what should we be! A thousand times more learned, no\ndoubt, but a thousand times more evil. There would have been a vast\naccumulation of science, but all the virtues engendered by suffering\nand devotion--that is to say, by the family and society--would have no\nexistence. And for this there would be no compensation.\n\nBlessed be childhood for the good that it does, and for the good which\nit brings about carelessly and unconsciously by simply making us love\nit and letting itself be loved. What little of paradise we see still\non earth is due to its presence among us. Without fatherhood, without\nmotherhood, I think that love itself would not be enough to prevent men\nfrom devouring each other--men, that is to say, such as human\npassions have made them. The angels have no need of birth and death as\nfoundations for their life, because their life is heavenly.\n\nFebruary 16, 1868.--I have been finishing About\u2019s \u201cMainfroy (Les\nMariages de Province).\u201d What subtlety, what cleverness, what _verve_,\nwhat _aplomb_! About is a master of epithet, of quick, light-winged\nsatire. For all his cavalier freedom of manner, his work is conceived at\nbottom in a spirit of the subtlest irony, and his detachment of mind is\nso great that he is able to make sport of everything, to mock at others\nand himself, while all the time amusing himself extremely with his own\nideas and inventions. This is indeed the characteristic mark, the common\nsignature, so to speak, of _esprit_ like his.\n\nIrrepressible mischief, indefatigable elasticity, a power of luminous\nmockery, delight in the perpetual discharge of innumerable arrows\nfrom an inexhaustible quiver, the unquenchable laughter of some\nlittle earth-born demon, perpetual gayety, and a radiant force of\nepigram--there are all these in the true humorist. _Stulti sunt\ninnumerabiles_, said Erasmus, the patron of all these dainty\nmockers. Folly, conceit, foppery, silliness, affectation, hypocrisy,\nattitudinizing and pedantry of all shades, and in all forms, everything\nthat poses, prances, bridles, struts, bedizens, and plumes itself,\neverything that takes itself seriously and tries to impose itself on\nmankind--all this is the natural prey of the satirist, so many targets\nready for his arrows, so many victims offered to his attack. And we all\nknow how rich the world is in prey of this kind! An alderman\u2019s feast of\nfolly is served up to him in perpetuity; the spectacle of society offers\nhim an endless _noce de Gamache_. [Footnote: _Noce de Gamache_--\u201crepas\ntr\u00e8s somptueux.\u201d--Littr\u00e9. The allusion, of course, is to Don Quixote,\nPart II. chap. xx.--\u201cDonde se cuentan las bodas de Bamacho el rico, con\nel suceso de Basilio el pobre.\u201d] With what glee he raids through his\ndomains, and what signs of destruction and massacre mark the path of the\nsportsman! His hand is infallible like his glance. The spirit of\nsarcasm lives and thrives in the midst of universal wreck; its balls\nare enchanted and itself invulnerable, and it braves retaliations\nand reprisals because itself is a mere flash, a bodiless and magical\nnothing.\n\nClever men will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness; every\nauthority rouses their ridicule, every superstition amuses them, every\nconvention moves them to contradiction. Only force finds favor in\ntheir eyes, and they have no toleration for anything that is not purely\nnatural and spontaneous. And yet ten clever men are not worth one man\nof talent, nor ten men of talent worth one man of genius. And in the\nindividual, feeling is more than cleverness, reason is worth as much as\nfeeling, and conscience has it over reason. If, then, the clever man is\nnot _mockable_, he may at least be neither loved, nor considered, nor\nesteemed. He may make himself feared, it is true, and force others to\nrespect his independence; but this negative advantage, which is\nthe result of a negative superiority, brings no happiness with it.\nCleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.\n\nMarch 8, 1868.--Madame----kept me to have tea with three young friends\nof hers--three sisters, I think. The two youngest are extremely pretty,\nthe dark one as pretty as the blonde. Their fresh faces, radiant with\nthe bloom of youth, were a perpetual delight to the eye. This electric\nforce of beauty has a beneficent effect upon the man of letters; it acts\nas a real restorative. Sensitive, impressionable, absorbent as I am,\nthe neighborhood of health, of beauty, of intelligence and of goodness,\nexercises a powerful influence upon my whole being; and in the same way\nI am troubled and affected just as easily by the presence near me of\ntroubled lives or diseased souls. Madame ---- said of me that I must be\n\u201csuperlatively feminine\u201d in all my perceptions. This ready sympathy\nand sensitiveness is the reason of it. If I had but desired it ever so\nlittle, I should have had the magical clairvoyance of the somnambulist,\nand could have reproduced in myself a number of strange phenomena. I\nknow it, but I have always been on my guard against it, whether from\nindifference or from prudence. When I think of the intuitions of every\nkind which have come to me since my youth, it seems to me that I have\nlived a multitude of lives. Every characteristic individuality shapes\nitself ideally in me, or rather molds me for the moment into its own\nimage; and I have only to turn my attention upon myself at such a time\nto be able to understand a new mode of being, a new phase of human\nnature. In this way I have been, turn by turn, mathematician, musician,\n_savant_, monk, child, or mother. In these states of universal sympathy\nI have even seemed to myself sometimes to enter into the condition of\nthe animal or the plant, and even of an individual animal, of a given\nplant. This faculty of ascending and descending metamorphosis, this\npower of simplifying or of adding to one\u2019s individuality, has sometimes\nastounded my friends, even the most subtle of them. It has to do\nno doubt with the extreme facility which I have for impersonal and\nobjective thought, and this again accounts for the difficulty which I\nfeel in realizing my own individuality, in being simply one man having\nhis proper number and ticket. To withdraw within my own individual\nlimits has always seemed to me a strange, arbitrary, and conventional\nprocess. I seem to myself to be a mere conjuror\u2019s apparatus, an\ninstrument of vision and perception, a person without personality, a\nsubject without any determined individuality--an instance, to speak\ntechnically, of pure \u201cdeterminability\u201d and \u201cformability,\u201d and therefore\nI can only resign myself with difficulty to play the purely arbitrary\npart of a private citizen, inscribed upon the roll of a particular town\nor a particular country. In action I feel myself out of place; my true\n_milieu_ is contemplation. Pure virtuality and perfect equilibrium--in\nthese I am most at home. There I feel myself free, disinterested, and\nsovereign. Is it a call or a temptation?\n\nIt represents perhaps the oscillation between the two geniuses, the\nGreek and the Roman, the eastern and the western, the ancient and the\nChristian, or the struggle between the two ideals, that of liberty and\nthat of holiness. Liberty raises us to the gods; holiness prostrates us\non the ground. Action limits us; whereas in the state of contemplation\nwe are endlessly expansive. Will localizes us; thought universalizes us.\nMy soul wavers between half a dozen antagonistic general conceptions,\nbecause it is responsive to all the great instincts of human nature, and\nits aspiration is to the absolute, which is only to be reached through\na succession of contraries. It has taken me a great deal of time to\nunderstand myself, and I frequently find myself beginning over again the\nstudy of the oft-solved problem, so difficult is it for us to maintain\nany fixed point within us. I love everything, and detest one thing\nonly--the hopeless imprisonment of my being within a single arbitrary\nform, even were it chosen by myself. Liberty for the inner man is then\nthe strongest of my passions--perhaps my only passion. Is such a passion\nlawful? It has been my habit to think so, but intermittently, by fits\nand starts. I am not perfectly sure of it.\n\nMarch 17, 1868.--Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore;\nnot because they are pretty, or good, or well bred, or graceful, or\nintelligent, but because they are themselves. All analysis seems to them\nto imply a loss of consideration, a subordination of their personality\nto something which dominates and measures it. They will have none of\nit; and their instinct is just. As soon as we can give a reason for a\nfeeling we are no longer under the spell of it; we appreciate, we\nweigh, we are free, at least in principle. Love must always remain a\nfascination, a witchery, if the empire of woman is to endure. Once\nthe mystery gone, the power goes with it. Love must always seem to us\nindivisible, insoluble, superior to all analysis, if it is to preserve\nthat appearance of infinity, of something supernatural and miraculous,\nwhich makes its chief beauty. The majority of beings despise what they\nunderstand, and bow only before the inexplicable. The feminine triumph\n_par excellence_ is to convict of obscurity that virile intelligence\nwhich makes so much pretense to enlightenment. And when a woman inspires\nlove, it is then especially that she enjoys this proud triumph. I\nadmit that her exultation has its grounds. Still, it seems to me that\nlove--true and profound love--should be a source of light and calm, a\nreligion and a revelation, in which there is no place left for the lower\nvictories of vanity. Great souls care only for what is great, and to the\nspirit which hovers in the sight of the Infinite, any sort of artifice\nseems a disgraceful puerility.\n\nMarch 19, 1868.--What we call little things are merely the causes of\ngreat things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point\nof departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an\nexistence. One single black speck may be the beginning of a gangrene, of\na storm, of a revolution. From one insignificant misunderstanding hatred\nand separation may finally issue. An enormous avalanche begins by the\ndisplacement of one atom, and the conflagration of a town by the fall of\na match. Almost everything comes from almost nothing, one might think.\nIt is only the first crystallization which is the affair of mind; the\nultimate aggregation is the affair of mass, of attraction, of acquired\nmomentum, of mechanical acceleration. History, like nature, illustrates\nfor us the application of the law of inertia and agglomeration which is\nput lightly in the proverb, \u201cNothing succeeds like success.\u201d Find the\nright point at starting; strike straight, begin well; everything depends\non it. Or more simply still, provide yourself with good luck--for\naccident plays a vast part in human affairs. Those who have succeeded\nmost in this world (Napoleon or Bismarck) confess it; calculation is not\nwithout its uses, but chance makes mock of calculation, and the result\nof a planned combination is in no wise proportional to its merit. From\nthe supernatural point of view people say: \u201cThis chance, as you call\nit, is, in reality, the action of providence. Man may give himself what\ntrouble he will--God leads him all the same.\u201d Only, unfortunately,\nthis supposed intervention as often as not ends in the defeat of\nzeal, virtue, and devotion, and the success of crime, stupidity, and\nselfishness. Poor, sorely-tried Faith! She has but one way out of the\ndifficulty--the word Mystery! It is in the origins of things that the\ngreat secret of destiny lies hidden, although the breathless sequence of\nafter events has often many surprises for us too. So that at first sight\nhistory seems to us accident and confusion; looked at for the second\ntime, it seems to us logical and necessary; looked at for the third\ntime, it appears to us a mixture of necessity and liberty; on the fourth\nexamination we scarcely know what to think of it, for if force is the\nsource of right, and chance the origin of force, we come back to our\nfirst explanation, only with a heavier heart than when we began.\n\nIs Democritus right after all? Is chance the foundation of everything,\nall laws being but the imaginations of our reason, which, itself born\nof accident, has a certain power of self-deception and of inventing laws\nwhich it believes to be real and objective, just as a man who dreams\nof a meal thinks that he is eating, while in reality there is neither\ntable, nor food, nor guest nor nourishment? Everything goes on as if\nthere were order and reason and logic in the world, while in reality\neverything is fortuitous, accidental, and apparent. The universe is but\nthe kaleidoscope which turns within the mind of the so-called thinking\nbeing, who is himself a curiosity without a cause, an accident conscious\nof the great accident around him, and who amuses himself with it so\nlong as the phenomenon of his vision lasts. Science is a lucid madness\noccupied in tabulating its own necessary hallucinations. The philosopher\nlaughs, for he alone escapes being duped, while he sees other men the\nvictims of persistent illusion. He is like some mischievous spectator of\na ball who has cleverly taken all the strings from the violins, and yet\nsees musicians and dancers moving and pirouetting before him as though\nthe music were still going on. Such an experience would delight him\nas proving that the universal St. Vitus\u2019 dance is also nothing but an\naberration of the inner consciousness, and that the philosopher is in\nthe right of it as against the general credulity. Is it not even enough\nsimply to shut one\u2019s ears in a ballroom, to believe one\u2019s self in a\nmadhouse?\n\nThe multitude of religions on the earth must have very much the same\neffect upon the man who has killed the religious idea in himself. But\nit is a dangerous attempt, this repudiation of the common law of the\nrace--this claim to be in the right, as against all the world.\n\nIt is not often that the philosophic scoffers forget themselves\nfor others. Why should they? Self-devotion is a serious thing, and\nseriousness would be inconsistent with their r\u00f4le of mockery. To be\nunselfish we must love; to love we must believe in the reality of what\nwe love; we must know how to suffer, how to forget ourselves, how to\nyield ourselves up--in a word, how to be serious. A spirit of incessant\nmockery means absolute isolation; it is the sign of a thoroughgoing\negotism. If we wish to do good to men we must pity and not despise them.\nWe must learn to say of them, not \u201cWhat fools!\u201d but \u201cWhat unfortunates!\u201d\n The pessimist or the nihilist seems to me less cold and icy than the\nmocking atheist. He reminds me of the somber words of \u201cAhasv\u00e9rus:\u201d\n\n  \u201cVous qui manquez de charit\u00e9,\n  Tremblez \u00e0 mon supplice \u00e9trange:\n  Ce n\u2019est point sa divinit\u00e9,\n  C\u2019est l\u2019humanit\u00e9 que Dieu venge!\u201d\n\n[Footnote: The quotation is from Quinet\u2019s \u201cAhasv\u00e9rus\u201d (first published\n1833), that strange _Welt-gedicht_, which the author himself described\nas \u201cl\u2019histoire du monde, de Dieu dans le monde, et enfin du doute dans\nle monde,\u201d and which, with Faust, probably suggested the unfinished\nbut in many ways brilliant performance of the young Spaniard,\nEspronceda--_El Diablo Mundo_.]\n\nIt is better to be lost than to be saved all alone; and it is a wrong to\none\u2019s kind to wish to be wise without making others share our wisdom. It\nis, besides, an illusion to suppose that such a privilege is possible,\nwhen everything proves the solidarity of individuals, and when no\none can think at all except by means of the general store of thought,\naccumulated and refined by centuries of cultivation and experience.\nAbsolute individualism is an absurdity. A man may be isolated in his\nown particular and temporary _milieu_, but every one of our thoughts or\nfeelings finds, has found, and will find, its echo in humanity. Such an\necho is immense and far-resounding in the case of those representative\nmen who have been adopted by great fractions of humanity as guides,\nrevealers, and reformers; but it exists for everybody. Every sincere\nutterance of the soul, every testimony faithfully borne to a personal\nconviction, is of use to some one and some thing, even when you know it\nnot, and when your mouth is stopped by violence, or the noose tightens\nround your neck. A word spoken to some one preserves an indestructible\ninfluence, just as any movement whatever may be metamorphosed, but not\nundone. Here, then, is a reason for not mocking, for not being silent,\nfor affirming, for acting. We must have faith in truth; we must seek the\ntrue and spread it abroad; we must love men and serve them.\n\nApril 9, 1868.--I have been spending three hours over Lotze\u2019s big volume\n(\u201cGeschichte der Aesthetikin Deutschland\u201d). It begins attractively,\nbut the attraction wanes, and by the end I was very tired of it. Why?\nBecause the noise of a mill-wheel sends one to sleep, and these pages\nwithout paragraphs, these interminable chapters, and this incessant,\ndialectical clatter, affect me as though I were listening to a\nword-mill. I end by yawning like any simple non-philosophical mortal\nin the face of all this heaviness and pedantry. Erudition, and even\nthought, are not everything. An occasional touch of esprit, a little\nsharpness of phrase, a little vivacity, imagination, and grace, would\nspoil neither. Do these pedantic books leave a single image or formula,\na single new or striking fact behind them in the memory, when one puts\nthem down? No; nothing but confusion and fatigue. Oh for clearness,\nterseness, brevity! Diderot, Voltaire, and even Galiani!\n\nA short article by Sainte-Beuve, Scherer, Renan, Victor Cherbuliez,\ngives one more pleasure, and makes one think and reflect more, than a\nthousand of these heavy German pages, stuffed to the brim, and showing\nrather the work itself than its results. The Germans gather fuel for the\npile: it is the French who kindle it. For heaven\u2019s sake, spare me your\nlucubrations; give me facts or ideas. Keep your vats, your must, your\ndregs, in the background. What I ask is wine--wine which will sparkle in\nthe glass, and stimulate intelligence instead of weighing it down.\n\nApril 11, 1868. (_Mornex sur Sal\u00e8ve_).--I left town in a great storm of\nwind, which was raising clouds of dust along the suburban roads, and two\nhours later I found myself safely installed among the mountains, just\nlike last year. I think of staying a week here.... The sounds of the\nvillage are wafted to my open window, barkings of distant dogs, voices\nof women at the fountain, the songs of birds in the lower orchards. The\ngreen carpet of the plain is dappled by passing shadows thrown upon it\nby the clouds; the landscape has the charm of delicate tint and a sort\nof languid grace. Already I am full of a sense of well-being, I am\ntasting the joys of that contemplative state in which the soul, issuing\nfrom itself, becomes as it were the soul of a country or a landscape,\nand feels living within it a multitude of lives. Here is no more\nresistance, negation, blame; everything is affirmative; I feel myself in\nharmony with nature and with surroundings, of which I seem to myself the\nexpression. The heart opens to the immensity of things. This is what\nI love! _Nam mihires, non me rebus submittere conor_. April 12, 1868.\n(_Easter Day_), _Mornex Eight_ A. M.--The day has opened solemnly and\nreligiously. There is a tinkling of bells from the valley: even the\nfields seem to be breathing forth a canticle of praise. Humanity must\nhave a worship, and, all things considered, is not the Christian worship\nthe best among those which have existed on a large scale? The religion\nof sin, of repentance, and reconciliation--the religion of the new birth\nand of eternal life--is not a religion to be ashamed of. In spite of all\nthe aberrations of fanaticism, all the superstitions of formalism, all\nthe ugly superstructures of hypocrisy, all the fantastic puerilities\nof theology, the gospel has modified the world and consoled mankind.\nChristian humanity is not much better than pagan humanity, but it would\nbe much worse without a religion, and without this religion. Every\nreligion proposes an ideal and a model; the Christian ideal is sublime,\nand its model of a divine beauty. We may hold aloof from the churches,\nand yet bow ourselves before Jesus. We may be suspicious of the clergy,\nand refuse to have anything to do with catechisms, and yet love the\nHoly and the Just, who came to save and not to curse. Jesus will always\nsupply us with the best criticism of Christianity, and when Christianity\nhas passed away the religion of Jesus will in all probability survive.\nAfter Jesus as God we shall come back to faith in the God of Jesus.\n\n_Five o\u2019clock_ P. M.--I have been for a long walk through C\u00e9zargues,\nEseri, and the Yves woods, returning by the Pont du Loup. The weather\nwas cold and gray. A great popular merrymaking of some sort, with\nits multitude of blouses, and its drums and fifes, has been going on\nriotously for an hour under my window. The crowd has sung a number of\nsongs, drinking songs, ballads, romances, but all more or less heavy and\nugly. The muse has never touched our country people, and the Swiss race\nis not graceful even in its gayety. A bear in high spirits--this is what\none thinks of. The poetry it produces, too, is desperately vulgar and\ncommonplace. Why? In the first place, because, in spite of the pretenses\nof our democratic philosophies, the classes whose backs are bent with\nmanual labor are aesthetically inferior to the others. In the next\nplace, because our old rustic peasant poetry is dead, and the peasant,\nwhen he tries to share the music or the poetry of the cultivated\nclasses, only succeeds in caricaturing it, and not in copying it.\nDemocracy, by laying it down that there is but one class for all men,\nhas in fact done a wrong to everything that is not first-rate. As we can\nno longer without offense judge men according to a certain recognized\norder, we can only compare them to the best that exists, and then\nthey naturally seem to us more mediocre, more ugly, more deformed than\nbefore. If the passion for equality potentially raises the average, it\n_really_ degrades nineteen-twentieths of individuals below their former\nplace. There is a progress in the domain of law and a falling back in\nthe domain of art. And meanwhile the artists see multiplying before them\ntheir _b\u00eate-noire_, the _bourgeois_, the Philistine, the presumptuous\nignoramus, the quack who plays at science, and the feather-brain who\nthinks himself the equal of the intelligent.\n\n\u201cCommonness will prevail,\u201d as De Candolle said in speaking of\nthe graminaceous plants. The era of equality means the triumph of\nmediocrity. It is disappointing, but inevitable; for it is one of time\u2019s\nrevenges. Humanity, after having organized itself on the basis of the\ndissimilarity of individuals, is now organizing itself on the basis of\ntheir similarity, and the one exclusive principle is about as true\nas the other. Art no doubt will lose, but justice will gain. Is not\nuniversal leveling-down the law of nature, and when all has been leveled\nwill not all have been destroyed? So that the world is striving with all\nits force for the destruction of what it has itself brought forth.\nLife is the blind pursuit of its own negation; as has been said of the\nwicked, nature also works for her own disappointment, she labors at what\nshe hates, she weaves her own shroud, and piles up the stones of her own\ntomb. God may well forgive us, for \u201cwe know not what to do.\u201d\n\nJust as the sum of force is always identical in the material universe,\nand presents a spectacle not of diminution nor of augmentation but\nsimply of constant metamorphosis, so it is not impossible that the sum\nof good is in reality always the same, and that therefore all progress\non one side is compensated inversely on another side. If this were so we\nought never to say that period or a people is absolutely and as a whole\nsuperior to another time or another people, but only that there is\nsuperiority in certain points. The great difference between man and man\nwould, on these principles, consist in the art of transforming vitality\ninto spirituality, and latent power into useful energy. The same\ndifference would hold good between nation and nation, so that the object\nof the simultaneous or successive competition of mankind in history\nwould be the extraction of the maximum of humanity from a given amount\nof animality. Education, morals, and politics would be only variations\nof the same art, the art of living--that is to say, of disengaging the\npure form and subtlest essence of our individual being.\n\nApril 26, 1868. (_Sunday, Mid-day_).--A gloomy morning. On all sides a\ndepressing outlook, and within, disgust with self.\n\n_Ten_ P.M.--Visits and a walk. I have spent the evening alone. Many\nthings to-day have taught me lessons of wisdom. I have seen the\nhawthorns covering themselves with blossom, and the whole valley\nspringing up afresh under the breath of the spring. I have been the\nspectator of faults of conduct on the part of old men who will not grow\nold, and whose heart is in rebellion against the natural law. I have\nwatched the working of marriage in its frivolous and commonplace forms,\nand listened to trivial preaching. I have been a witness of griefs\nwithout hope, of loneliness that claimed one\u2019s pity. I have listened to\npleasantries on the subject of madness, and to the merry songs of the\nbirds. And everything has had the same message for me: \u201cPlace yourself\nonce more in harmony with the universal law; accept the will of God;\nmake a religious use of life; work while it is yet day; be at once\nserious and cheerful; know how to repeat with the apostle, \u2018I have\nlearned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.\u2019\u201d\n\nAugust 26, 1868.--After all the storms of feeling within and the organic\ndisturbances without, which during these latter months have pinned me so\nclosely to my own individual existence, shall I ever be able to\nreascend into the region of pure intelligence, to enter again upon the\ndisinterested and impersonal life, to recover my old indifference toward\nsubjective miseries, and regain a purely scientific and contemplative\nstate of mind? Shall I ever succeed in forgetting all the needs which\nbind me to earth and to humanity? Shall I ever become pure spirit? Alas!\nI cannot persuade myself to believe it possible for an instant. I\nsee infirmity and weakness close upon me, I feel I cannot do without\naffection, and I know that I have no ambition, and that my faculties are\ndeclining. I remember that I am forty-seven years old, and that all my\nbrood of youthful hopes has flown away. So that there is no deceiving\nmyself as to the fate which awaits me: increasing loneliness,\nmortification of spirit, long-continued regret, melancholy neither to be\nconsoled nor confessed, a mournful old age, a slow decay, a death in the\ndesert!\n\nTerrible dilemma! Whatever is still possible to me has lost its savor,\nwhile all that I could still desire escapes me, and will always escape\nme. Every impulse ends in weariness and disappointment. Discouragement,\ndepression, weakness, apathy; there is the dismal series which must be\nforever begun and re-begun, while we are still rolling up the Sisyphean\nrock of life. Is it not simpler and shorter to plunge head-foremost into\nthe gulf?\n\nNo, rebel as we may, there is but one solution--to submit to the general\norder, to accept, to resign ourselves, and to do still what we can. It\nis our self-will, our aspirations, our dreams, that must be sacrificed.\nWe must give up the hope of happiness once for all! Immolation of the\nself--death to self--this is the only suicide which is either useful\nor permitted. In my present mood of indifference and disinterestedness,\nthere is some secret ill-humor, some wounded pride, a little rancor;\nthere is selfishness in short, since a premature claim for rest is\nimplied in it. Absolute disinterestedness is only reached in that\nperfect humility which tramples the self under foot for the glory of\nGod.\n\nI have no more strength left, I wish for nothing; but that is not what\nis wanted. I must wish what God wishes; I must pass from indifference\nto sacrifice, and from sacrifice to self-devotion. The cup which I would\nfain put away from me is the misery of living, the shame of existing and\nsuffering as a common creature who has missed his vocation; it is the\nbitter and increasing humiliation of declining power, of growing old\nunder the weight of one\u2019s own disapproval, and the disappointment of\none\u2019s friends! \u201cWilt thou be healed?\u201d was the text of last Sunday\u2019s\nsermon. \u201cCome to me, all ye who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will\ngive you rest.\u201d \u201cAnd if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our\nheart.\u201d\n\nAugust 27, 1868.--To-day I took up the \u201cPenseroso\u201d [Footnote: \u201cII\nPenseroso,\u201d po\u00e9sies-maximes par H. F. Amiel: Gen\u00e8ve, 1858. This little\nbook, which contains one hundred and thirty-three maxims, several\nof which are quoted in the _Journal Intime_, is prefaced by a motto\ntranslated from Shelley--\u201cCe n\u2019est pas la science qui nous manque, \u00e0\nnous modernes; nous l\u2019avons surabondamment.... Mais ce que nous avons\nabsorb\u00e9 nous absorbe.... Ce qui nous manque c\u2019est la po\u00e9sie de la vie.\u201d]\nagain. I have often violated its maxims and forgotten its lessons.\nStill, this volume is a true son of my soul, and breathes the true\nspirit of the inner life. Whenever I wish to revive my consciousness of\nmy own tradition, it is pleasant to me to read over this little gnomic\ncollection which has had such scant justice done to it, and which, were\nit another\u2019s, I should often quote. I like to feel that in it I have\nattained to that relative truth which may be defined as consistency\nwith self, the harmony of appearance with reality, of thought with\nexpression--in other words, sincerity, ingenuousness, inwardness. It is\npersonal experience in the strictest sense of the word.\n\nSeptember 21, 1868. (_Villars_).--A lovely autumn effect. Everything was\nveiled in gloom this morning, and a gray mist of rain floated between us\nand the whole circle of mountains. Now the strip of blue sky which made\nits appearance at first behind the distant peaks has grown larger, has\nmounted to the zenith, and the dome of heaven, swept almost clear of\ncloud, sends streaming down upon us the pale rays of a convalescent sun.\nThe day now promises kindly, and all is well that ends well.\n\nThus after a season of tears a sober and softened joy may return to us.\nSay to yourself that you are entering upon the autumn of your life; that\nthe graces of spring and the splendors of summer are irrevocably gone,\nbut that autumn too has its beauties. The autumn weather is often\ndarkened by rain, cloud, and mist, but the air is still soft, and\nthe sun still delights the eyes, and touches the yellowing leaves\ncaressingly; it is the time for fruit, for harvest, for the vintage, the\nmoment for making provision for the winter. Here the herds of milch-cows\nhave already come down to the level of the _ch\u00e2let_, and next week they\nwill be lower than we are. This living barometer is a warning to us that\nthe time has come to say farewell to the mountains. There is nothing to\ngain, and everything to lose, by despising the example of nature, and\nmaking arbitrary rules of life for one\u2019s self. Our liberty, wisely\nunderstood, is but a voluntary obedience to the universal laws of life.\nMy life has reached its month of September. May I recognize it in time,\nand suit thought and action to the fact!\n\nNovember 13, 1868.--I am reading part of two books by Charles Secr\u00e9tan\n[Footnote: Charles Secr\u00e9tan, a Lausanne professor, the friend of\nVinet, born 1819. He published \u201cLe\u00e7ons sur la Philosophie de Leibnitz,\u201d\n \u201cPhilosophie de la Libert\u00e9,\u201d \u201cLa Raison et le Christianisme,\u201d etc.]\n\u201cRecherches sur la M\u00e9thode,\u201d 1857; \u201cPr\u00e9cis \u00e9l\u00e9mentaire de Philosophie,\u201d\n 1868. The philosophy of Secr\u00e9tan is the philosophy of Christianity,\nconsidered as the one true religion. Subordination of nature to\nintelligence, of intelligence to will, and of will to dogmatic\nfaith--such is its general framework. Unfortunately there are no signs\nof critical, or comparative, or historical study in it, and as an\napologetic--in which satire is curiously mingled with glorification of\nthe religion of love--it leaves upon one an impression of _parti\npris_. A philosophy of religion, apart from the comparative science of\nreligions, and apart also from a disinterested and general philosophy\nof history, must always be more or less arbitrary and factitious. It\nis only pseudo-scientific, this reduction of human life to three\nspheres--industry, law, and religion. The author seems to me to possess\na vigorous and profound mind, rather than a free mind. Not only is he\ndogmatic, but he dogmatizes in favor of a given religion, to which his\nwhole allegiance is pledged. Besides, Christianity being an X which each\nchurch defines in its own way, the author takes the same liberty, and\ndefines the X in his way; so that he is at once too free and not free\nenough; too free in respect to historical Christianity, not free enough\nin respect to Christianity as a particular church. He does not satisfy\nthe believing Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed Churchman, or Catholic;\nand he does not satisfy the freethinker. This Schellingian type\nof speculation, which consists in logically deducing a particular\nreligion--that is to say, in making philosophy the servant of Christian\ntheology--is a legacy from the Middle Ages.\n\nAfter belief comes judgment; but a believer is not a judge. A fish lives\nin the ocean, but it cannot see all around it; it cannot take a view\nof the whole; therefore it cannot judge what the ocean is. In order to\nunderstand Christianity we must put it in its historical place, in\nits proper framework; we must regard it as a part of the religious\ndevelopment of humanity, and so judge it, not from a Christian point of\nview, but from a human point of view, _sine ira nec studio_.\n\nDecember 16, 1868.--I am in the most painful state of anxiety as to my\npoor kind friend, Charles Heim.... Since the 30th of November I have had\nno letter from the dear invalid, who then said his last farewell to\nme. How long these two weeks have seemed to me--and how keenly I have\nrealized that strong craving which many feel for the last words, the\nlast looks, of those they love! Such words and looks are a kind of\ntestament. They have a solemn and sacred character which is not merely\nan effect of our imagination. For that which is on the brink of death\nalready participates to some extent in eternity. A dying man seems to\nspeak to us from beyond the tomb; what he says has the effect upon us\nof a sentence, an oracle, an injunction; we look upon him as one endowed\nwith second sight. Serious and solemn words come naturally to the man\nwho feels life escaping him, and the grave opening before him. The\ndepths of his nature are then revealed; the divine within him need no\nlonger hide itself. Oh, do not let us wait to be just or pitiful or\ndemonstrative toward those we love until they or we are struck down by\nillness or threatened with death! Life is short and we have never too\nmuch time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark\njourney with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!\n\nDecember 26, 1868.--My dear friend died this morning at Hy\u00e8res. A\nbeautiful soul has returned to heaven. So he has ceased to suffer! Is he\nhappy now?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf men are always more or less deceived on the subject of women, it is\nbecause they forget that they and women do not speak altogether the same\nlanguage, and that words have not the same weight or the same meaning\nfor them, especially in questions of feeling. Whether from shyness or\nprecaution or artifice, a woman never speaks out her whole thought, and\nmoreover what she herself knows of it is but a part of what it really\nis. Complete frankness seems to be impossible to her, and complete\nself-knowledge seems to be forbidden her. If she is a sphinx to us, it\nis because she is a riddle of doubtful meaning even to herself. She\nhas no need of perfidy, for she is mystery itself. A woman is something\nfugitive, irrational, indeterminable, illogical, and contradictory.\nA great deal of forbearance ought to be shown her, and a good deal\nof prudence exercised with regard to her, for she may bring about\ninnumerable evils without knowing It. Capable of all kinds of devotion,\nand of all kinds of treason, \u201c_monstre incompr\u00e9hensible_,\u201d raised to the\nsecond power, she is at once the delight and the terror of man.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe more a man loves, the more he suffers. The sum of possible grief for\neach soul is in proportion to its degree of perfection.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe who is too much afraid of being duped has lost the power of being\nmagnanimous.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDoubt of the reality of love ends by making us doubt everything. The\nfinal result of all deceptions and disappointments is atheism, which\nmay not always yield up its name and secret, but which lurks, a masked\nspecter, within the depths of thought, as the last supreme explainer.\n\u201cMan is what his love is,\u201d and follows the fortunes of his love.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe beautiful souls of the world have an art of saintly alchemy,\nby which bitterness is converted into kindness, the gall of human\nexperience into gentleness, ingratitude into benefits, insults into\npardon. And the transformation ought to become so easy and habitual that\nthe lookers-on may think it spontaneous, and nobody give us credit for\nit.\n\nJanuary 27, 1869.--What, then, is the service rendered to the world by\nChristianity? The proclamation of \u201cgood news.\u201d And what is this \u201cgood\nnews?\u201d The pardon of sin. The God of holiness loving the world and\nreconciling it to himself by Jesus, in order to establish the kingdom of\nGod, the city of souls, the life of heaven upon earth--here you have\nthe whole of it; but in this is a revolution. \u201cLove ye one another, as\nI have loved you;\u201d \u201cBe ye one with me, as I am one with the Father:\u201d for\nthis is life eternal, here is perfection, salvation, joy. Faith in the\nfatherly love of God, who punishes and pardons for our good, and\nwho desires not the death of the sinner, but his conversion and his\nlife--here is the motive power of the redeemed.\n\nWhat we call Christianity is a vast ocean, into which flow a number of\nspiritual currents of distant and various origin; certain religions,\nthat is to say, of Asia and of Europe, the great ideas of Greek\nwisdom, and especially those of Platonism. Neither its doctrine nor\nits morality, as they have been historically developed, are new or\nspontaneous. What is essential and original in it is the practical\ndemonstration that the human and the divine nature may co-exist, may\nbecome fused into one sublime flame; that holiness and pity, justice\nand mercy, may meet together and become one, in man and in God. What is\nspecific in Christianity is Jesus--the religious consciousness of Jesus.\nThe sacred sense of his absolute union with God through perfect love and\nself-surrender, this profound, invincible, and tranquil faith of his,\nhas become a religion; the faith of Jesus has become the faith of\nmillions and millions of men. From this torch has sprung a vast\nconflagration. And such has been the brilliancy and the radiance both\nof revealer and revelation, that the astonished world has forgotten its\njustice in its admiration, and has referred to one single benefactor the\nwhole of those benefits which are its heritage from the past.\n\nThe conversion of ecclesiastical and confessional Christianity into\nhistorical Christianity is the work of biblical science. The conversion\nof historical Christianity into philosophical Christianity is an attempt\nwhich is to some extent an illusion, since faith cannot be entirely\nresolved into science. The transference, however, of Christianity from\nthe region of history to the region of psychology is the great craving\nof our time. What we are trying to arrive at is the _eternal_ gospel.\nBut before we can reach it, the comparative history and philosophy of\nreligions must assign to Christianity its true place, and must judge it.\nThe religion, too, which Jesus professed must be disentangled from the\nreligion which has taken Jesus for its object. And when at last we are\nable to point out the state of consciousness which is the primitive\ncell, the principle of the eternal gospel, we shall have reached our\ngoal, for in it is the _punctum saliens_ of pure religion.\n\nPerhaps the extraordinary will take the place of the supernatural,\nand the great geniuses of the world will come to be regarded as the\nmessengers of God in history, as the providential revealers through whom\nthe spirit of God works upon the human mass. What is perishing is\nnot the admirable and the adorable; it is simply the arbitrary, the\naccidental, the miraculous. Just as the poor illuminations of a village\n_f\u00eate_, or the tapers of a procession, are put out by the great marvel\nof the sun, so the small local miracles, with their meanness and\ndoubtfulness, will sink into insignificance beside the law of the world\nof spirits, the incomparable spectacle of human history, led by that\nall-powerful Dramaturgus whom we call God. _Utinam!_\n\nMarch 1, 1869.--Impartiality and objectivity are as rare as justice, of\nwhich they are but two special forms. Self-interest is an inexhaustible\nsource of convenient illusions. The number of beings who wish to see\ntruly is extraordinarily small. What governs men is the fear of\ntruth, unless truth is useful to them, which is as much as to say that\nself-interest is the principle of the common philosophy or that truth\nis made for us but not we for truth. As this fact is humiliating, the\nmajority of people will neither recognize nor admit it. And thus a\nprejudice of self-love protects all the prejudices of the understanding,\nwhich are themselves the result of a stratagem of the _ego_. Humanity\nhas always slain or persecuted those who have disturbed this selfish\nrepose of hers. She only improves in spite of herself. The only progress\nwhich she desires is an increase of enjoyments. All advances in justice,\nin morality, in holiness, have been imposed upon or forced from her by\nsome noble violence. Sacrifice, which is the passion of great souls, has\nnever been the law of societies. It is too often by employing one vice\nagainst another--for example, vanity against cupidity, greed against\nidleness--that the great agitators have broken through routine. In a\nword, the human world is almost entirely directed by the law of nature,\nand the law of the spirit, which is the leaven of its coarse paste, has\nbut rarely succeeded in raising it into generous expansion.\n\nFrom the point of view of the ideal, humanity is _triste_ and ugly. But\nif we compare it with its probable origins, we see that the human race\nhas not altogether wasted its time. Hence there are three possible views\nof history: the view of the pessimist, who starts from the ideal; the\nview of the optimist, who compares the past with the present; and the\nview of the hero-worshiper, who sees that all progress whatever has cost\noceans of blood and tears.\n\nEuropean hypocrisy veils its face before the voluntary suicide of those\nIndian fanatics who throw themselves under the wheels of their goddess\u2019\ntriumphal car. And yet these sacrifices are but the symbol of what goes\non in Europe as elsewhere, of that offering of their life which is made\nby the martyrs of all great causes. We may even say that the fierce and\nsanguinary goddess is humanity itself, which is only spurred to progress\nby remorse, and repents only when the measure of its crimes runs over.\nThe fanatics who sacrifice themselves are an eternal protest against\nthe universal selfishness. We have only overthrown those idols which are\ntangible and visible, but perpetual sacrifice still exists everywhere,\nand everywhere the _\u00e9lite_ of each generation suffers for the salvation\nof the multitude. It is the austere, bitter, and mysterious law of\nsolidarity. Perdition and redemption in and through each other is the\ndestiny of men.\n\nMarch 18, 1869 (_Thursday_).--Whenever I come back from a walk outside\nthe town I am disgusted and repelled by this cell of mine. Out of doors,\nsunshine, birds, spring, beauty, and life; in here, ugliness, piles of\npaper, melancholy, and death. And yet my walk was one of the saddest\npossible. I wandered along the Rhone and the Arve, and all the memories\nof the past, all the disappointments of the present and all the\nanxieties of the future laid siege to my heart like a whirlwind of\nphantoms. I took account of my faults, and they ranged themselves in\nbattle against me. The vulture of regret gnawed at my heart, and the\nsense of the irreparable choked me like the iron collar of the pillory.\nIt seemed to me that I had failed in the task of life, and that now life\nwas failing me. Ah! how terrible spring is to the lonely! All the needs\nwhich had been lulled to sleep start into life again, all the sorrows\nwhich had disappeared are reborn, and the old man which had been gagged\nand conquered rises once more and makes his groans heard. It is as\nthough all the old wounds opened and bewailed themselves afresh. Just\nwhen one had ceased to think, when one had succeeded in deadening\nfeeling by work or by amusement, all of a sudden the heart, solitary\ncaptive that it is, sends a cry from its prison depths, a cry which\nshakes to its foundations the whole surrounding edifice.\n\nEven supposing that one had freed one\u2019s self from all other fatalities,\nthere is still one yoke left from which it is impossible to escape--that\nof Time. I have succeeded in avoiding all other servitudes, but I had\nreckoned without the last--the servitude of age. Age comes, and its\nweight is equal to that of all other oppressions taken together. Man,\nunder his mortal aspect, is but a species of ephemera.\n\nAs I looked at the banks of the Rhone, which have seen the river flowing\npast them some ten or twenty thousand years, or at the trees forming\nthe avenue of the cemetery, which, for two centuries, have been the\nwitnesses of so many funeral processions; as I recognized the walls,\nthe dykes, the paths, which saw me playing as a child, and watched other\nchildren running over that grassy plain of Plain Palais which bore my\nown childish steps--I had the sharpest sense of the emptiness of life\nand the flight of things. I felt the shadow of the upas tree darkening\nover me. I gazed into the great implacable abyss in which are swallowed\nup all those phantoms which call themselves living beings. I saw that\nthe living are but apparitions hovering for a moment over the earth,\nmade out of the ashes of the dead, and swiftly re-absorbed by eternal\nnight, as the will-o\u2019-the-wisp sinks into the marsh. The nothingness\nof our joys, the emptiness of our existence, and the futility of our\nambitions, filled me with a quiet disgust. From regret to disenchantment\nI floated on to Buddhism, to universal weariness. Ah, the hope of a\nblessed immortality would be better worth having!\n\nWith what different eyes one looks at life at ten, at twenty, at\nthirty, at sixty! Those who live alone are specially conscious of this\npsychological metamorphosis. Another thing, too, astonishes them; it\nis the universal conspiracy which exists for hiding the sadness of\nthe world, for making men forget suffering, sickness, and death, for\nsmothering the wails and sobs which issue from every house, for painting\nand beautifying the hideous face of reality. Is it out of tenderness for\nchildhood and youth, or is it simply from fear, that we are thus careful\nto veil the sinister truth? Or is it from a sense of equity? and does\nlife contain as much good as evil--perhaps more? However it may be, men\nfeed themselves rather upon illusion than upon truth. Each one unwinds\nhis own special reel of hope, and as soon as he has come to the end of\nit he sits him down to die, and lets his sons and his grandsons begin\nthe same experience over again. We all pursue happiness, and happiness\nescapes the pursuit of all.\n\nThe only _viaticum_ which can help us in the journey of life is\nthat furnished by a great duty and some serious affections. And even\naffections die, or at least their objects are mortal; a friend, a wife,\na child, a country, a church, may precede us in the tomb; duty alone\nlasts as long as we.\n\nThis maxim exorcises the spirits of revolt, of anger, discouragement,\nvengeance, indignation, and ambition, which rise one after another to\ntempt and trouble the heart, swelling with the sap of the spring. O all\nye saints of the East, of antiquity, of Christianity, phalanx of heroes!\nYe too drank deep of weariness and agony of soul, but ye triumphed over\nboth. Ye who have come forth victors from the strife, shelter us under\nyour palms, fortify us by your example!\n\nApril 6, 1869.--Magnificent weather. The Alps are dazzling under their\nsilver haze. Sensations of all kinds have been crowding upon me; the\ndelights of a walk under the rising sun, the charms of a wonderful view,\nlonging for travel, and thirst for joy, hunger for work, for emotion,\nfor life, dreams of happiness and of love. A passionate wish to live,\nto feel, to express, stirred the depths of my heart. It was a sudden\nre-awakening of youth, a flash of poetry, a renewing of the soul, a\nfresh growth of the wings of desire--I was overpowered by a host of\nconquering, vagabond, adventurous aspirations. I forgot my age, my\nobligations, my duties, my vexations, and youth leaped within me as\nthough life were beginning again. It was as though something explosive\nhad caught fire, and one\u2019s soul were scattered to the four winds;\nin such a mood one would fain devour the whole world, experience\neverything, see everything. Faust\u2019s ambition enters into one, universal\ndesire--a horror of one\u2019s own prison cell. One throws off one\u2019s hair\nshirt, and one would fain gather the whole of nature into one\u2019s arms and\nheart. O ye passions, a ray of sunshine is enough to rekindle you all!\nThe cold black mountain is a volcano once more, and melts its snowy\ncrown with one single gust of flaming breath. It is the spring which\nbrings about these sudden and improbable resurrections, the spring\nwhich, sending a thrill and tumult of life through all that lives,\nis the parent of impetuous desires, of overpowering inclinations, of\nunforeseen and inextinguishable outbursts of passion. It breaks\nthrough the rigid bark of the trees, and rends the mask on the face of\nasceticism; it makes the monk tremble in the shadow of his convent, the\nmaiden behind the curtains of her room, the child sitting on his school\nbench, the old man bowed under his rheumatism.\n\n  \u201cO Hymen, Hymenae!\u201d\n\nApril 24, 1869.--Is Nemesis indeed more real than Providence, the\njealous God more true than the good God? grief more certain than joy?\ndarkness more secure of victory than light? Is it pessimism or optimism\nwhich is nearest the truth, and which--Leibnitz or Schopenhauer--has\nbest understood the universe? Is it the healthy man or the sick man who\nsees best to the bottom of things? which is in the right?\n\nAh! the problem of grief and evil is and will be always the greatest\nenigma of being, only second to the existence of being itself. The\ncommon faith of humanity has assumed the victory of good over evil. But\nif good consists not in the result of victory, but in victory itself,\nthen good implies an incessant and infinite contest, interminable\nstruggle, and a success forever threatened. And if this is life, is not\nBuddha right in regarding life as synonymous with evil since it means\nperpetual restlessness and endless war? Repose according to the Buddhist\nis only to be found in annihilation. The art of self-annihilation, of\nescaping the world\u2019s vast machinery of suffering, and the misery of\nrenewed existence--the art of reaching Nirv\u00e2na, is to him the supreme\nart, the only means of deliverance. The Christian says to God: Deliver\nus from evil. The Buddhist adds: And to that end deliver us from finite\nexistence, give us back to nothingness! The first believes that when he\nis enfranchised from the body he will enter upon eternal happiness; the\nsecond believes that individuality is the obstacle to all repose, and he\nlongs for the dissolution of the soul itself. The dread of the first is\nthe paradise of the second.\n\nOne thing only is necessary--the committal of the soul to God. Look that\nthou thyself art in order, and leave to God the task of unraveling the\nskein of the world and of destiny. What do annihilation or immortality\nmatter? What is to be, will be. And what will be, will be for the best.\nFaith in good--perhaps the individual wants nothing more for his passage\nthrough life. Only he must have taken sides with Socrates, Plato,\nAristotle, and Zeno, against materialism, against the religion of\naccident and pessimism. Perhaps also he must make up his mind\nagainst the Buddhist nihilism, because a man\u2019s system of conduct is\ndiametrically opposite according as he labors to increase his life or\nto lessen it, according as he aims at cultivating his faculties or at\nsystematically deadening them.\n\nTo employ one\u2019s individual efforts for the increase of good in the\nworld--this modest ideal is enough for us. To help forward the victory\nof good has been the common aim of saints and sages. _Socii Dei sumus_\nwas the word of Seneca, who had it from Cleanthus.\n\nApril 30, 1869.--I have just finished Vacherot\u2019s [Footnote: Etienne\nVacherot, a French philosophical writer, who owed his first successes in\nlife to the friendship of Cousin, and was later brought very much into\nnotice by his controversy with the Abb\u00e9 Gratry, by the prosecution\nbrought against him in consequence of his book, \u201cLa D\u00e9mocratie\u201d (1859),\nand by his rejection at the hands of the Academy of Moral and Political\nSciences in 1865, for the same kind of reasons which had brought about\nthe exclusion of Littr\u00e9 in the preceding year. In 1868, however, he\nbecame a member of the Institute in succession to Cousin. A Liberal of\nthe old school, he has separated himself from the republicans since the\nwar, and has made himself felt as a severe critic of republican blunders\nin the _Revue des deux Mondes_. _La Religion_, which discusses the\npsychological origins of the religious sense, was published in 1868.]\nbook \u201cLa Religion,\u201d 1869, and it has set me thinking. I have a feeling\nthat his notion of religion is not rigorous and exact, and that\ntherefore his logic is subject to correction. If religion is a\npsychological stage, anterior to that of reason, it is clear that it\nwill disappear in man, but if, on the contrary, it is a mode of the\ninner life, it may and must last, as long as the need of feeling, and\nalongside the need of thinking. The question is between theism and\nnon-theism. If God is only the category of the ideal, religion will\nvanish, of course, like the illusions of youth. But if Universal Being\ncan be felt and loved at the same time as conceived, the philosopher may\nbe a religious man just as he may be an artist, an orator, or a citizen.\nHe may attach himself to a worship or ritual without derogation. I\nmyself incline to this solution. To me religion is life before God and\nin God.\n\nAnd even if God were defined as the universal life, so long as this life\nis positive and not negative, the soul penetrated with the sense of the\ninfinite is in the religious state. Religion differs from philosophy\nas the simple and spontaneous self differs from the reflecting self, as\nsynthetic intuition differs from intellectual analysis. We are initiated\ninto the religious state by a sense of voluntary dependence on, and\njoyful submission to the principle of order and of goodness. Religious\nemotion makes man conscious of himself; he finds his own place within\nthe infinite unity, and it is this perception which is sacred.\n\nBut in spite of these reservations I am much impressed by the book,\nwhich is a fine piece of work, ripe and serious in all respects.\n\nMay 13, 1869.--A break in the clouds, and through the blue interstices a\nbright sun throws flickering and uncertain rays. Storms, smiles, whims,\nanger, tears--it is May, and nature is in its feminine phase! She\npleases our fancy, stirs our heart, and wears out our reason by the\nendless succession of her caprices and the unexpected violence of her\nwhims.\n\nThis recalls to me the 213th verse of the second book of the Laws of\nManou. \u201cIt is in the nature of the feminine sex to seek here below to\ncorrupt men, and therefore wise men never abandon themselves to the\nseductions of women.\u201d The same code, however, says: \u201cWherever women are\nhonored the gods are satisfied.\u201d And again: \u201cIn every family where\nthe husband takes pleasure in his wife, and the wife in her husband,\nhappiness is ensured.\u201d And again: \u201cOne mother is more venerable than a\nthousand fathers.\u201d But knowing what stormy and irrational elements there\nare in this fragile and delightful creature, Manou concludes: \u201cAt no age\nought a woman to be allowed to govern herself as she pleases.\u201d\n\nUp to the present day, in several contemporary and neighboring codes,\na woman is a minor all her life. Why? Because of her dependence upon\nnature, and of her subjection to passions which are the diminutives\nof madness; in other words, because the soul of a woman has something\nobscure and mysterious in it, which lends itself to all superstitions\nand weakens the energies of man. To man belong law, justice, science,\nand philosophy, all that is disinterested, universal, and rational.\nWomen, on the contrary, introduce into everything favor, exception, and\npersonal prejudice. As soon as a man, a people, a literature, an epoch,\nbecome feminine in type, they sink in the scale of things. As soon as\na woman quits the state of subordination in which her merits have free\nplay, we see a rapid increase in her natural defects. Complete equality\nwith man makes her quarrelsome; a position of supremacy makes her\ntyrannical. To honor her and to govern her will be for a long time yet\nthe best solution. When education has formed strong, noble, and serious\nwomen in whom conscience and reason hold sway over the effervescence of\nfancy and sentimentality, then we shall be able not only to honor woman,\nbut to make a serious end of gaining her consent and adhesion. Then she\nwill be truly an equal, a work-fellow, a companion. At present she is so\nonly in theory. The moderns are at work upon the problem, and have not\nsolved it yet.\n\nJune 15, 1869.--The great defect of liberal Christianity [Footnote:\nAt this period the controversy between the orthodox party and \u201cLiberal\nChristianity\u201d was at its height, both in Geneva and throughout\nSwitzerland.] is that its conception of holiness is a frivolous one,\nor, what comes to the same thing, its conception of sin is a superficial\none. The defects of the baser sort of political liberalism recur in\nliberal Christianity; it is only half serious, and its theology is too\nmuch mixed with worldliness. The sincerely pious folk look upon the\nliberals as persons whose talk is rather profane, and who offend\nreligious feelings by making sacred subjects a theme for rhetorical\ndisplay. They shock the _convenances_ of sentiment, and affront the\ndelicacy of conscience by the indiscreet familiarities they take with\nthe great mysteries of the inner life. They seem to be mere clever\nspecial pleaders, religious rhetoricians like the Greek sophists, rather\nthan guides in the narrow road which leads to salvation.\n\nIt is not to the clever folk, nor even to the scientific folk, that\nthe empire over souls belongs, but to those who impress us as having\nconquered nature by grace, passed through the burning bush, and as\nspeaking, not the language of human wisdom, but that of the divine will.\nIn religious matters it is holiness which gives authority; it is love,\nor the power of devotion and sacrifice, which goes to the heart, which\nmoves and persuades.\n\nWhat all religious, poetical, pure, and tender souls are least able to\npardon is the diminution or degradation of their ideal. We must never\nrouse an ideal against us; our business is to point men to another\nideal, purer, higher, more spiritual than the old, and so to raise\nbehind a lofty summit one more lofty still. In this way no one is\ndespoiled; we gain men\u2019s confidence, while at the same time forcing\nthem to think, and enabling those minds which are already tending toward\nchange to perceive new objects and goals for thought. Only that which is\nreplaced is destroyed, and an ideal is only replaced by satisfying the\nconditions of the old with some advantages over.\n\nLet the liberal Protestants offer us a spectacle of Christian virtue of\na holier, intenser, and more intimate kind than before; let us see\nit active in their persons and in their influence, and they will have\nfurnished the proof demanded by the Master; the tree will be judged by\nits fruits.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nJune 22, 1869 (_Nine_ A. M).--Gray and lowering weather. A fly lies dead\nof cold on the page of my book, in full summer! What is life? I said to\nmyself, as I looked at the tiny dead creature. It is a loan, as movement\nis. The universal life is a sum total, of which the units are visible\nhere, there, and everywhere, just as an electric wheel throws off sparks\nalong its whole surface. Life passes through us; we do not possess it.\nHirn admits three ultimate principles: [Footnote: Gustave-Adolphe Hirn,\na French physicist, born near Colmar, 1815, became a corresponding\nmember of the Academy of Sciences in 1867. The book of his to which\nAmiel refers is no doubt _Cons\u00e9quences philosophiques at m\u00e9taphysiques\nde la thermodynamique, Analyse \u00e9l\u00e9mentaire de l\u2019univers_ (1869).] the\natom, the force, the soul; the force which acts upon atoms, the soul\nwhich acts upon force. Probably he distinguishes between anonymous souls\nand personal souls. Then my fly would be an anonymous soul.\n\n(_Same day_).--The national churches are all up in arms against\nso-called Liberal Christianity; Basle and Zurich began the fight, and\nnow Geneva has entered the lists too. Gradually it is becoming plain\nthat historical Protestantism has no longer a _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ between\npure liberty and pure authority. It is, in fact, a provisional stage,\nfounded on the worship of the Bible--that is to say, on the idea of\na written revelation, and of a book divinely inspired, and therefore\nauthoritative. When once this thesis has been relegated to the rank of\na fiction Protestantism crumbles away. There is nothing for it but\nto retire up on natural religion, or the religion of the moral\nconsciousness. M.M. R\u00e9ville, Conquerel, Fontanes, Buisson, [Footnote:\nThe name of M. Albert R\u00e9ville, the French Protestant theologian, is\nmore or less familiar in England, especially since his delivery of the\nHibbert lectures in 1884. Athanase Coquerel, born 1820, died 1876, the\nwell-known champion of liberal ideas in the French Protestant Church,\nwas suspended from his pastoral functions by the Consistory of Paris,\non account of his review of M. Renan\u2019s \u201cVie de J\u00e9sus\u201d in 1864.\nFerdinand-Edouard Buisson, a liberal Protestant, originally a professor\nat Lausanne, was raised to the important function of Director of Primary\nInstruction by M. Ferry in 1879. He was denounced by Bishop Dupanloup,\nin the National Assembly of 1871, as the author of certain liberal\npamphlets on the dangers connected with Scripture-teaching in schools,\nand, for the time, lost his employment under the Ministry of Education.]\naccept this logical outcome. They are the advance-guard of Protestantism\nand the laggards of free thought.\n\nTheir mistake is not seeing that all institutions rest upon a legal\nfiction, and that every living thing involves a logical absurdity. It\nmay be logical to demand a church based on free examination and absolute\nsincerity; but to realize it is a different matter. A church lives\nby what is positive, and this positive element necessarily limits\ninvestigation. People confound the right of the individual, which is\nto be free, with the duty of the institution, which is to be something.\nThey take the principle of science to be the same as the principle\nof the church, which is a mistake. They will not see that religion is\ndifferent from philosophy, and that the one seeks union by faith, while\nthe other upholds the solitary independence of thought. That the bread\nshould be good it must have leaven; but the leaven is not the bread.\nLiberty is the means whereby we arrive at an enlightened faith--granted;\nbut an assembly of people agreeing only upon this criterion and\nthis method could not possibly found a church, for they might differ\ncompletely as to the results of the method. Suppose a newspaper the\nwriters of which were of all possible parties--it would no doubt be a\ncuriosity in journalism, but it would have no opinions, no faith, no\ncreed. A drawing-room filled with refined people, carrying on polite\ndiscussion, is not a church, and a dispute, however courteous, is not\nworship. It is a mere confusion of kinds.\n\nJuly 13, 1869.--Lamennais, Heine--the one the victim of a mistaken\nvocation, the other of a tormenting craving to astonish and mystify his\nkind. The first was wanting in common sense; the second was wanting\nin seriousness. The Frenchman was violent, arbitrary, domineering; the\nGerman was a jesting Mephistopheles, with a horror of Philistinism.\nThe Breton was all passion and melancholy; the Hamburger all fancy and\nsatire. Neither developed freely nor normally. Both of them, because of\nan initial mistake, threw themselves into an endless quarrel with the\nworld. Both were revolutionists. They were not fighting for the good\ncause, for impersonal truth; both were rather the champions of their\nown pride. Both suffered greatly, and died isolated, repudiated, and\nreviled. Men of magnificent talents, both of them, but men of small\nwisdom, who did more harm than good to themselves and to others! It is\na lamentable existence which wears itself out in maintaining a first\nantagonism, or a first blunder. The greater a man\u2019s intellectual power,\nthe more dangerous is it for him to make a false start and to begin life\nbadly.\n\nJuly 20, 1869.--I have been reading over again five or six chapters,\nhere and there, of Renan\u2019s \u201cSt. Paul.\u201d Analyzed to the bottom, the\nwriter is a freethinker, but a free thinker whose flexible imagination\nstill allows him the delicate epicurism of religious emotion. In his\neyes the man who will not lend himself to these graceful fancies is\nvulgar, and the man who takes them seriously is prejudiced. He is\nentertained by the variations of conscience, but he is too clever to\nlaugh at them. The true critic neither concludes nor excludes; his\npleasure is to understand without believing, and to profit by\nthe results of enthusiasm, while still maintaining a free mind,\nunembarrassed by illusion. Such a mode of proceeding has a look of\ndishonesty; it is nothing, however, but the good-tempered irony of a\nhighly-cultivated mind, which will neither be ignorant of anything nor\nduped by anything. It is the dilettantism of the Renaissance in its\nperfection. At the same time what innumerable proofs of insight and of\nexultant scientific power!\n\nAugust 14, 1869.--In the name of heaven, who art thou? what wilt\nthou--wavering inconstant creature? What future lies before thee? What\nduty or what hope appeals to thee?\n\nMy longing, my search is for love, for peace, for something to fill my\nheart; an idea to defend; a work to which I might devote the rest of my\nstrength; an affection which might quench this inner thirst; a cause for\nwhich I might die with joy. But shall I ever find them? I long for\nall that is impossible and inaccessible: for true religion, serious\nsympathy, the ideal life; for paradise, immortality, holiness, faith,\ninspiration, and I know not what besides! What I really want is to die\nand to be born again, transformed myself, and in a different world.\nAnd I can neither stifle these aspirations nor deceive myself as to the\npossibility of satisfying them. I seem condemned to roll forever the\nrock of Sisyphus, and to feel that slow wearing away of the mind which\nbefalls the man whose vocation and destiny are in perpetual conflict.\n\u201cA Christian heart and a pagan head,\u201d like Jacobi; tenderness and\npride; width of mind and feebleness of will; the two men of St. Paul;\na seething chaos of contrasts, antinomies, and contradictions; humility\nand pride; childish simplicity and boundless mistrust; analysis and\nintuition; patience and irritability; kindness and dryness of heart;\ncarelessness and anxiety; enthusiasm and languor; indifference and\npassion; altogether a being incomprehensible and intolerable to myself\nand to others!\n\nThen from a state of conflict I fall back into the fluid, vague,\nindeterminate state, which feels all form to be a mere violence and\ndisfigurement. All ideas, principles, acquirements, and habits are\neffaced in me like the ripples on a wave, like the convolutions of a\ncloud. My personality has the least possible admixture of individuality.\nI am to the great majority of men what the circle is to rectilinear\nfigures; I am everywhere at home, because I have no particular and\nnominative self. Perhaps, on the whole, this defect has good in it.\nThough I am less of _a_ man, I am perhaps nearer to _the_ man; perhaps\nrather more _man_. There is less of the individual, but more of the\nspecies, in me. My nature, which is absolutely unsuited for practical\nlife, shows great aptitude for psychological study. It prevents me from\ntaking sides, but it allows me to understand all sides. It is not only\nindolence which prevents me from drawing conclusions; it is a sort of\na secret aversion to all _intellectual proscription_. I have a feeling\nthat something of everything is wanted to make a world, that all\ncitizens have a right in the state, and that if every opinion is equally\ninsignificant in itself, all opinions have some hold upon truth. To live\nand let live, think and let think, are maxims which are equally dear to\nme. My tendency is always to the whole, to the totality, to the general\nbalance of things. What is difficult to me is to exclude, to condemn,\nto say no; except, indeed, in the presence of the exclusive. I am always\nfighting for the absent, for the defeated cause, for that portion of\ntruth which seems to me neglected; my aim is to complete every thesis,\nto see round every problem, to study a thing from all its possible\nsides. Is this skepticism? Yes, in its result, but not in its purpose.\nIt is rather the sense of the absolute and the infinite reducing to\ntheir proper value and relegating to their proper place the finite and\nthe relative. But here, in the same way, my ambition is greater than my\npower; my philosophical perception is superior to my speculative gift.\nI have not the energy of my opinions; I have far greater width than\ninventiveness of thought, and, from timidity, I have allowed the\ncritical intelligence in me to swallow up the creative genius. Is it\nindeed from timidity?\n\nAlas! with a little more ambition, or a little more good luck, a\ndifferent man might have been made out of me, and such as my youth gave\npromise of.\n\nAugust 16, 1869.--I have been thinking over Schopenhauer. It has struck\nme and almost terrified me to see how well I represent Schopenhauer\u2019s\ntypical man, for whom \u201chappiness is a chimera and suffering a reality,\u201d\n for whom \u201cthe negation of will and of desire is the only road to\ndeliverance,\u201d and \u201cthe individual life is a misfortune from which\nimpersonal contemplation is the only enfranchisement,\u201d etc. But the\nprinciple that life is an evil and annihilation a good lies at the root\nof the system, and this axiom I have never dared to enunciate in any\ngeneral way, although I have admitted it here and there in individual\ncases. What I still like in the misanthrope of Frankfort, is his\nantipathy to current prejudice, to European hobbies, to western\nhypocrisies, to the successes of the day. Schopenhauer is a man of\npowerful mind, who has put away from him all illusions, who professes\nBuddhism in the full flow of modern Germany, and absolute detachment\nof mind In the very midst of the nineteenth-century orgie. His great\ndefects are barrenness of soul, a proud and perfect selfishness, an\nadoration of genius which is combined with complete indifference to\nthe rest of the world, in spite of all his teaching of resignation\nand sacrifice. He has no sympathy, no humanity, no love. And here I\nrecognize the unlikeness between us. Pure intelligence and solitary\nlabor might easily lead me to his point of view; but once appeal to the\nheart, and I feel the contemplative attitude untenable. Pity, goodness,\ncharity, and devotion reclaim their rights, and insist even upon the\nfirst place.\n\nAugust 29, 1869.--Schopenhauer preaches impersonality, objectivity, pure\ncontemplation, the negation of will, calmness, and disinterestedness, an\naesthetic study of the world, detachment from life, the renunciation of\nall desire, solitary meditation, disdain of the crowd, and indifference\nto all that the vulgar covet. He approves all my defects, my\nchildishness, my aversion to practical life, my antipathy to the\nutilitarians, my distrust of all desire. In a word, he flatters all my\ninstincts; he caresses and justifies them.\n\nThis pre-established harmony between the theory of Schopenhauer and my\nown natural man causes me pleasure mingled with terror. I might indulge\nmyself in the pleasure, but that I fear to delude and stifle conscience.\nBesides, I feel that goodness has no tolerance for this contemplative\nindifference, and that virtue consists in self-conquest.\n\nAugust 30, 1869.--Still some chapters of Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer\nbelieves in the unchangeableness of innate tendencies in the individual,\nand in the invariability of the primitive disposition. He refuses to\nbelieve in the new man, in any real progress toward perfection, or in\nany positive improvement in a human being. Only the appearances are\nrefined; there is no change below the surface. Perhaps he confuses\ntemperament, character, and individuality? I incline to think that\nindividuality is fatal and primitive, that temperament reaches far back,\nbut is alternable, and that character is more recent and susceptible\nof voluntary or involuntary modifications. Individuality is a matter of\npsychology, temperament, a matter of sensation or aesthetics; character\nalone is a matter of morals. Liberty and the use of it count for nothing\nin the first two elements of our being; character is a historical fruit,\nand the result of a man\u2019s biography. For Schopenhauer, character is\nidentified with temperament just as will with passion. In short, he\nsimplifies too much, and looks at man from that more elementary point\nof view which is only sufficient in the case of the animal. That\nspontaneity which is vital or merely chemical he already calls will.\nAnalogy is not equation; a comparison is not reason; similes and\nparables are not exact language. Many of Schopenhauer\u2019s originalities\nevaporate when we come to translate them into a more close and precise\nterminology.\n\n_Later_.--One has merely to turn over the \u201cLichtstrahlem\u201d of Herder to\nfeel the difference between him and Schopenhauer. The latter is full of\nmarked features and of observations which stand out from the page and\nleave a clear and vivid impression. Herder is much less of a writer; his\nideas are entangled in his style, and he has no brilliant condensations,\nno jewels, no crystals. While he proceeds by streams and sheets of\nthought which have no definite or individual outline, Schopenhauer\nbreaks the current of his speculation with islands, striking, original,\nand picturesque, which engrave themselves in the memory. It is the same\ndifference as there is between Nicole and Pascal, between Bayle and\nSatin-Simon.\n\nWhat is the faculty which gives relief, brilliancy, and incisiveness\nto thought? Imagination. Under its influence expression becomes\nconcentrated, colored, and strengthened, and by the power it has of\nindividualizing all it touches, it gives life and permanence to the\nmaterial on which it works. A writer of genius changes sand into glass\nand glass into crystal, ore into iron and iron into steel; he marks\nwith his own stamp every idea he gets hold of. He borrows much from\nthe common stock, and gives back nothing; but even his robberies are\nwillingly reckoned to him as private property. He has, as it were,\n_carte blanche_, and public opinion allows him to take what he will.\n\nAugust 31, 1869.--I have finished Schopenhauer. My mind has been a\ntumult of opposing systems--Stoicism, Quietism, Buddhism, Christianity.\nShall I never be at peace with myself? If impersonality is a good, why\nam I not consistent in the pursuit of it? and if it is a temptation, why\nreturn to it, after having judged and conquered it?\n\nIs happiness anything more than a conventional fiction? The deepest\nreason for my state of doubt is that the supreme end and aim of life\nseems to me a mere lure and deception. The individual is an eternal\ndupe, who never obtains what he seeks, and who is forever deceived by\nhope. My instinct is in harmony with the pessimism of Buddha and of\nSchopenhauer. It is a doubt which never leaves me even in my moments of\nreligious fervor. Nature is indeed for me a Ma\u00efa; and I look at her, as\nit were, with the eyes of an artist. My intelligence remains skeptical.\nWhat, then, do I believe in? I do not know. And what is it I hope for?\nIt would be difficult to say. Folly! I believe in goodness, and I hope\nthat good will prevail. Deep within this ironical and disappointed being\nof mine there is a child hidden--a frank, sad, simple creature,\nwho believes in the ideal, in love, in holiness, and all heavenly\nsuperstitions. A whole millennium of idylls sleeps in my heart; I am a\npseudo-skeptic, a pseudo-scoffer.\n\n  \u201cBorn\u00e9 dans sa nature, infini dans ses voeux,\n  L\u2019homme est un dieu tomb\u00e9 qui se souvient des cieux.\u201d\n\nOctober 14, 1869.--Yesterday, Wednesday, death of Sainte-Beuve. What a\nloss!\n\nOctober 16, 1869.--_Laboremus_ seems to have been the motto of\nSainte-Beuve, as it was that of Septimius Severus. He died in harness,\nand up to the evening before his last day he still wrote, overcoming the\nsufferings of the body by the energy of the mind. To-day, at this very\nmoment, they are laying him in the bosom of mother earth. He refused the\nsacraments of the church; he never belonged to any confession; he was\none of the \u201cgreat diocese\u201d--that of the independent seekers of truth,\nand he allowed himself no final moment of hypocrisy. He would have\nnothing to do with any one except God only--or rather the mysterious\nIsis beyond the veil. Being unmarried, he died in the arms of his\nsecretary. He was sixty-five years old. His power of work and of memory\nwas immense and intact. What is Scherer thinking about this life and\nthis death?\n\nOctober 19, 1869.--An admirable article by Edmond Scherer on\nSainte-Beuve in the _Temps_. He makes him the prince of French critics\nand the last representative of the epoch of literary taste, the future\nbelonging to the bookmakers and the chatterers, to mediocrity and to\nviolence. The article breathes a certain manly melancholy, befitting a\nfuneral oration over one who was a master in the things of the mind. The\nfact is, that Sainte-Beuve leaves a greater void behind him than either\nB\u00e9ranger or Lamartine; their greatness was already distant, historical;\nhe was still helping us to think. The true critic acts as a fulcrum for\nall the world. He represents the public judgment, that is to say the\npublic reason, the touchstone, the scales, the refining rod, which tests\nthe value of every one and the merit of every work. Infallibility of\njudgment is perhaps rarer than anything else, so fine a balance of\nqualities does it demand--qualities both natural and acquired, qualities\nof mind and heart. What years of labor, what study and comparison, are\nneeded to bring the critical judgment to maturity! Like Plato\u2019s sage,\nit is only at fifty that the critic rises to the true height of his\nliterary priesthood, or, to put it less pompously, of his social\nfunction. By then only can he hope for insight into all the modes of\nbeing, and for mastery of all possible shades of appreciation. And\nSainte-Beuve joined to this infinitely refined culture a prodigious\nmemory, and an incredible multitude of facts and anecdotes stored up for\nthe service of his thought.\n\nDecember 8, 1869.--Everything has chilled me this morning; the cold of\nthe season, the physical immobility around me, but, above all, Hartman\u2019s\n\u201cPhilosophy of the Unconscious.\u201d This book lays down the terrible thesis\nthat creation is a mistake; being, such as it is, is not as good as\nnon-being, and death is better than life.\n\nI felt the same mournful impression that Obermann left upon me in my\nyouth. The black melancholy of Buddhism encompassed and overshadowed\nme. If, in fact, it is only illusion which hides from us the horror of\nexistence and makes life tolerable to us, then existence is a snare and\nlife an evil. Like the Greek Annikeris, we ought to counsel suicide, or\nrather with Buddha and Schopenhauer we ought to labor for the radical\nextirpation of hope and desire--the causes of life and resurrection.\n_Not_ to rise again; there is the point, and there is the difficulty.\nDeath is simply a beginning again, whereas it is annihilation that\nwe have to aim at. Personal consciousness being the root of all our\ntroubles, we ought to avoid the temptation to it and the possibility\nof it as diabolical and abominable. What blasphemy! And yet it is all\nlogical; it is the philosophy of happiness carried to its farthest\npoint. Epicurism must end in despair. The philosophy of duty is\nless depressing. But salvation lies in the conciliation of duty and\nhappiness, in the union of the individual will with the divine will, and\nin the faith that this supreme will is directed by love.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is as true that real happiness is good, as that the good become\nbetter under the purification of trial. Those who have not suffered\nare still wanting in depth; but a man who has not got happiness cannot\nimpart it. We can only give what we have. Happiness, grief, gayety,\nsadness, are by nature contagious. Bring your health and your strength\nto the weak and sickly, and so you will be of use to them. Give them,\nnot your weakness, but your energy, so you will revive and lift them\nup. Life alone can rekindle life. What others claim from us is not our\nthirst and our hunger, but our bread and our gourd.\n\nThe benefactors of humanity are those who have thought great thoughts\nabout her; but her masters and her idols are those who have flattered\nand despised her, those who have muzzled and massacred her, inflamed her\nwith fanaticism or used her for selfish purposes. Her benefactors are\nthe poets, the artists, the inventors, the apostles and all pure hearts.\nHer masters are the Caesars, the Constantines, the Gregory VII.\u2019s, the\nInnocent III.\u2019s, the Borgias, the Napoleons.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEvery civilization is, as it were, a dream of a thousand years, in\nwhich heaven and earth, nature and history, appear to men illumined\nby fantastic light and representing a drama which is nothing but a\nprojection of the soul itself, influenced by some intoxication--I was\ngoing to say hallucination--or other. Those who are widest awake still\nsee the real world across the dominant illusion of their race or time.\nAnd the reason is that the deceiving light starts from our own mind: the\nlight is our religion. Everything changes with it. It is religion which\ngives to our kaleidoscope, if not the material of the figures, at least\ntheir color, their light and shade, and general aspect. Every religion\nmakes men see the world and humanity under a special light; it is a mode\nof apperception, which can only be scientifically handled when we have\ncast it aside, and can only be judged when we have replaced it by a\nbetter.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFebruary 23, 1870.--There is in man an instinct of revolt, an enemy of\nall law, a rebel which will stoop to no yoke, not even that of reason,\nduty, and wisdom. This element in us is the root of all sin--_das\nradicale B\u00f6se_ of Kant. The independence which is the condition\nof individuality is at the same time the eternal temptation of the\nindividual. That which makes us beings makes us also sinners.\n\nSin is, then, in our very marrow. It circulates in us like the blood in\nour veins, it is mingled with all our substance, [Footnote: This is\none of the passages which rouses M. Renan\u2019s wonder: \u201cVoila la grande\ndifference,\u201d he writes, \u201centre l\u2019\u00e9ducation catholique et l\u2019\u00e9ducation\nprotestante. Ceux qui comme moi ont re\u00e7u une \u00e9ducation catholique en ont\ngard\u00e9 de profonds vestiges. Mais ces vestiges ne sont pas des dogmes, ce\nsont des r\u00eaves. Une fois ce grand rideau de drap d\u2019or, bariol\u00e9 de soie,\nd\u2019indienne et de calicot, par lequel le catholicisme nous masque la vue\ndu monde, une fois, dis-je ce rideau d\u00e9chir\u00e9, on voit l\u2019univers en\nsa splendeur infinie, la nature en sa haute et pleine majest\u00e9. Le\nprotestant le plus libre garde souvent quelque chose de triste, un fond\nd\u2019aust\u00e9rit\u00e9 intellectuelle analogue au pessimisme slave.\u201d--(_Journal des\nD\u00e9bats_, September 30, 1884).\n\nOne is reminded of Mr. Morley\u2019s criticism of Emerson. Emerson, he points\nout, has almost nothing to say of death, and \u201clittle to say of that\nhorrid burden and impediment on the soul which the churches call sin,\nand which, by whatever name we call it, is a very real catastrophe\nin the moral nature of man--the courses of nature, and the prodigious\ninjustices of mail in society affect him with neither horror nor awe. He\nwill see no monster if he can help it.\u201d\n\nHere, then, we have the eternal difference between the two orders of\ntemperament--the men whose overflowing energy forbids them to\nrealize the ever-recurring defeat of the human spirit at the hands of\ncircumstance, like Renan and Emerson, and the men for whom \u201chorror and\nawe\u201d are interwoven with experience, like Amiel.] Or rather I am wrong:\ntemptation is our natural state, but sin is not necessary. Sin consists\nin the voluntary confusion of the independence which is good with the\nindependence which is bad; it is caused by the half-indulgence granted\nto a first sophism. We shut our eyes to the beginnings of evil because\nthey are small, and in this weakness is contained the germ of our\ndefeat. _Principiis obsta_--this maxim dutifully followed would preserve\nus from almost all our catastrophes.\n\nWe will have no other master but our caprice--that is to say, our evil\nself will have no God, and the foundation of our nature is seditious,\nimpious, insolent, refractory, opposed to, and contemptuous of all that\ntries to rule it, and therefore contrary to order, ungovernable and\nnegative. It is this foundation which Christianity calls the natural\nman. But the savage which is within us, and constitutes the primitive\nstuff of us, must be disciplined and civilized in order to produce a\nman. And the man must be patiently cultivated to produce a wise man, and\nthe wise man must be tested and tried if he is to become righteous.\nAnd the righteous man must have substituted the will of God for his\nindividual will, if he is to become a saint. And this new man, this\nregenerate being, is the spiritual man, the heavenly man, of which\nthe Vedas speak as well as the gospel, and the Magi as well as the\nNeo-Platonists.\n\nMarch 17, 1870.--This morning the music of a brass band which had\nstopped under my windows moved me almost to tears. It exercised an\nindefinable, nostalgic power over me; it set me dreaming of another\nworld, of infinite passion and supreme happiness. Such impressions are\nthe echoes of paradise in the soul; memories of ideal spheres, whose\nsad sweetness ravishes and intoxicates the heart. O Plato! O Pythagoras!\nages ago you heard these harmonies--surprised these moments of inward\necstacy--knew these divine transports! If music thus carries us\nto heaven, it is because music is harmony, harmony is perfection,\nperfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven. This world of quarrels\nand bitterness, of selfishness, ugliness, and misery, makes us long\ninvoluntarily for the eternal peace, for the adoration which has no\nlimits, and the love which has no end. It is not so much the infinite\nas the beautiful that we yearn for. It is not being, or the limits of\nbeing, which weigh upon us; it is evil, in us and without us. It is not\nall necessary to be great, so long as we are in harmony with the order\nof the universe. Moral ambition has no pride; it only desires to fill\nits place, and make its note duly heard in the universal concert of the\nGod of love.\n\nMarch 30, 1870.--Certainly, nature is unjust and shameless, without\nprobity, and without faith. Her only alternatives are gratuitous favor\nor mad aversion, and her only way of redressing an injustice is to\ncommit another. The happiness of the few is expiated by the misery of\nthe greater number. It is useless to accuse a blind force.\n\nThe human conscience, however, revolts against this law of nature, and\nto satisfy its own instinct of justice it has imagined two hypotheses,\nout of which it has made for itself a religion--the idea of an\nindividual providence, and the hypothesis of another life.\n\nIn these we have a protest against nature, which is thus declared\nimmoral and scandalous to the moral sense. Man believes in good, and\nthat he may ground himself on justice he maintains that the injustice\nall around him is but an appearance, a mystery, a cheat, and that\njustice _will_ be done. _Fiat justitia, pereal mundus!_\n\nIt is a great act of faith. And since humanity has not made itself,\nthis protest has some chance of expressing a truth. If there is conflict\nbetween the natural world and the moral world, between reality and\nconscience, conscience must be right.\n\nIt is by no means necessary that the universe should exist, but it is\nnecessary that justice should be done, and atheism is bound to explain\nthe fixed obstinacy of conscience on this point. Nature is not just; we\nare the products of nature: why are we always claiming and prophesying\njustice? why does the effect rise up against its cause? It is a singular\nphenomenon. Does the protest come from any puerile blindness of human\nvanity? No, it is the deepest cry of our being, and it is for the honor\nof God that the cry is uttered. Heaven and earth may pass away, but good\n_ought_ to be, and injustice ought _not_ to be. Such is the creed of the\nhuman race. Nature will be conquered by spirit; the eternal will triumph\nover time.\n\nApril 1, 1870.--I am inclined to believe that for a woman love is the\nsupreme authority--that which judges the rest and decides what is good\nor evil. For a man, love is subordinate to right. It is a great passion,\nbut it is not the source of order, the synonym of reason, the criterion\nof excellence. It would seem, then, that a woman places her ideal in the\nperfection of love, and a man in the perfection of justice. It was in\nthis sense that St. Paul was able to say, \u201cThe woman is the glory of\nthe man, and the man is the glory of God.\u201d Thus the woman who absorbs\nherself in the object of her love is, so to speak, in the line of\nnature; she is truly woman, she realizes her fundamental type. On the\ncontrary, the man who should make life consist in conjugal adoration,\nand who should imagine that he has lived sufficiently when he has made\nhimself the priest of a beloved woman, such a one is but half a man;\nhe is despised by the world, and perhaps secretly disdained by\nwomen themselves. The woman who loves truly seeks to merge her own\nindividuality in that of the man she loves. She desires that her love\nshould make him greater, stronger, more masculine, and more active. Thus\neach sex plays its appointed part: the woman is first destined for man,\nand man is destined for society. Woman owes herself to one, man owes\nhimself to all; and each obtains peace and happiness only when he or she\nhas recognized this law and accepted this balance of things. The same\nthing may be a good in the woman and an evil in the man, may be strength\nin her, weakness in him.\n\nThere is then a feminine and a masculine morality--preparatory chapters,\nas it were, to a general human morality. Below the virtue which is\nevangelical and sexless, there is a virtue of sex. And this virtue of\nsex is the occasion of mutual teaching, for each of the two incarnations\nof virtue makes it its business to convert the other, the first\npreaching love in the ears of justice, the second justice in the ears\nof love. And so there is produced an oscillation and an average which\nrepresent a social state, an epoch, sometimes a whole civilization.\n\nSuch at least is our European idea of the harmony of the sexes in a\ngraduated order of functions. America is on the road to revolutionize\nthis ideal by the introduction of the democratic principle of the\nequality of individuals in a general equality of functions. Only, when\nthere is nothing left but a multitude of equal individualities,\nneither young nor old, neither men nor women, neither benefited nor\nbenefactors--all social difference will turn upon money. The whole\nhierarchy will rest upon the dollar, and the most brutal, the most\nhideous, the most inhuman of inequalities will be the fruit of the\npassion for equality. What a result! Plutolatry--the worship of wealth,\nthe madness of gold--to it will be confided the task of chastising a\nfalse principle and its followers. And plutocracy will be in its turn\nexecuted by equality. It would be a strange end for it, if Anglo-Saxon\nindividualism were ultimately swallowed up in Latin socialism.\n\nIt is my prayer that the discovery of an equilibrium between the two\nprinciples may be made in time, before the social war, with all its\nterror and ruin, overtakes us. But it is scarcely likely. The masses\nare always ignorant and limited, and only advance by a succession of\ncontrary errors. They reach good only by the exhaustion of evil. They\ndiscover the way out, only after having run their heads against all\nother possible issues.\n\nApril 15, 1870.--_Crucifixion!_ That is the word we have to meditate\nto-day. Is it not Good Friday?\n\nTo curse grief is easier than to bless it, but to do so is to fall back\ninto the point of view of the earthly, the carnal, the natural man.\nBy what has Christianity subdued the world if not by the apotheosis of\ngrief, by its marvelous transmutation of suffering into triumph, of the\ncrown of thorns into the crown of glory, and of a gibbet into a symbol\nof salvation? What does the apotheosis of the Cross mean, if not the\ndeath of death, the defeat of sin, the beatification of martyrdom, the\nraising to the skies of voluntary sacrifice, the defiance of pain?\n\u201cO Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?\u201d By long\nbrooding over this theme--the agony of the just, peace in the midst\nof agony, and the heavenly beauty of such peace--humanity came to\nunderstand that a new religion was born--a new mode, that is to say, of\nexplaining life and of understanding suffering.\n\nSuffering was a curse from which man fled; now it becomes a purification\nof the soul, a sacred trial sent by eternal love, a divine dispensation\nmeant to sanctify and ennoble us, an acceptable aid to faith, a strange\ninitiation into happiness. O power of belief! All remains the same, and\nyet all is changed. A new certitude arises to deny the apparent and\nthe tangible; it pierces through the mystery of things, it places an\ninvisible Father behind visible nature, it shows us joy shining through\ntears, and makes of pain the beginning of joy.\n\nAnd so, for those who have believed, the tomb becomes heaven, and on\nthe funeral pyre of life they sing the hosanna of immortality; a sacred\nmadness has renewed the face of the world for them, and when they wish\nto explain what they feel, their ecstasy makes them incomprehensible;\nthey speak with tongues. A wild intoxication of self-sacrifice, contempt\nfor death, the thirst for eternity, the delirium of love--these are\nwhat the unalterable gentleness of the Crucified has had power to bring\nforth. By his pardon of his executioners, and by that unconquerable\nsense in him of an indissoluble union with God, Jesus, on his cross,\nkindled an inextinguishable fire and revolutionized the world. He\nproclaimed and realized salvation by faith in the infinite mercy, and in\nthe pardon granted to simple repentance. By his saying, \u201cThere is more\njoy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine\njust persons who need no repentance,\u201d he made humility the gate of\nentrance into paradise.\n\nCrucify the rebellious self, mortify yourself wholly, give up all to\nGod, and the peace which is not of this world will descend upon you.\nFor eighteen centuries no grander word has been spoken; and although\nhumanity is forever seeking after a more exact and complete application\nof justice, yet her secret faith is not in justice but in pardon, for\npardon alone conciliates the spotless purity of perfection with the\ninfinite pity due to weakness--that is to say, it alone preserves and\ndefends the Idea of holiness, while it allows full scope to that of\nlove. The gospel proclaims the ineffable consolation, the good\nnews, which disarms all earthly griefs, and robs even death of its\nterrors--the news of irrevocable pardon, that is to say, of eternal\nlife. The Cross is the guarantee of the gospel.\n\nTherefore it has been its standard.\n\nMay 7, 1870.--The faith which clings to its idols and resists all\ninnovation is a retarding and conservative force; but it is the property\nof all religion to serve as a curb to our lawless passion for freedom,\nand to steady and quiet our restlessness of temper. Curiosity is the\nexpansive force, which, if it were allowed an unchecked action upon\nus, would disperse and volatilize us; belief represents the force of\ngravitation and cohesion which makes separate bodies and individuals of\nus. Society lives by faith, develops by science. Its basis then is the\nmysterious, the unknown, the intangible--religion--while the fermenting\nprinciple in it is the desire of knowledge. Its permanent substance is\nthe uncomprehended or the divine; its changing form is the result of its\nintellectual labor. The unconscious adhesions, the confused intuitions,\nthe obscure presentiments, which decide the first faith of a people, are\nthen of capital importance in its history. All history moves between the\nreligion which is the genial instinctive and fundamental philosophy of\na race, and the philosophy which is the ultimate religion--the clear\nperception, that is to say, of those principles which have engendered\nthe whole spiritual development of humanity.\n\nIt is always the same thing which is, which was, and which will be; but\nthis thing--the absolute--betrays with more or less transparency and\nprofundity the law of its life and of its metamorphoses. In its fixed\naspect it is called God; in its mobile aspect the world or nature. God\nis present in nature, but nature is not God; there is a nature in\nGod, but it is not God himself. I am neither for immanence nor for\ntranscendence taken alone.\n\nMay 9, 1870.--Disraeli, in his new novel, \u201cLothair,\u201d shows that the two\ngreat forces of the present are Revolution and Catholicism, and that\nthe free nations are lost if either of these two forces triumphs. It is\nexactly my own idea. Only, while in France, in Belgium, in Italy, and\nin all Catholic societies, it is only by checking one of these forces\nby the other that the state and civilization can be maintained, the\nProtestant countries are better off; in them there is a third force,\na middle faith between the two other idolatries, which enables them to\nregard liberty not as a neutralization of two contraries, but as a moral\nreality, self-subsistent, and possessing its own center of gravity and\nmotive force. In the Catholic world religion and liberty exclude each\nother. In the Protestant world they accept each other, so that in the\nsecond case there is a smaller waste of force.\n\nLiberty is the lay, the philosophical principle. It expresses the\njuridical and social aspiration of the race. But as there is no society\npossible without regulation, without control, without limitations on\nindividual liberty, above all without moral limitations, the\npeoples which are legally the freest do well to take their religious\nconsciousness for check and ballast. In mixed states, Catholic or\nfree-thinking, the limit of action, being a merely penal one, invites\nincessant contravention.\n\nThe puerility of the freethinkers consists in believing that a free\nsociety can maintain itself and keep itself together without a common\nfaith, without a religious prejudice of some kind. Where lies the will\nof God? Is it the common reason which expresses it, or rather, are a\nclergy or a church the depositories of it? So long as the response\nis ambiguous and equivocal in the eyes of half or the majority of\nconsciences--and this is the case in all Catholic states--public peace\nis impossible, and public law is insecure. If there is a God, we must\nhave him on our side, and if there is not a God, it would be necessary\nfirst of all to convert everybody to the same idea of the lawful and the\nuseful, to reconstitute, that is to say, a lay religion, before anything\npolitically solid could be built.\n\nLiberalism is merely feeding upon abstractions, when it persuades itself\nthat liberty is possible without free individuals, and when it will not\nrecognize that liberty in the individual is the fruit of a foregoing\neducation, a moral education, which presupposes a liberating religion.\nTo preach liberalism to a population jesuitized by education, is to\npress the pleasures of dancing upon a man who has lost a leg. How is\nit possible for a child who has never been out of swaddling clothes\nto walk? How can the abdication of individual conscience lead to the\ngovernment of individual conscience? To be free, is to guide one\u2019s self,\nto have attained one\u2019s majority, to be emancipated, master of one\u2019s\nactions, and judge of good and evil; but ultramontane Catholicism never\nemancipates its disciples, who are bound to admit, to believe, and to\nobey, as they are told, because they are minors in perpetuity, and the\nclergy alone possess the law of right, the secret of justice, and the\nmeasure of truth. This is what men are landed in by the idea of an\nexterior revelation, cleverly made use of by a patient priesthood.\n\nBut what astonishes me is the short-sight of the statesmen of the south,\nwho do not see that the question of questions is the religious\nquestion, and even now do not recognize that a liberal state is\nwholly incompatible with an anti-liberal religion, and almost equally\nincompatible with the absence of religion. They confound accidental\nconquests and precarious progress with lasting results.\n\nThere is some probability that all this noise which is made nowadays\nabout liberty may end in the suppression of liberty; it is plain that\nthe internationals, the irreconcilables, and the ultramontanes, are, all\nthree of them, aiming at absolutism, at dictatorial omnipotence. Happily\nthey are not one but many, and it will not be difficult to turn them\nagainst each other.\n\nIf liberty is to be saved, it will not be by the doubters, the men of\nscience, or the materialists; it will be by religious conviction, by the\nfaith of individuals who believe that God wills man to be free but also\npure; it will be by the seekers after holiness, by those old-fashioned\npious persons who speak of immortality and eternal life, and prefer the\nsoul to the whole world; it will be by the enfranchised children of the\nancient faith of the human race.\n\nJune 5, 1870.--The efficacy of religion lies precisely in that which\nis not rational, philosophic, nor external; its efficacy lies in the\nunforeseen, the miraculous, the extraordinary. Thus religion attracts\nmore devotion in proportion as it demands more faith--that is to say, as\nit becomes more incredible to the profane mind. The philosopher aspires\nto explain away all mysteries, to dissolve them into light. It is\nmystery, on the other hand, which the religious instinct demands and\npursues; it is mystery which constitutes the essence of worship, the\npower of proselytism. When the cross became the \u201cfoolishness\u201d of the\ncross, it took possession of the masses. And in our own day, those who\nwish to get rid of the supernatural, to enlighten religion, to economize\nfaith, find themselves deserted, like poets who should declaim against\npoetry, or women who should decry love. Faith consists in the acceptance\nof the incomprehensible, and even in the pursuit of the impossible,\nand is self-intoxicated with its own sacrifices, its own repeated\nextravagances.\n\nIt is the forgetfulness of this psychological law which stultifies\nthe so-called liberal Christianity. It is the realization of it which\nconstitutes the strength of Catholicism.\n\nApparently no positive religion can survive the supernatural element\nwhich is the reason for its existence. Natural religion seems to be the\ntomb of all historic cults. All concrete religions die eventually in the\npure air of philosophy. So long then as the life of nations is in need\nof religion as a motive and sanction of morality, as food for faith,\nhope, and charity, so long will the masses turn away from pure reason\nand naked truth, so long will they adore mystery, so long--and rightly\nso--will they rest in faith, the only region where the ideal presents\nitself to them in an attractive form.\n\nJune 9, 1870.--At bottom, everything depends upon the presence or\nabsence of one single element in the soul--hope. All the activity of\nman, all his efforts and all his enterprises, presuppose a hope in\nhim of attaining an end. Once kill this hope and his movements become\nsenseless, spasmodic, and convulsive, like those of some one falling\nfrom a height. To struggle with the inevitable has something childish\nin it. To implore the law of gravitation to suspend its action would no\ndoubt be a grotesque prayer. Very well! but when a man loses faith in\nthe efficacy of his efforts, when he says to himself, \u201cYou are incapable\nof realizing your ideal; happiness is a chimera, progress is an\nillusion, the passion for perfection is a snare; and supposing all your\nambitions were gratified, everything would still be vanity,\u201d then he\ncomes to see that a little blindness is necessary if life is to be\ncarried on, and that illusion is the universal spring of movement.\nComplete disillusion would mean absolute immobility. He who has\ndeciphered the secret and read the riddle of finite life escapes from\nthe great wheel of existence; he has left the world of the living--he\nis already dead. Is this the meaning of the old belief that to raise the\nveil of Isis or to behold God face to face brought destruction upon the\nrash mortal who attempted it? Egypt and Judea had recorded the fact,\nBuddha gave the key to it; the individual life is a nothing ignorant\nof itself, and as soon as this nothing knows itself, individual life\nis abolished in principle. For as soon as the illusion vanishes,\nNothingness resumes its eternal sway, the suffering of life is over,\nerror has disappeared, time and form have ceased to be for this\nenfranchised individuality; the colored air-bubble has burst in the\ninfinite space, and the misery of thought has sunk to rest in the\nchangeless repose of all-embracing Nothing. The absolute, if it were\nspirit, would still be activity, and it is activity, the daughter of\ndesire, which is incompatible with the absolute. The absolute, then,\nmust be the zero of all determination, and the only manner of being\nsuited to it is Non-being.\n\nJuly 2, 1870.--One of the vices of France is the frivolity which\nsubstitutes public conventions for truth, and absolutely ignores\npersonal dignity and the majesty of conscience. The French are ignorant\nof the A B C of individual liberty, and still show an essentially\ncatholic intolerance toward the ideas which have not attained\nuniversality or the adhesion of the majority. The nation is an army\nwhich can bring to bear mass, number, and force, but not an assembly of\nfree men in which each individual depends for his value on himself.\nThe eminent Frenchman depends upon others for his value; if he\npossess stripe, cross, scarf, sword, or robe--in a word, function\nand decoration--then he is held to be something, and he feels himself\nsomebody. It is the symbol which establishes his merit, it is the public\nwhich raises him from nothing, as the sultan creates his viziers.\nThese highly-trained and social races have an antipathy for individual\nindependence; everything with them must be founded upon authority\nmilitary, civil, or religious, and God himself is non-existent until he\nhas been established by decree. Their fundamental dogma is that social\nomnipotence which treats the pretension of truth to be true without any\nofficial stamp, as a mere usurpation and sacrilege, and scouts the claim\nof the individual to possess either a separate conviction or a personal\nvalue.\n\nJuly 20, 1870 (_Bellalpe_).--A marvelous day. The panorama before me\nis of a grandiose splendor; it is a symphony of mountains, a cantata of\nsunny Alps.\n\nI am dazzled and oppressed by it. The feeling uppermost is one of\ndelight in being able to admire, of joy, that is to say, in a recovered\npower of contemplation which is the result of physical relief, in being\nable at last to forget myself and surrender myself to things, as befits\na man in my state of health. Gratitude is mingled with enthusiasm.\nI have just spent two hours of continuous delight at the foot of the\nSparrenhorn, the peak behind us. A flood of sensations overpowered me. I\ncould only look, feel, dream, and think.\n\n_Later_.--Ascent of the Sparrenhorn. The peak of it is not very easy to\nclimb, because of the masses of loose stones and the steepness of the\npath, which runs between two abysses. But how great is one\u2019s reward!\n\nThe view embraces the whole series of the Valais Alps from the Furka to\nthe Combin; and even beyond the Furka one sees a few peaks of the Ticino\nand the Rhaetian Alps; while if you turn you see behind you a whole\npolar world of snowfields and glaciers forming the southern side of\nthe enormous Bernese group of the Finsteraarahorn, the M\u00f6nch, and the\nJungfrau. The near representative of the group is the Aletschhorn,\nwhence diverge like so many ribbons the different Aletsch glaciers which\nwind about the peak from which I saw them. I could study the different\nzones, one above another--fields, woods, grassy Alps, bare rock and\nsnow, and the principle types of mountain; the pagoda-shaped Mischabel,\nwith its four _ar\u00eates_ as flying buttresses and its staff of nine\nclustered peaks; the cupola of the Fletchhorn, the dome of Monte Rosa,\nthe pyramid of the Weisshorn, the obelisk of the Cervin.\n\nBound me fluttered a multitude of butterflies and brilliant green-backed\nflies; but nothing grew except a few lichens. The deadness and emptiness\nof the upper Aletsch glacier, like some vast white street, called up the\nimage of an icy Pompeii. All around boundless silence. On my way back\nI noticed some effects of sunshine--the close elastic mountain grass,\nstarred with gentian, forget-me-not, and anemones, the mountain cattle\nstanding out against the sky, the rocks just piercing the soil, various\ncircular dips in the mountain side, stone waves petrified thousands of\nthousands of years ago, the undulating ground, the tender quiet of the\nevening; and I invoked the soul of the mountains and the spirit of the\nheights!\n\nJuly 22, 1870 (_Bellalpe_).--The sky, which was misty and overcast this\nmorning, has become perfectly blue again, and the giants of the Valais\nare bathed in tranquil light.\n\nWhence this solemn melancholy which oppresses and pursues me? I\nhave just read a series of scientific books (Bronn on the \u201cLaws of\nPalaeontology,\u201d Karl Ritter on the \u201cLaw of Geographical Forms\u201d). Are\nthey the cause of this depression? or is it the majesty of this immense\nlandscape, the splendor of this setting sun, which brings the tears to\nmy eyes?\n\n  \u201cCr\u00e9ature d\u2019un jour qui t\u2019agites une heure,\u201d\n\nwhat weighs upon thee--I know it well--is the sense of thine utter\nnothingness!... The names of great men hover before my eyes like a\nsecret reproach, and this grand impassive nature tells me that to-morrow\nI shall have disappeared, butterfly that I am, without having lived. Or\nperhaps it is the breath of eternal things which stirs in me the shudder\nof Job. What is man--this weed which a sunbeam withers? What is our\nlife in the infinite abyss? I feel a sort of sacred terror, not only for\nmyself, but for my race, for all that is mortal. Like Buddha, I feel\nthe great wheel turning--the wheel of universal illusion--and the dumb\nstupor which enwraps me is full of anguish. Isis lilts the corner of\nher veil, and he who perceives the great mystery beneath is struck with\ngiddiness. I can scarcely breathe. It seems to me that I am hanging by a\nthread above the fathomless abyss of destiny. Is this the Infinite face\nto face, an intuition of the last great death?\n\n  \u201cCr\u00e9ature d\u2019un jour qui t\u2019agites une heure,\n  Ton \u00e2me est immortelle et tes pleurs vont finir.\u201d\n\n_Finir?_ When depths of ineffable desire are opening in the heart,\nas vast, as yawning as the immensity which surrounds us? Genius,\nself-devotion, love--all these cravings quicken into life and torture me\nat once. Like the shipwrecked sailor about to sink under the waves, I am\nconscious of a mad clinging to life, and at the same time of a rush of\ndespair and repentance, which forces from me a cry for pardon. And then\nall this hidden agony dissolves in wearied submission. \u201cResign yourself\nto the inevitable! Shroud away out of sight the flattering delusions\nof youth! Live and die in the shade! Like the insects humming in the\ndarkness, offer up your evening prayer. Be content to fade out of life\nwithout a murmur whenever the Master of life shall breathe upon your\ntiny flame! It is out of myriads of unknown lives that every clod of\nearth is built up. The infusoria do not count until they are millions\nupon millions. Accept your nothingness.\u201d Amen!\n\nBut there is no peace except in order, in law. Am I in order? Alas, no!\nMy changeable and restless nature will torment me to the end. I shall\nnever see plainly what I ought to do. The love of the better will have\nstood between me and the good. Yearning for the ideal will have lost me\nreality. Vague aspiration and undefined desire will have been enough\nto make my talents useless, and to neutralize my powers. Unproductive\nnature that I am, tortured by the belief that production was required of\nme, may not my very remorse be a mistake and a superfluity?\n\nScherer\u2019s phrase comes back to me, \u201cWe must accept ourselves as we are.\u201d\n\nSeptember 8, 1870 (_Zurich_).--All the exiles are returning to\nParis--Edgar Quinet, Louis Blanc, Victor Hugo. By the help of their\nunited experience will they succeed in maintaining the republic? It\nis to be hoped so. But the past makes it lawful to doubt. While\nthe republic is in reality a fruit, the French look upon it as a\nseed-sowing. Elsewhere such a form of government presupposes free men;\nin France it is and must be an instrument of instruction and protection.\nFrance has once more placed sovereignty in the hands of universal\nsuffrage, as though the multitude were already enlightened, judicious,\nand reasonable, and now her task is to train and discipline the force\nwhich, by a fiction, is master.\n\nThe ambition of France is set upon self-government, but her capacity\nfor it has still to be proved. For eighty years she has confounded\nrevolution with liberty; will she now give proof of amendment and\nof wisdom? Such a change is not impossible. Let us wait for it with\nsympathy, but also with caution.\n\nSeptember 12, 1870 (_Basle_).--The old Rhine is murmuring under my\nwindow. The wide gray stream rolls its great waves along and breaks\nagainst the arches of the bridge, just as it did ten years or twenty\nyears ago; the red cathedral shoots its arrow-like spires toward heaven;\nthe ivy on the terraces which fringe the left bank of the Rhine hangs\nover the walls like a green mantle; the indefatigable ferry-boat goes\nand comes as it did of yore; in a word, things seem to be eternal, while\nman\u2019s hair turns gray and his heart grows old. I came here first as a\nstudent, then as a professor. Now I return to it at the downward turn of\nmiddle age, and nothing in the landscape has changed except myself.\n\nThe melancholy of memory may be commonplace and puerile--all the same it\nis true, it is inexhaustible, and the poets of all times have been open\nto its attacks.\n\nAt bottom, what is individual life? A variation of an eternal theme--to\nbe born, to live, to feel, to hope, to love, to suffer, to weep, to\ndie. Some would add to these, to grow rich, to think, to conquer; but in\nfact, whatever frantic efforts one may make, however one may strain and\nexcite one\u2019s self, one can but cause a greater or slighter undulation\nin the line of one\u2019s destiny. Supposing a man renders the series of\nfundamental phenomena a little more evident to others or a little more\ndistinct to himself, what does it matter? The whole is still nothing but\na fluttering of the infinitely little, the insignificant repetition of\nan invariable theme. In truth, whether the individual exists or no, the\ndifference is so absolutely imperceptible in the whole of things that\nevery complaint and every desire is ridiculous. Humanity in its entirety\nis but a flash in the duration of the planet, and the planet may return\nto the gaseous state without the sun\u2019s feeling it even for a second. The\nindividual is the infinitesimal of nothing.\n\nWhat, then, is nature? Nature is Ma\u00efa--that is to say, an incessant,\nfugitive, indifferent series of phenomena, the manifestation of all\npossibilities, the inexhaustible play of all combinations.\n\nAnd is Ma\u00efa all the while performing for the amusement of somebody,\nof some spectator--Brahma? Or is Brahma working out some serious and\nunselfish end? From the theistic point of view, is it the purpose of\nGod to make souls, to augment the sum of good and wisdom by the\nmultiplication of himself in free beings--facets which may flash back to\nhim his own holiness and beauty? This conception is far more attractive\nto the heart. But is it more true? The moral consciousness affirms\nit. If man is capable of conceiving goodness, the general principle of\nthings, which cannot be inferior to man, must be good. The philosophy\nof labor, of duty, of effort, is surely superior to that of phenomena,\nchance, and universal indifference. If so, the whimsical Ma\u00efa would be\nsubordinate to Brahma, the eternal thought, and Brahma would be in his\nturn subordinate to a holy God.\n\nOctober 25, 1870 (_Geneva_).--\u201cEach function to the most worthy:\u201d this\nmaxim governs all constitutions, and serves to test them. Democracy is\nnot forbidden to apply it, but democracy rarely does apply it, because\nshe holds, for example, that the most worthy man is the man who pleases\nher, whereas he who pleases her is not always the most worthy, and\nbecause she supposes that reason guides the masses, whereas in reality\nthey are most commonly led by passion. And in the end every falsehood\nhas to be expiated, for truth always takes its revenge.\n\nAlas, whatever one may say or do, wisdom, justice, reason, and goodness\nwill never be anything more than special cases and the heritage of a\nfew elect souls. Moral and intellectual harmony, excellence in all\nits forms, will always be a rarity of great price, an isolated _chef\nd\u2019oeuvre_. All that can be expected from the most perfect institutions\nis that they should make it possible for individual excellence to\ndevelop itself, not that they should produce the excellent individual.\nVirtue and genius, grace and beauty, will always constitute a _noblesse_\nsuch as no form of government can manufacture. It is of no use,\ntherefore, to excite one\u2019s self for or against revolutions which have\nonly an importance of the second order--an importance which I do not\nwish either to diminish or to ignore, but an importance which, after\nall, is mostly negative. The political life is but the means of the true\nlife.\n\nOctober 26, 1870.--Sirocco. A bluish sky. The leafy crowns of the trees\nhave dropped at their feet; the finger of winter has touched them. The\nerrand-woman has just brought me my letters. Poor little woman, what\na life! She spends her nights in going backward and forward from her\ninvalid husband to her sister, who is scarcely less helpless, and\nher days are passed in labor. Resigned and indefatigable, she goes on\nwithout complaining, till she drops.\n\nLives such as hers prove something: that the true ignorance is moral\nignorance, that labor and suffering are the lot of all men, and that\nclassification according to a greater or less degree of folly is\ninferior to that which proceeds according to a greater or less degree\nof virtue. The kingdom of God belongs not to the most enlightened but to\nthe best; and the best man is the most unselfish man. Humble, constant,\nvoluntary self-sacrifice--this is what constitutes the true dignity of\nman. And therefore is it written, \u201cThe last shall be first.\u201d Society\nrests upon conscience and not upon science. Civilization is first\nand foremost a moral thing. Without honesty, without respect for law,\nwithout the worship of duty, without the love of one\u2019s neighbor--in a\nword, without virtue--the whole is menaced and falls into decay, and\nneither letters nor art, neither luxury nor industry, nor rhetoric,\nnor the policeman, nor the custom-house officer, can maintain erect and\nwhole an edifice of which the foundations are unsound.\n\nA state founded upon interest alone and cemented by fear is an\nignoble and unsafe construction. The ultimate ground upon which\nevery civilization rests is the average morality of the masses, and a\nsufficient amount of practical righteousness. Duty is what upholds all.\nSo that those who humbly and unobtrusively fulfill it, and set a good\nexample thereby, are the salvation and the sustenance of this brilliant\nworld, which knows nothing about them. Ten righteous men would have\nsaved Sodom, but thousands and thousands of good homely folk are needed\nto preserve a people from corruption and decay.\n\nIf ignorance and passion are the foes of popular morality, it must\nbe confessed that moral indifference is the malady of the cultivated\nclasses. The modern separation of enlightenment and virtue, of thought\nand conscience, of the intellectual aristocracy from the honest and\nvulgar crowd, is the greatest danger that can threaten liberty. When\nany society produces an increasing number of literary exquisites, of\nsatirists, skeptics, and _beaux esprits_, some chemical disorganization\nof fabric may be inferred. Take, for example, the century of Augustus,\nand that of Louis XV. Our cynics and railers are mere egotists, who\nstand aloof from the common duty, and in their indolent remoteness are\nof no service to society against any ill which may attack it. Their\ncultivation consists in having got rid of feeling. And thus they fall\nfarther and farther away from true humanity, and approach nearer to\nthe demoniacal nature. What was it that Mephistopheles lacked? Not\nintelligence certainly, but goodness.\n\nOctober 28, 1870.--It is strange to see how completely justice is\nforgotten in the presence of great international struggles. Even the\ngreat majority of the spectators are no longer capable of judging except\nas their own personal tastes, dislikes, fears, desires, interests, or\npassions may dictate--that is to say, their judgment is not a judgment\nat all. How many people are capable of delivering a fair verdict on the\nstruggle now going on? Very few! This horror of equity, this antipathy\nto justice, this rage against a merciful neutrality, represents a kind\nof eruption of animal passion in man, a blind fierce passion, which\nis absurd enough to call itself a reason, whereas it is nothing but a\nforce.\n\nNovember 16, 1870.--We are struck by something bewildering and ineffable\nwhen we look down into the depths of an abyss; and every soul is an\nabyss, a mystery of love and piety. A sort of sacred emotion descends\nupon me whenever I penetrate the recesses of this sanctuary of man, and\nhear the gentle murmur of the prayers, hymns, and supplications which\nrise from the hidden depths of the heart. These involuntary confidences\nfill me with a tender piety and a religious awe and shyness. The whole\nexperience seems to me as wonderful as poetry, and divine with the\ndivineness of birth and dawn. Speech fails me, I bow myself and adore.\nAnd, whenever I am able, I strive also to console and fortify.\n\nDecember 6, 1870.--\u201cDauer im Wechsel\u201d--\u201cPersistence in change.\u201d This\ntitle of a poem by Goethe is the summing up of nature. Everything\nchanges, but with such unequal rapidity that one existence appears\neternal to another. A geological age, for instance, compared to the\nduration of any living being, the duration of a planet compared to\na geological age, appear eternities--our life, too, compared to the\nthousand impressions which pass across us in an hour. Wherever one\nlooks, one feels one\u2019s self overwhelmed by the infinity of infinites.\nThe universe, seriously studied, rouses one\u2019s terror. Everything seems\nso relative that it is scarcely possible to distinguish whether anything\nhas a real value.\n\nWhere is the fixed point in this boundless and bottomless gulf? Must\nit not be that which perceives the relations of things--in other words,\nthought, infinite thought? The perception of ourselves within the\ninfinite thought, the realization of ourselves in God, self-acceptance\nin him, the harmony of our will with his--in a word, religion--here\nalone is firm ground. Whether this thought be free or necessary,\nhappiness lies in identifying one\u2019s self with it. Both the stoic and\nthe Christian surrender themselves to the Being of beings, which the one\ncalls sovereign wisdom and the other sovereign goodness. St. John\nsays, \u201cGod is Light,\u201d \u201cGod is Love.\u201d The Brahmin says, \u201cGod is the\ninexhaustible fount of poetry.\u201d Let us say, \u201cGod is perfection.\u201d And\nman? Man, for all his inexpressible insignificance and frailty, may\nstill apprehend the idea of perfection, may help forward the supreme\nwill, and die with Hosanna on his lips!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll teaching depends upon a certain presentiment and preparation in the\ntaught; we can only teach others profitably what they already virtually\nknow; we can only give them what they had already. This principle of\neducation is also a law of history. Nations can only be developed on the\nlines of their tendencies and aptitudes. Try them on any other and they\nare rebellious and incapable of improvement.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBy despising himself too much a man comes to be worthy of his own\ncontempt.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIts way of suffering is the witness which a soul bears to itself.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe beautiful is superior to the sublime because it lasts and does not\nsatiate, while the sublime is relative, temporary and violent.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFebruary 4, 1871.--Perpetual effort is the characteristic of modern\nmorality. A painful process has taken the place of the old harmony, the\nold equilibrium, the old joy and fullness of being. We are all so\nmany fauns, satyrs, or Silenuses, aspiring to become angels; so\nmany deformities laboring for our own embellishment; so many clumsy\nchrysalises each working painfully toward the development of the\nbutterfly within him. Our ideal is no longer a serene beauty of soul;\nit is the agony of Laocoon struggling with the hydra of evil. The lot\nis cast irrevocably. There are no more happy whole-natured men among us,\nnothing but so many candidates for heaven, galley-slaves on earth.\n\n  \u201cNous ramons notre vie en attendant le port.\u201d\n\nMoli\u00e8re said that reasoning banished reason. It is possible also that\nthe progress toward perfection we are so proud of is only a pretentious\nimperfection. Duty seems now to be more negative than positive; it means\nlessening evil rather than actual good; it is a generous discontent,\nbut not happiness; it is an incessant pursuit of an unattainable goal,\na noble madness, but not reason; it is homesickness for the\nimpossible--pathetic and pitiful, but still not wisdom.\n\nThe being which has attained harmony, and every being may attain it, has\nfound its place in the order of the universe, and represents the divine\nthought at least as clearly as a flower or a solar system. Harmony seeks\nnothing outside itself. It is what it ought to be; it is the expression\nof right, order, law, and truth; it is greater than time, and represents\neternity.\n\nFebruary 6,1871.--I am reading Juste Olivier\u2019s \u201cChansons du Soir\u201d over\nagain, and all the melancholy of the poet seems to pass into my veins.\nIt is the revelation of a complete existence, and of a whole world of\nmelancholy reverie.\n\nHow much character there is in \u201cMusette,\u201d the \u201cChanson de l\u2019Alouette,\u201d\n the \u201cChant du Retour,\u201d and the \u201cGa\u00eet\u00e9,\u201d and how much freshness in\n\u201cLina,\u201d and \u201cA ma fille!\u201d But the best pieces of all are \u201cAu del\u00e0,\u201d\n \u201cHomunculus,\u201d \u201cLa Trompeuse,\u201d and especially \u201cFr\u00e8re Jacques,\u201d its\nauthor\u2019s masterpiece. To these may be added the \u201cMarionettes\u201d and the\nnational song, \u201cHelv\u00e9tie.\u201d Serious purpose and intention disguised in\ngentle gayety and childlike _badinage_, feeling hiding itself under\na smile of satire, a resigned and pensive wisdom expressing itself\nin rustic round or ballad, the power of suggesting everything in a\nnothing--these are the points in which the Vaudois poet triumphs. On the\nreader\u2019s side there is emotion and surprise, and on the author\u2019s a sort\nof pleasant slyness which seems to delight in playing tricks upon you,\nonly tricks of the most dainty and brilliant kind. Juste Olivier has the\npassion we might imagine a fairy to have for delicate mystification.\nHe hides his gifts. He promises nothing and gives a great deal. His\ngenerosity, which is prodigal, has a surly air; his simplicity is really\nsubtlety; his malice pure tenderness; and his whole talent is, as it\nwere, the fine flower of the Vaudois mind in its sweetest and dreamiest\nform.\n\nFebruary 10, 1871.--My reading for this morning has been some vigorous\nchapters of Taine\u2019s \u201cHistory of English Literature.\u201d Taine is a writer\nwhose work always produces a disagreeable impression upon me, as though\nof a creaking of pulleys and a clicking of machinery; there is a smell\nof the laboratory about it. His style is the style of chemistry and\ntechnology. The science of it is inexorable; it is dry and forcible,\npenetrating and hard, strong and harsh, but altogether lacking in charm,\nhumanity, nobility, and grace. The disagreeable effect which it makes on\none\u2019s taste, ear, and heart, depends probably upon two things: upon the\nmoral philosophy of the author and upon his literary principles. The\nprofound contempt for humanity which characterizes the physiological\nschool, and the intrusion of technology into literature inaugurated\nby Balzac and Stendhal, explain the underlying aridity of which one is\nsensible in these pages, and which seems to choke one like the gases\nfrom a manufactory of mineral products. The book is instructive in\nthe highest degree, but instead of animating and stirring, it parches,\ncorrodes, and saddens its reader. It excites no feeling whatever; it is\nsimply a means of information. I imagine this kind of thing will be the\nliterature of the future--a literature _\u00e0 l\u2019Am\u00e9ricaine_, as different as\npossible from Greek art, giving us algebra instead of life, the formula\ninstead of the image, the exhalations of the crucible instead of the\ndivine madness of Apollo. Cold vision will replace the joys of thought,\nand we shall see the death of poetry, flayed and dissected by science.\n\nFebruary 15, 1871.--Without intending it, nations educate each other,\nwhile having apparently nothing in view but their own selfish interests.\nIt was France who made the Germany of the present, by attempting its\ndestruction during ten generations; it is Germany who will regenerate\ncontemporary France, by the effort to crush her. Revolutionary France\nwill teach equality to the Germans, who are by nature hierarchical.\nGermany will teach the French that rhetoric is not science, and that\nappearance is not as valuable as reality. The worship of prestige--that\nis to say, of falsehood; the passion for vainglory--that is to say, for\nsmoke and noise; these are what must die in the interests of the world.\nIt is a false religion which is being destroyed. I hope sincerely that\nthis war will issue in a new balance of things better than any which has\ngone before--a new Europe, in which the government of the individual by\nhimself will be the cardinal principle of society, in opposition to the\nLatin principle, which regards the individual as a thing, a means to an\nend, an instrument of the church or of the state.\n\nIn the order and harmony which would result from free adhesion and\nvoluntary submission to a common ideal, we should see the rise of a new\nmoral world. It would be an equivalent, expressed in lay terms, to the\nidea of a universal priesthood. The model state ought to resemble\na great musical society in which every one submits to be organized,\nsubordinated, and disciplined for the sake of art, and for the sake of\nproducing a masterpiece. Nobody is coerced, nobody is made use of for\nselfish purposes, nobody plays a hypocritical or selfish part. All bring\ntheir talent to the common stock, and contribute knowingly and gladly\nto the common wealth. Even self-love itself is obliged to help on the\ngeneral action, under pain of rebuff should it make itself apparent.\n\nFebruary 18, 1871.--It is in the novel that the average vulgarity of\nGerman society, and its inferiority to the societies of France and\nEngland, are most clearly visible. The notion of \u201cbad taste\u201d seems to\nhave no place in German aesthetics. Their elegance has no grace in it;\nand they cannot understand the enormous difference there is between\ndistinction (what is _gentlemanly_, _ladylike_), and their stiff\n_vornehmlichkeit_. Their imagination lacks style, training, education,\nand knowledge of the world; it has an ill-bred air even in its\nSunday dress. The race is poetical and intelligent, but common and\nill-mannered. Pliancy and gentleness, manners, wit, vivacity, taste,\ndignity, and charm, are qualities which belong to others.\n\nWill that inner freedom of soul, that profound harmony of all the\nfaculties which I have so often observed among the best Germans,\never come to the surface? Will the conquerors of to-day ever learn to\ncivilize and soften their forms of life? It is by their future novels\nthat we shall be able to judge. As soon as they are capable of the novel\nof \u201cgood society\u201d they will have excelled all rivals. Till then, finish,\npolish, the maturity of social culture, are beyond them; they may have\nhumanity of feeling, but the delicacies, the little perfections of life,\nare unknown to them. They may be honest and well-meaning, but they are\nutterly without _savoir vivre_.\n\nFebruary 22, 1871.--_Soir\u00e9e_ at the M--. About thirty people\nrepresenting our best society were there, a happy mixture of sexes and\nages. There were gray heads, young girls, bright faces--the whole framed\nin some Aubusson tapestries which made a charming background, and gave a\nsoft air of distance to the brilliantly-dressed groups.\n\nIn society people are expected to behave as if they lived on ambrosia\nand concerned themselves with nothing but the loftiest interests.\nAnxiety, need, passion, have no existence. All realism is suppressed as\nbrutal. In a word, what we call \u201csociety\u201d proceeds for the moment on\nthe flattering illusory assumption that it is moving in an ethereal\natmosphere and breathing the air of the gods. All vehemence, all natural\nexpression, all real suffering, all careless familiarity, or any\nfrank sign of passion, are startling and distasteful in this delicate\n_milieu_; they at once destroy the common work, the cloud palace,\nthe magical architectural whole, which has been raised by the general\nconsent and effort. It is like the sharp cock-crow which breaks the\nspell of all enchantments, and puts the fairies to flight. These select\ngatherings produce, without knowing it, a sort of concert for eyes and\nears, an improvised work of art. By the instinctive collaboration\nof everybody concerned, intellect and taste hold festival, and\nthe associations of reality are exchanged for the associations of\nimagination. So understood, society is a form of poetry; the cultivated\nclasses deliberately recompose the idyll of the past and the buried\nworld of Astrea. Paradox or no, I believe that these fugitive attempts\nto reconstruct a dream whose only end is beauty represent confused\nreminiscences of an age of gold haunting the human heart, or rather\naspirations toward a harmony of things which every day reality denies to\nus, and of which art alone gives us a glimpse.\n\nApril 28, 1871.--For a psychologist it is extremely interesting to\nbe readily and directly conscious of the complications of one\u2019s own\norganism and the play of its several parts. It seems to me that the\nsutures of my being are becoming just loose enough to allow me at once\na clear perception of myself as a whole and a distinct sense of my own\nbrittleness. A feeling like this makes personal existence a perpetual\nastonishment and curiosity. Instead of only seeing the world which\nsurrounds me, I analyze myself. Instead of being single, all of a piece,\nI become legion, multitude, a whirlwind--a very cosmos. Instead of\nliving on the surface, I take possession of my inmost self, I apprehend\nmyself, if not in my cells and atoms, at least so far as my groups of\norgans, almost my tissues, are concerned. In other words, the central\nmonad isolates itself from all the subordinate monads, that it may\nconsider them, and finds its harmony again in itself.\n\nHealth is the perfect balance between our organism, with all its\ncomponent parts, and the outer world; it serves us especially for\nacquiring a knowledge of that world. Organic disturbance obliges us to\nset up a fresh and more spiritual equilibrium, to withdraw within the\nsoul. Thereupon our bodily constitution itself becomes the object of\nthought. It is no longer we, although it may belong to us; it is nothing\nmore than the vessel in which we make the passage of life, a vessel of\nwhich we study the weak points and the structure without identifying it\nwith our own individuality.\n\nWhere is the ultimate residence of the self? In thought, or rather in\nconsciousness. But below consciousness there is its germ, the _punctum\nsaliens_ of spontaneity; for consciousness is not primitive, it\n_becomes_. The question is, can the thinking monad return into its\nenvelope, that is to say, into pure spontaneity, or even into the dark\nabyss of virtuality? I hope not. The kingdom passes; the king remains;\nor rather is it the royalty alone which subsists--that is to say, the\nidea--the personality begin in its turn merely the passing vesture\nof the permanent idea? Is Leibnitz or Hegel right? Is the individual\nimmortal under the form of the spiritual body? Is he eternal under the\nform of the individual idea? Who saw most clearly, St. Paul or Plato?\nThe theory of Leibnitz attracts me most because it opens to us an\ninfinite of duration, of multitude, and evolution. For a monad, which\nis the virtual universe, a whole infinite of time is not too much to\ndevelop the infinite within it. Only one must admit exterior actions\nand influences which affect the evolution of the monad. Its independence\nmust be a mobile and increasing quantity between zero and the infinite,\nwithout ever reaching either completeness or nullity, for the monad can\nbe neither absolutely passive nor entirely free.\n\nJune 21, 1871.--The international socialism of the _ouvriers_,\nineffectually put down in Paris, is beginning to celebrate its\napproaching victory. For it there is neither country, nor memories,\nnor property, nor religion. There is nothing and nobody but itself. Its\ndogma is equality, its prophet is Mably, and Baboeuf is its god.\n\n[Footnote: Mably, the Abb\u00e9 Mably, 1709-85, one of the precursors of the\nrevolution, the professor of a cultivated and classical communism\nbased on a study of antiquity, which Babeuf and others like him, in\nthe following generation, translated into practical experiment. \u201cCaius\nGracchus\u201d Babeuf, born 1764, and guillotined in 1797 for a conspiracy\nagainst the Directory, is sometimes called the first French socialist.\nPerhaps socialist doctrines, properly so called, may be said to make\ntheir first entry into the region of popular debate and practical\nagitation with his \u201cManifeste des \u00c9gaux,\u201d issued April 1796.]\n\nHow is the conflict to be solved, since there is no longer one single\ncommon principle between the partisans and the enemies of the existing\nform of society, between liberalism and the worship of equality? Their\nrespective notions of man, duty, happiness--that is to say, of life\nand its end--differ radically. I suspect that the communism of the\n_Internationale_ is merely the pioneer of Russian nihilism, which will\nbe the common grave of the old races and the servile races, the Latins\nand the Slavs. If so, the salvation of humanity will depend upon\nindividualism of the brutal American sort. I believe that the nations\nof the present are rather tempting chastisement than learning wisdom.\nWisdom, which means balance and harmony, is only met within individuals.\nDemocracy, which means the rule of the masses, gives preponderance to\ninstinct, to nature, to the passions--that is to say, to blind impulse,\nto elemental gravitation, to generic fatality. Perpetual vacillation\nbetween contraries becomes its only mode of progress, because it\nrepresents that childish form of prejudice which falls in love\nand cools, adores, and curses, with the same haste and unreason. A\nsuccession of opposing follies gives an impression of change which the\npeople readily identify with improvement, as though Enceladus was more\nat ease on his left side than on his right, the weight of the volcano\nremaining the same. The stupidity of Demos is only equaled by its\npresumption. It is like a youth with all his animal and none of his\nreasoning powers developed.\n\nLuther\u2019s comparison of humanity to a drunken peasant, always ready to\nfall from his horse on one side or the other, has always struck me as\na particularly happy one. It is not that I deny the right of the\ndemocracy, but I have no sort of illusion as to the use it will make of\nits right, so long, at any rate, as wisdom is the exception and conceit\nthe rule. Numbers make law, but goodness has nothing to do with figures.\nEvery fiction is self-expiating, and democracy rests upon this legal\nfiction, that the majority has not only force but reason on its\nside--that it possesses not only the right to act but the wisdom\nnecessary for action. The fiction is dangerous because of its flattery;\nthe demagogues have always flattered the private feelings of the\nmasses. The masses will always be below the average. Besides, the age\nof majority will be lowered, the barriers of sex will be swept away, and\ndemocracy will finally make itself absurd by handing over the decision\nof all that is greatest to all that is most incapable. Such an end will\nbe the punishment of its abstract principle of equality, which dispenses\nthe ignorant man from the necessity of self-training, the foolish man\nfrom that of self-judgment, and tells the child that there is no need\nfor him to become a man, and the good-for-nothing that self-improvement\nis of no account. Public law, founded upon virtual equality, will\ndestroy itself by its consequences. It will not recognize the\ninequalities of worth, of merit, and of experience; in a word, it\nignores individual labor, and it will end in the triumph of platitude\nand the residuum. The _r\u00e9gime_ of the Parisian Commune has shown us what\nkind of material comes to the top in these days of frantic vanity and\nuniversal suspicion.\n\nStill, humanity is tough, and survives all catastrophes. Only it makes\none impatient to see the race always taking the longest road to an end,\nand exhausting all possible faults before it is able to accomplish one\ndefinite step toward improvement. These innumerable follies, that are to\nbe and must be, have an irritating effect upon me. The more majestic is\nthe history of science, the more intolerable is the history of politics\nand religion. The mode of progress in the moral world seems an abuse of\nthe patience of God.\n\nEnough! There is no help in misanthropy and pessimism. If our race vexes\nus, let us keep a decent silence on the matter. We are imprisoned on the\nsame ship, and we shall sink with it. Pay your own debt, and leave the\nrest to God. Sharer, as you inevitably are, in the sufferings of your\nkind, set a good example; that is all which is asked of you. Do all the\ngood you can, and say all the truth you know or believe; and for the\nrest be patient, resigned, submissive. God does his business, do yours.\n\nJuly 29, 1871.--So long as a man is capable of self-renewal he is a\nliving being. Goethe, Schleiermacher and Humboldt, were masters of the\nart. If we are to remain among the living there must be a perpetual\nrevival of youth within us, brought about by inward change and by love\nof the Platonic sort. The soul must be forever recreating itself, trying\nall its various modes, vibrating in all its fibres, raising up new\ninterests for itself....\n\nThe \u201cEpistles\u201d and the \u201cEpigrams\u201d of Goethe which I have been reading\nto-day do not make one love him. Why? Because he has so little soul. His\nway of understanding love, religion, duty, and patriotism has something\nmean and repulsive in it. There is no ardor, no generosity in him. A\nsecret barrenness, an ill-concealed egotism, makes itself felt through\nall the wealth and flexibility of his talent. It is true that the\negotism of Goethe has at least this much that is excellent in it, that\nit respects the liberty of the individual, and is favorable to all\noriginality. But it will go out of its way to help nobody; it will give\nitself no trouble for anybody; it will lighten nobody else\u2019s burden;\nin a word, it does away with charity, the great Christian virtue.\nPerfection for Goethe consists in personal nobility, not in love; his\nstandard is aesthetic, not moral. He ignores holiness, and has never\nallowed himself to reflect on the dark problem of evil. A Spinozist\nto the core, he believes in individual luck, not in liberty, nor in\nresponsibility. He is a Greek of the great time, to whom the inward\ncrises of the religious consciousness are unknown. He represents, then,\na state of soul earlier than or subsequent to Christianity, what the\nprudent critics of our time call the \u201cmodern spirit;\u201d and only one\ntendency of the modern spirit--the worship of nature. For Goethe stands\noutside all the social and political aspirations of the generality\nof mankind; he takes no more interest than Nature herself in the\ndisinherited, the feeble, and the oppressed....\n\nThe restlessness of our time does not exist for Goethe and his school.\nIt is explicable enough. The deaf have no sense of dissonance. The man\nwho knows nothing of the voice of conscience, the voice of regret or\nremorse, cannot even guess at the troubles of those who live under two\nmasters and two laws, and belong to two worlds--that of nature and that\nof liberty. For himself, his choice is made. But humanity cannot choose\nand exclude. All needs are vocal at once in the cry of her suffering.\nShe hears the men of science, but she listens to those who talk to her\nof religion; pleasure attracts her, but sacrifice moves her; and she\nhardly knows whether she hates or whether she adores the crucifix.\n\n_Later_.--Still re-reading the sonnets and the miscellaneous poems of\nGoethe. The impression left by this part of the \u201cGedichte\u201d is much more\nfavorable than that made upon me by the \u201cElegies\u201d and the \u201cEpigrams.\u201d\n The \u201cWater Spirits\u201d and \u201cThe Divine\u201d are especially noble in feeling.\nOne must never be too hasty in judging these complex natures. Completely\nlacking as he is in the sense of obligation and of sin, Goethe\nnevertheless finds his way to seriousness through dignity. Greek\nsculpture has been his school of virtue.\n\nAugust 15, 1871.--Re-read, for the second time, Renan\u2019s \u201cVie de Jesus,\u201d\n in the sixteenth popular edition. The most characteristic feature of\nthis analysis of Christianity is that sin plays no part at all in it.\nNow, if anything explains the success of the gospel among men, it is\nthat it brought them deliverance from sin--in a word, salvation. A man,\nhowever, is bound to explain a religion seriously, and not to shirk the\nvery center of his subject. This white-marble Christ is not the Christ\nwho inspired the martyrs and has dried so many tears. The author lacks\nmoral seriousness, and confounds nobility of character with holiness. He\nspeaks as an artist conscious of a pathetic subject, but his moral sense\nis not interested in the question. It is not possible to mistake the\nepicureanism of the imagination, delighting itself in an aesthetic\nspectacle, for the struggles of a soul passionately in search of truth.\nIn Renan there are still some remains of priestly _ruse_; he strangles\nwith sacred cords. His tone of contemptuous indulgence toward a more or\nless captious clergy might be tolerated, but he should have shown a\nmore respectful sincerity in dealing with the sincere and the spiritual.\nLaugh at Pharisaism as you will, but speak simply and plainly to honest\nfolk. [Footnote: \u201c\u2018Persifflez les pharisa\u00efsmes, mais parlez droit aux\nhonn\u00eates gens\u2019 me dit Amiel, avec une certaine aigreur. Mon Dieu, que\nles honn\u00eates gens sont souvent expos\u00e9s \u00e0 \u00eatre des pharisiens sans le\nsavoir!\u201d--(M. Renan\u2019s article, already quoted).]\n\n_Later_.--To understand is to be conscious of the fundamental unity\nof the thing to be explained--that is to say, to conceive it in its\nentirety both of life and development, to be able to remake it by a\nmental process without making a mistake, without adding or omitting\nanything. It means, first, complete identification of the object,\nand then the power of making it clear to others by a full and just\ninterpretation. To understand is more difficult than to judge, for\nunderstanding is the transference of the mind into the conditions of\nthe object, whereas judgment is simply the enunciation of the individual\nopinion.\n\nAugust 25, 1871. (_Charnex-sur-Montreux_).--Magnificent weather. The\nmorning seems bathed in happy peace, and a heavenly fragrance rises from\nmountain and shore; it is as though a benediction were laid upon us. No\nvulgar intrusive noise disturbs the religious quiet of the scene. One\nmight believe one\u2019s self in a church--a vast temple in which every being\nand every natural beauty has its place. I dare not breathe for fear of\nputting the dream to flight--a dream traversed by angels.\n\n  \u201cComme autrefois j\u2019entends dans l\u2019\u00e9ther infini\n  La musique du temps et l\u2019hosanna des mondes.\u201d\n\nIn these heavenly moments the cry of Pauline rises to one\u2019s lips.\n[Footnote: \u201cPolyeuete,\u201d Act. V. Scene v.\n\n  \u201cMon \u00e9poux en mourant m\u2019a laiss\u00e9 ses lumi\u00e9res;\n  Son sang dont tes bourreaux viennent de me couvrir\n  M\u2019a dessill\u00e9 les yeux et me les vient d\u2019ouvrir.\n  Je vois, je sais, je crois----\u201c]\n\n\u201cI feel! I believe! I see!\u201d All the miseries, the cares, the vexations\nof life, are forgotten; the universal joy absorbs us; we enter into the\ndivine order, and into the blessedness of the Lord. Labor and tears,\nsin, pain, and death have passed away. To exist is to bless; life\nis happiness. In this sublime pause of things all dissonances have\ndisappeared. It is as though creation were but one vast symphony,\nglorifying the God of goodness with an inexhaustible wealth of praise\nand harmony. We question no longer whether it is so or not. We have\nourselves become notes in the great concert; and the soul breaks the\nsilence of ecstasy only to vibrate in unison with the eternal joy.\n\nSeptember 22, 1871. (_Charnex_).--Gray sky--a melancholy day. A friend\nhas left me, the sun is unkind and capricious. Everything passes away,\neverything forsakes us. And in place of all we have lost, age and gray\nhairs! ... After dinner I walked to Chailly between two showers. A rainy\nlandscape has a great charm for me; the dark tints become more velvety,\nthe softer tones more ethereal. The country in rain is like a face with\ntraces of tears upon it--less beautiful no doubt, but more expressive.\n\nBehind the beauty which is superficial, gladsome, radiant, and palpable,\nthe aesthetic sense discovers another order of beauty altogether,\nhidden, veiled, secret and mysterious, akin to moral beauty. This sort\nof beauty only reveals itself to the initiated, and is all the more\nexquisite for that. It is a little like the refined joy of sacrifice,\nlike the madness of faith, like the luxury of grief; it is not within\nthe reach of all the world. Its attraction is peculiar, and affects one\nlike some strange perfume, or bizarre melody. When once the taste for it\nis set up the mind takes a special and keen delight in it, for one finds\nin it\n\n  \u201cSon bien premi\u00e8rement, puis le d\u00e9dain d\u2019autrui,\u201d\n\nand it is pleasant to one\u2019s vanity not to be of the same opinion as\nthe common herd. This, however, is not possible with things which are\nevident, and beauty which is incontestable. Charm, perhaps, is a better\nname for the esoteric and paradoxical beauty, which escapes the vulgar,\nand appeals to our dreamy, meditative side. Classical beauty belongs,\nso to speak, to all eyes; it has ceased to belong to itself. Esoteric\nbeauty is shy and retiring. It only unveils itself to unsealed eyes, and\nbestows its favors only upon love.\n\nThis is why my friend ----, who places herself immediately in relation\nwith the souls of those she meets, does not see the ugliness of people\nwhen once she is interested in them. She likes and dislikes, and those\nshe likes are beautiful, those she dislikes are ugly. There is nothing\nmore complicated in it than that. For her, aesthetic considerations are\nlost in moral sympathy; she looks with her heart only; she passes by the\nchapter of the beautiful, and goes on to the chapter of charm. I can\ndo the same; only it is by reflection and on second thoughts; my friend\ndoes it involuntarily and at once; she has not the artistic fiber. The\ncraving for a perfect correspondence between the inside and the outside\nof things--between matter and form--is not in her nature. She does not\nsuffer from ugliness, she scarcely perceives it. As for me, I can only\nforget what shocks me, I cannot help being shocked. All corporal defects\nirritate me, and the want of beauty in women, being something which\nought not to exist, shocks me like a tear, a solecism, a dissonance, a\nspot of ink--in a word, like something out of order. On the other\nhand, beauty restores and fortifies me like some miraculous food, like\nOlympian ambrosia.\n\n \u201cQue le bon soit toujours camarade du beau\n  D\u00e8s demain je chercherai femme.\n  Mais comme le divorce entre eux n\u2019est pas nouveau,\n  Et que peu de beaux corps, h\u00f4tes d\u2019une belle \u00e2me,\n  Assemblent l\u2019un et l\u2019autre point----\u201d\n\nI will not finish, for after all one must resign one\u2019s self, A beautiful\nsoul in a healthy body is already a rare and blessed thing; and if one\nfinds heart, common sense, intellect, and courage into the bargain,\none may well do without that ravishing dainty which we call beauty,\nand almost without that delicious seasoning which we call grace. We do\nwithout--with a sigh, as one does without a luxury. Happy we, to possess\nwhat is necessary.\n\nDecember 29, 1871.--I have been reading Bahnsen (\u201cCritique\nde l\u2019\u00e9volutionisme de Hegel-Hartmann, au nom des principes de\nSchopenhauer\u201d). What a writer! Like a cuttle-fish in water, every\nmovement produces a cloud of ink which shrouds his thought in darkness.\nAnd what a doctrine! A thoroughgoing pessimism, which regards the world\nas absurd, \u201cabsolutely idiotic,\u201d and reproaches Hartmann for having\nallowed the evolution of the universe some little remains of logic,\nwhile, on the contrary, this evolution is eminently contradictory, and\nthere is no reason anywhere except in the poor brain of the reasoner. Of\nall possible worlds that which exists is the worst. Its only excuse is\nthat it tends of itself to destruction. The hope of the philosopher is\nthat reasonable beings will shorten their agony and hasten the return\nof everything to nothing. It is the philosophy of a desperate Satanism,\nwhich has not even the resigned perspectives of Buddhism to offer to the\ndisappointed and disillusioned soul. The individual can but protest and\ncurse. This frantic Sivaism is developed from the conception which makes\nthe world the product of blind will, the principle of everything.\n\nThe acrid blasphemy of the doctrine naturally leads the writer to\nindulgence in epithets of bad taste which prevent our regarding his work\nas the mere challenge of a paradoxical theorist. We have really to do\nwith a theophobist, whom faith in goodness rouses to a fury of\ncontempt. In order to hasten the deliverance of the world, he kills all\nconsolation, all hope, and all illusion in the germ, and substitutes\nfor the love of humanity which inspired \u00c7akyamouni, that Mephistophelian\ngall which defiles, withers, and corrodes everything it touches.\n\nEvolutionism, fatalism, pessimism, nihilism--how strange it is to see\nthis desolate and terrible doctrine growing and expanding at the very\nmoment when the German nation is celebrating its greatness and its\ntriumphs! The contrast is so startling that it sets one thinking.\n\nThis orgie of philosophic thought, identifying error with existence\nitself, and developing the axiom of Proudhon--\u201cEvil is God,\u201d will bring\nback the mass of mankind to the Christian theodicy, which is neither\noptimist nor pessimist, but simply declares that the felicity which\nChristianity calls eternal life is accessible to man.\n\nSelf-mockery, starting from a horror of stupidity and hypocrisy,\nand standing in the way of all wholeness of mind and all true\nseriousness--this is the goal to which intellect brings us at last,\nunless conscience cries out.\n\nThe mind must have for ballast the clear conception of duty, if it is\nnot to fluctuate between levity and despair.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBefore giving advice we must have secured its acceptance, or rather,\nhave made it desired.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf we begin by overrating the being we love, we shall end by treating it\nwith wholesale injustice.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is dangerous to abandon one\u2019s self to the luxury of grief; it\ndeprives one of courage, and even of the wish for recovery.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe learn to recognize a mere blunting of the conscience in that\nincapacity for indignation which is not to be confounded with the\ngentleness of charity, or the reserve of humility.\n\nFebruary 7, 1872.--Without faith a man can do nothing.\n\nBut faith can stifle all science.\n\nWhat, then, is this Proteus, and whence?\n\nFaith is a certitude without proofs. Being a certitude, it is an\nenergetic principle of action. Being without proof, it is the contrary\nof science. Hence its two aspects and its two effects. Is its point of\ndeparture intelligence? No. Thought may shake or strengthen faith; it\ncannot produce it. Is its origin in the will? No; good will may favor\nit, ill-will may hinder it, but no one believes by will, and faith is\nnot a duty. Faith is a sentiment, for it is a hope; it is an instinct,\nfor it precedes all outward instruction. Faith is the heritage of the\nindividual at birth; it is that which binds him to the whole of being.\nThe individual only detaches himself with difficulty from the maternal\nbreast; he only isolates himself by an effort from the nature around\nhim, from the love which enwraps him, the ideas in which he floats, the\ncradle in which he lies. He is born in union with humanity, with the\nworld, and with God. The trace of this original union is faith. Faith is\nthe reminiscence of that vague Eden whence our individuality issued, but\nwhich it inhabited in the somnambulist state anterior to the personal\nlife.\n\nOur individual life consists in separating ourselves from our _milieu_;\nin so reacting upon it that we apprehend it consciously, and make\nourselves spiritual personalities--that is to say, intelligent and free.\nOur primitive faith is nothing more than the neutral matter which our\nexperience of life and things works up a fresh, and which may be so\naffected by our studies of every kind as to perish completely in its\noriginal form. We ourselves may die before we have been able to\nrecover the harmony of a personal faith which may satisfy our mind and\nconscience as well as our hearts. But the need of faith never leaves us.\nIt is the postulate of a higher truth which is to bring all things into\nharmony. It is the stimulus of research; it holds out to us the reward,\nit points us to the goal. Such at least is the true, the excellent\nfaith. That which is a mere prejudice of childhood, which has never\nknown doubt, which ignores science, which cannot respect or understand\nor tolerate different convictions--such a faith is a stupidity and a\nhatred, the mother of all fanaticisms. We may then repeat of faith what\nAesop said of the tongue--\n\n  \u201cQuid medius lingu\u00e2, lingu\u00e2 quid pejus eadem?\u201d\n\nTo draw the poison-fangs of faith in ourselves, we must subordinate it\nto the love of truth. The supreme worship of the true is the only means\nof purification for all religions all confessions, all sects. Faith\nshould only be allowed the second place, for faith has a judge--in\ntruth. When she exalts herself to the position of supreme judge the\nworld is enslaved: Christianity, from the fourth to the seventeenth\ncentury, is the proof of it... Will the enlightened faith ever conquer\nthe vulgar faith? We must look forward in trust to a better future.\n\nThe difficulty, however, is this. A narrow faith has much more energy\nthan an enlightened faith; the world belongs to will much more than\nto wisdom. It is not then certain that liberty will triumph over\nfanaticism; and besides, independent thought will never have the force\nof prejudice. The solution is to be found in a division of labor. After\nthose whose business it will have been to hold up to the world the ideal\nof a pure and free faith, will come the men of violence, who will bring\nthe new creed within the circle of recognized interests, prejudices, and\ninstitutions. Is not this just what happened to Christianity? After the\ngentle Master, the impetuous Paul and the bitter Councils. It is true\nthat this is what corrupted the gospel. But still Christianity has\ndone more good than harm to humanity, and so the world advances, by the\nsuccessive decay of gradually improved ideals.\n\nJune 19, 1872.--The wrangle in the Paris Synod still goes on. [Footnote:\nA synod of the Reformed churches of France was then occupied in\ndetermining the constituent conditions of Protestant belief.] The\nsupernatural is the stone of stumbling.\n\nIt might be possible to agree on the idea of the divine; but no, that is\nnot the question--the chaff must be separated from the good grain.\nThe supernatural is miracle, and miracle is an objective phenomenon\nindependent of all preceding casuality. Now, miracle thus understood\ncannot be proved experimentally; and besides, the subjective phenomena,\nfar more important than all the rest, are left out of account in the\ndefinition. Men will not see that miracle is a perception of the soul;\na vision of the divine behind nature; a psychical crisis, analogous to\nthat of Aeneas on the last day of Troy, which reveals to us the heavenly\npowers prompting and directing human action. For the indifferent there\nare no miracles. It is only the religious souls who are capable of\nrecognizing the finger of God in certain given facts.\n\nThe minds which have reached the doctrine of immanence are\nincomprehensible to the fanatics of transcendence. They will never\nunderstand--these last--that the _panentheism_ of Krause is ten times\nmore religious than their dogmatic supernaturalism. Their passion for\nthe facts which are objective, isolated, and past, prevents them from\nseeing the facts which are eternal and spiritual. They can only\nadore what comes to them from without. As soon as their dramaturgy is\ninterpreted symbolically all seems to them lost. They must have their\nlocal prodigies--their vanished unverifiable miracles, because for them\nthe divine is there and only there.\n\nThis faith can hardly fail to conquer among the races pledged to the\nCartesian dualism, who call the incomprehensible clear, and abhor what\nis profound. Women also will always find local miracle more easy\nto understand than universal miracle, and the visible objective\nintervention of God more probable than his psychological and inward\naction. The Latin world by its mental form is doomed to petrify its\nabstractions, and to remain forever outside the inmost sanctuary of\nlife, that central hearth where ideas are still undivided, without shape\nor determination. The Latin mind makes everything objective, because\nit remains outside things, and outside itself. It is like the eye which\nonly perceives what is exterior to it, and which cannot see itself\nexcept artificially, and from a distance, by means of the reflecting\nsurface of a mirror.\n\nAugust 30, 1872.--_A priori_ speculations weary me now as much as\nanybody. All the different scholasticisms make me doubtful of what they\nprofess to demonstrate, because, instead of examining, they affirm\nfrom the beginning. Their object is to throw up entrenchments around\na prejudice, and not to discover the truth. They accumulate that which\ndarkens rather than that which enlightens. They are descended, all\nof them, from the Catholic procedure, which excludes comparison,\ninformation, and previous examination. Their object is to trick men into\nassent, to furnish faith with arguments, and to suppress free inquiry.\nBut to persuade me, a man must have no _parti pris_, and must begin with\nshowing a temper of critical sincerity; he must explain to me how the\nmatter lies, point out to me the questions involved in it, their origin,\ntheir difficulties, the different solutions attempted, and their\ndegree of probability. He must respect my reason, my conscience, and my\nliberty. All scholasticism is an attempt to take by storm; the authority\npretends to explain itself, but only pretends, and its deference is\nmerely illusory. The dice are loaded and the premises are pre-judged.\nThe unknown is taken as known, and all the rest is deduced from it.\n\nPhilosophy means the complete liberty of the mind, and therefore\nindependence of all social, political, or religious prejudice. It is\nto begin with neither Christian nor pagan, neither monarchical nor\ndemocratic, neither socialist nor individualist; it is critical and\nimpartial; it loves one thing only--truth. If it disturbs the ready-made\nopinions of the church or the state--of the historical medium--in which\nthe philosopher happens to have been born, so much the worse, but there\nis no help for it.\n\n  \u201cEst ut est aut non est,\u201d\n\nPhilosophy means, first, doubt; and afterward the consciousness of what\nknowledge means, the consciousness of uncertainty and of ignorance, the\nconsciousness of limit, shade, degree, possibility. The ordinary man\ndoubts nothing and suspects nothing. The philosopher is more cautious,\nbut he is thereby unfitted for action, because, although he sees the\ngoal less dimly than others, he sees his own weakness too clearly, and\nhas no illusions as to his chances of reaching it.\n\nThe philosopher is like a man fasting in the midst of universal\nintoxication. He alone perceives the illusion of which all creatures are\nthe willing playthings; he is less duped than his neighbor by his own\nnature. He judges more sanely, he sees things as they are. It is in this\nthat his liberty consists--in the ability to see clearly and soberly, in\nthe power of mental record. Philosophy has for its foundation critical\nlucidity. The end and climax of it would be the intuition of the\nuniversal law, of the first principle and the final aim of the universe.\nNot to be deceived is its first desire; to understand, its second.\nEmancipation from error is the condition of real knowledge. The\nphilosopher is a skeptic seeking a plausible hypothesis, which may\nexplain to him the whole of his experiences. When he imagines that he\nhas found such a key to life he offers it to, but does not force it on\nhis fellow men.\n\nOctober 9, 1872.--I have been taking tea at the M\u2019s. These English\nhomes are very attractive. They are the recompense and the result of a\nlong-lived civilization, and of an ideal untiringly pursued. What ideal?\nThat of a moral order, founded on respect for self and for others, and\non reverence for duty--in a word, upon personal worth and dignity. The\nmaster shows consideration to his guests, the children are deferential\nto their parents, and every one and everything has its place. They\nunderstand both how to command and how to obey. The little world is well\ngoverned, and seems to go of itself; duty is the _genius loci_--but\nduty tinged with a reserve and self-control which is the English\ncharacteristic. The children are the great test of this domestic system;\nthey are happy, smiling, trustful, and yet no trouble. One feels that\nthey know themselves to be loved, but that they know also that they\nmust obey. _Our_ children behave like masters of the house, and when\nany definite order comes to limit their encroachments they see in it an\nabuse of power, an arbitrary act. Why? Because it is their principle to\nbelieve that everything turns round them. Our children may be gentle\nand affectionate, but they are not grateful, and they know nothing of\nself-control.\n\nHow do English mothers attain this result? By a rule which is\nimpersonal, invariable, and firm; in other words, by law, which forms\nman for liberty, while arbitrary decree only leads to rebellion and\nattempts at emancipation. This method has the immense advantage of\nforming characters which are restive under arbitrary authority, and yet\namenable to justice, conscious of what is due to them and what they owe\nto others, watchful over conscience, and practiced in self-government.\nIn every English child one feels something of the national motto--\u201cGod\nand my right,\u201d and in every English household one has a sense that the\nhome is a citadel, or better still, a ship in which every one has\nhis place. Naturally in such a world the value set on family life\ncorresponds with the cost of producing it; it is sweet to those whose\nefforts maintain it.\n\nOctober 14, 1872.--The man who gives himself to contemplation looks on\nat, rather than directs his life, is rather a spectator than an actor,\nseeks rather to understand than to achieve. Is this mode of existence\nillegitimate, immoral? Is one bound to act? Is such detachment an\nidiosyncrasy to be respected or a sin to be fought against? I have\nalways hesitated on this point, and I have wasted years in futile\nself-reproach and useless fits of activity. My western conscience,\npenetrated as it is with Christian morality, has always persecuted my\noriental quietism and Buddhist tendencies. I have not dared to approve\nmyself, I have not known how to correct myself. In this, as in all else,\nI have remained divided, and perplexed, wavering between two extremes.\nSo equilibrium is somehow preserved, but the crystallization of action\nor thought becomes impossible.\n\nHaving early a glimpse of the absolute, I have never had the indiscreet\neffrontery of individualism. What right have I to make a merit of a\ndefect? I have never been able to see any necessity for imposing myself\nupon others, nor for succeeding. I have seen nothing clearly except my\nown deficiencies and the superiority of others. That is not the way to\nmake a career. With varied aptitudes and a fair intelligence, I had\nno dominant tendency, no imperious faculty, so that while by virtue of\ncapacity I felt myself free, yet when free I could not discover what was\nbest. Equilibrium produced indecision, and indecision has rendered all\nmy faculties barren.\n\nNovember 8, 1872. (_Friday_).--I have been turning over the \u201cStoics\u201d\n again. Poor Louisa Siefert! [Footnote: Louise Siefert, a modern French\npoetess, died 1879. In addition to \u201cLes Sto\u00efques,\u201d she published\n\u201cL\u2019Ann\u00e9e R\u00e9publicaine,\u201d Paris 1869, and other works.] Ah! we play the\nstoic, and all the while the poisoned arrow in the side pierces and\nwounds, _lethalis arundo_. What is it that, like all passionate souls,\nshe really craves for? Two things which are contradictory--glory\nand happiness. She adores two incompatibles--the Reformation and the\nRevolution, France and the contrary of France; her talent itself is a\ncombination of two opposing qualities, inwardness and brilliancy, noisy\ndisplay and lyrical charm. She dislocates the rhythm of her verse,\nwhile at the same time she has a sensitive ear for rhyme. She is always\nwavering between Valmore and Baudelaire, between Leconte de Lisle\nand Sainte-Beuve--that is to say, her taste is a bringing together of\nextremes. She herself has described it:\n\n  \u201cToujours extr\u00eame en mes d\u00e9sirs,\n  Jadis, enfant joyeuse et folle,\n  Souvent une seule parole\n  Bouleversait tous mes plaisirs.\u201d\n\nBut what a fine instrument she possesses! what strength of soul! what\nwealth of imagination!\n\nDecember 3, 1872.--What a strange dream! I was under an illusion and yet\nnot under it; I was playing a comedy to myself, deceiving my imagination\nwithout being able to deceive my consciousness. This power which dreams\nhave of fusing incompatibles together, of uniting what is exclusive, of\nidentifying yes and no, is what is most wonderful and most symbolical\nin them. In a dream our individuality is not shut up within itself; it\nenvelops, so to speak, its surroundings; it is the landscape, and all\nthat it contains, ourselves included. But if our imagination is not our\nown, if it is impersonal, then personality is but a special and limited\ncase of its general functions. _A fortiori_ it would be the same for\nthought. And if so, thought might exist without possessing itself\nindividually, without embodying itself in an _ego_. In other words,\ndreams lead us to the idea of an imagination enfranchised from the\nlimits of personality, and even of a thought which should be no longer\nconscious. The individual who dreams is on the way to become dissolved\nin the universal phantasmagoria of Ma\u00efa. Dreams are excursions into the\nlimbo of things, a semi-deliverance from the human prison. The man\nwho dreams is but the _locale_ of various phenomena of which he is the\nspectator in spite of himself; he is passive and impersonal; he is the\nplaything of unknown vibrations and invisible sprites.\n\nThe man who should never issue from the state of dream would have never\nattained humanity, properly so called, but the man who had never dreamed\nwould only know the mind in its completed or manufactured state, and\nwould not be able to understand the genesis of personality; he would\nbe like a crystal, incapable of guessing what crystallization means.\nSo that the waking life issues from the dream life, as dreams are an\nemanation from the nervous life, and this again is the fine flower of\norganic life. Thought is the highest point of a series of ascending\nmetamorphoses, which is called nature. Personality by means of thought,\nrecovers in inward profundity what it has lost in extension, and makes\nup for the rich accumulations of receptive passivity by the enormous\nprivilege of that empire over self which is called liberty. Dreams, by\nconfusing and suppressing all limits, make us feel, indeed, the severity\nof the conditions attached to the higher existence; but conscious and\nvoluntary thought alone brings knowledge and allows us to act--that is\nto say, is alone capable of science and of perfection. Let us then take\npleasure in dreaming for reasons of psychological curiosity and mental\nrecreation; but let us never speak ill of thought, which is our strength\nand our dignity. Let us begin as Orientals, and end as Westerns, for\nthese are the two halves of wisdom.\n\nDecember 11, 1872.--A deep and dreamless sleep and now I wake up to the\ngray, lowering, rainy sky, which has kept us company for so long. The\nair is mild, the general outlook depressing. I think that it is partly\nthe fault of my windows, which are not very clean, and contribute by\ntheir dimness to this gloomy aspect of the outer world. Rain and smoke\nhave besmeared them.\n\nBetween us and things how many screens there are! Mood, health, the\ntissues of the eye, the window-panes of our cell, mist, smoke, rain,\ndust, and light itself--and all infinitely variable! Heraclitus said:\n\u201cNo man bathes twice in the same river.\u201d I feel inclined to say; No one\nsees the same landscape twice over, for a window is one kaleidoscope,\nand the spectator another.\n\nWhat is madness? Illusion, raised to the second power. A sound mind\nestablishes regular relations, a _modus vivendi_, between things, men,\nand itself, and it is under the delusion that it has got hold of stable\ntruth and eternal fact. Madness does not even see what sanity sees,\ndeceiving itself all the while by the belief that it sees better than\nsanity. The sane mind or common sense confounds the fact of experience\nwith necessary fact, and assumes in good faith that what is, is the\nmeasure of what may be; while madness cannot perceive any difference\nbetween what is and what it imagines--it confounds its dreams with\nreality.\n\nWisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense,\nand in lending one\u2019s self to the universal illusion without becoming its\ndupe. It is best, on the whole, for a man of taste who knows how to be\ngay with the gay, and serious with the serious, to enter into the\ngame of Ma\u00efa, and to play his part with a good grace in the fantastic\ntragi-comedy which is called the Universe. It seems to me that here\nintellectualism reaches its limit. [Footnote: \u201cWe all believe in duty,\u201d\n says M. Renan, \u201cand in the triumph of righteousness;\u201d but it is possible\nnotwithstanding, \u201cque tout le contraire soit vrai--et que le monde ne\nsoit qu\u2019une amusante f\u00e9erie dont aucun dieu ne se soucie. Il faut donc\nnous arranger de maniere \u00e0 ceque, dans le cas o\u00f9 le seconde hypoth\u00e8se\nserait la vraie, nous n\u2019ayons pas \u00e9t\u00e9 trop dup\u00e9s.\u201d\n\nThis strain of remark, which is developed at considerable length, is\nmeant as a criticism of Amiel\u2019s want of sensitiveness to the irony of\nthings. But in reality, as the passage in the text shows, M. Renan is\nonly expressing a feeling with which Amiel was just as familiar as his\ncritic. Only he is delivered from this last doubt of all by his habitual\nseriousness; by that sense of \u201chorror and awe\u201d which M. Renan puts away\nfrom him. Conscience saves him \u201cfrom the sorceries of Ma\u00efa.\u201d] The mind,\nin its intellectual capacity, arrives at the intuition that all reality\nis but the dream of a dream. What delivers us from the palace of dreams\nis pain, personal pain; it is also the sense of obligation, or that\nwhich combines the two, the pain of sin; and again it is love; in short,\nthe moral order. What saves us from the sorceries of Ma\u00efa is\nconscience; conscience dissipates the narcotic vapors, the opium-like\nhallucinations, the placid stupor of contemplative indifference. It\ndrives us into contact with the terrible wheels within wheels of human\nsuffering and human responsibility; it is the bugle-call, the cockcrow,\nwhich puts the phantoms to flight; it is the armed archangel who chases\nman from an artificial paradise. Intellectualism may be described as an\nintoxication conscious of itself; the moral energy which replaces it,\non the other hand, represents a state of fast, a famine and a sleepless\nthirst. Alas! Alas!\n\nThose who have the most frivolous idea of sin are just those who suppose\nthat there is a fixed gulf between good people and others.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe ideal which the wife and mother makes for herself, the manner in\nwhich she understands duty and life, contain the fate of the community.\nHer faith becomes the star of the conjugal ship, and her love the\nanimating principle that fashions the future of all belonging to her.\nWoman is the salvation or destruction of the family. She carries its\ndestinies in the folds of her mantle.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPerhaps it is not desirable that a woman should be free in mind; she\nwould immediately abuse her freedom. She cannot become philosophical\nwithout losing her special gift, which is the worship of all that is\nindividual, the defense of usage, manners, beliefs, traditions. Her\nr\u00f4le is to slacken the combustion of thought. It is analogous to that of\nazote in vital air.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn every loving woman there is a priestess of the past--a pious guardian\nof some affection, of which the object has disappeared.\n\nJanuary 6, 1873.--I have been reading the seven tragedies of Aeschylus,\nin the translation of Leconte de Lisle. The \u201cPrometheus\u201d and the\n\u201cEumenides\u201d are greatest where all is great; they have the sublimity of\nthe old prophets. Both depict a religious revolution--a profound crisis\nin the life of humanity. In \u201cPrometheus\u201d it is civilization wrenched\nfrom the jealous hands of the gods; in the \u201cEumenides\u201d it is the\ntransformation of the idea of justice, and the substitution of atonement\nand pardon for the law of implacable revenge. \u201cPrometheus\u201d shows us the\nmartyrdom which waits for all the saviors of men; the \u201cEumenides\u201d is the\nglorification of Athens and the Areopagus--that is to say, of a truly\nhuman civilization. How magnificent it is as poetry, and how small\nthe adventures of individual passion seem beside this colossal type of\ntragedy, of which the theme is the destinies of nations!\n\nMarch 31, 1873. (4 P. M.)--\n\n  \u201cEn quel songe\n  Se plonge\n  Mon coeur, et que veut-il?\u201d\n\nFor an hour past I have been the prey of a vague anxiety; I recognize\nmy old enemy.... It is a sense of void and anguish; a sense of something\nlacking: what? Love, peace--God perhaps. The feeling is one of pure\nwant unmixed with hope, and there is anguish in it because I can clearly\ndistinguish neither the evil nor its remedy.\n\n  \u201cO printemps sans piti\u00e9, dans l\u2019\u00e2me endolorie,\n  Avec tes chants d\u2019oiseaux, tes brises, ton azur,\n  Tu creuses sourdement, conspirateur obscur,\n  Le gouffre des langueurs et de la r\u00eaverie.\u201d\n\nOf all the hours of the day, in fine weather, the afternoon, about 3\no\u2019clock, is the time which to me is most difficult to bear. I never\nfeel more strongly than I do then, \u201c_le vide effrayant de la vie_,\u201d\n the stress of mental anxiety, or the painful thirst for happiness. This\ntorture born of the sunlight is a strange phenomenon. Is it that the\nsun, just as it brings out the stain upon a garment, the wrinkles in\na face, or the discoloration of the hair, so also it illumines with\ninexorable distinctness the scars and rents of the heart? Does it rouse\nin us a sort of shame of existence? In any case the bright hours of the\nday are capable of flooding the whole soul with melancholy, of kindling\nin us the passion for death, or suicide, or annihilation, or of driving\nus to that which is next akin to death, the deadening of the senses\nby the pursuit of pleasure. They rouse in the lonely man a horror of\nhimself; they make him long to escape from his own misery and solitude--\n\n  \u201cLe coeur tremp\u00e9 sept fois dans le n\u00e9ant divin.\u201d\n\nPeople talk of the temptations to crime connected with darkness, but\nthe dumb sense of desolation which is often the product of the most\nbrilliant moment of daylight must not be forgotten either. From the one,\nas from the other, God is absent; but in the first case a man follows\nhis senses and the cry of his passion; in the second, he feels himself\nlost and bewildered, a creature forsaken by all the world.\n\n  \u201cEn nous sont deux instincts qui bravent la raison,\n  C\u2019est l\u2019effroi du bonheur et la soif du poison.\n  Coeur solitaire, \u00e0 toi prends garde!\u201d\n\nApril 3, 1873.--I have been to see my friends ----. Their niece has just\narrived with two of her children, and the conversation turned on Father\nHyacinthe\u2019s lecture.\n\nWomen of an enthusiastic temperament have a curious way of speaking of\nextempore preachers and orators. They imagine that inspiration radiates\nfrom a crowd as such, and that inspiration is all that is wanted. Could\nthere be a more _na\u00eff_ and childish explanation of what is really a\nlecture in which nothing has been left to accident, neither the\nplan, nor the metaphors, nor even the length of the whole, and where\neverything has been prepared with the greatest care! But women, in their\nlove of what is marvelous and miraculous, prefer to ignore all this. The\nmeditation, the labor, the calculation of effects, the art, in a word,\nwhich have gone to the making of it, diminishes for them the value of\nthe thing, and they prefer to believe it fallen from heaven, or sent\ndown from on high. They ask for bread, but cannot bear the idea of a\nbaker. The sex is superstitious, and hates to understand what it wishes\nto admire. It would vex it to be forced to give the smaller share to\nfeeling, and the larger share to thought. It wishes to believe that\nimagination can do the work of reason, and feeling the work of science,\nand it never asks itself how it is that women, so rich in heart and\nimagination, have never distinguished themselves as orators--that is to\nsay, have never known how to combine a multitude of facts, ideas, and\nimpulses, into one complex unity. Enthusiastic women never even suspect\nthe difference that there is between the excitement of a popular\nharangue, which is nothing but a mere passionate outburst, and the\nunfolding of a didactic process, the aim of which is to prove something\nand to convince its hearers. Therefore, for them, study, reflection,\ntechnique, count as nothing; the improvisatore mounts upon the tripod,\nPallas all armed issues from his lips, and conquers the applause of the\ndazzled assembly.\n\nEvidently women divide orators into two groups; the artisans of speech,\nwho manufacture their laborious discourses by the aid of the midnight\nlamp, and the inspired souls, who simply give themselves the trouble\nto be born. They will never understand the saying of Quintilian, \u201c_Fit\norator, nascitur poeta._\u201d\n\nThe enthusiasm which acts is perhaps an enlightening force, but the\nenthusiasm which accepts is very like blindness. For this latter\nenthusiasm confuses the value of things, ignores their shades of\ndifference, and is an obstacle to all sensible criticism and all\ncalm judgment. The \u201cEwig-Weibliche\u201d favors exaggeration, mysticism,\nsentimentalism--all that excites and startles. It is the enemy of\nclearness, of a calm and rational view of things, the antipodes of\ncriticism and of science. I have had only too much sympathy and weakness\nfor the feminine nature. The very excess of my former indulgence toward\nit makes me now more conscious of its infirmity. Justice and science,\nlaw and reason, are virile things, and they come before imagination,\nfeeling, reverie, and fancy. When one reflects that Catholic\nsuperstition is maintained by women, one feels how needful it is not to\nhand over the reins to the \u201cEternal Womanly.\u201d\n\nMay 23, 1873.--The fundamental error of France lies in her psychology.\nFrance has always believed that to say a thing is the same as to do\nit, as though speech were action, as though rhetoric were capable of\nmodifying the tendencies, habits, and character of real beings, and as\nthough verbiage were an efficient substitute for will, conscience, and\neducation.\n\nFrance proceeds by bursts of eloquence, of cannonading, or of\nlaw-making; she thinks that so she can change the nature of things; and\nshe produces only phrases and ruins. She has never understood the first\nline of Montesquieu: \u201cLaws are necessary relations, derived from the\nnature of things.\u201d She will not see that her incapacity to organize\nliberty comes from her own nature; from the notions which she has of the\nindividual, of society, of religion, of law, of duty--from the manner\nin which she brings up children. Her way is to plant trees downward,\nand then she is astonished at the result! Universal suffrage, with a bad\nreligion and a bad popular education, means perpetual wavering between\nanarchy and dictatorship, between the red and the black, between Danton\nand Loyola.\n\nHow many scapegoats will Prance sacrifice before it occurs to her to\nbeat her own breast in penitence?\n\nAugust 18, 1873. (_Scheveningen_).--Yesterday, Sunday, the landscape was\nclear and distinct, the air bracing, the sea bright and gleaming, and\nof an ashy-blue color. There were beautiful effects of beach, sea, and\ndistance; and dazzling tracks of gold upon the waves, after the sun had\nsunk below the bands of vapor drawn across the middle sky, and before\nit had disappeared in the mists of the sea horizon. The place was very\nfull. All Scheveningen and the Hague, the village and the capital,\nhad streamed out on to the terrace, amusing themselves at innumerable\ntables, and swamping the strangers and the bathers. The orchestra played\nsome Wagner, some Auber, and some waltzes. What was all the world doing?\nSimply enjoying life.\n\nA thousand thoughts wandered through my brain. I thought how much\nhistory it had taken to make what I saw possible; Judaea, Egypt, Greece,\nGermany, Gaul; all the centuries from Moses to Napoleon, and all the\nzones from Batavia to Guiana, had united in the formation of this\ngathering. The industry, the science, the art, the geography, the\ncommerce, the religion of the whole human race, are repeated in every\nhuman combination; and what we see before our own eyes at any given\nmoment is inexplicable without reference to all that has ever been. This\ninterlacing of the ten thousand threads which necessity weaves into the\nproduction of one single phenomenon is a stupefying thought. One feels\none\u2019s self in the presence of law itself--allowed a glimpse of the\nmysterious workshop of nature. The ephemeral perceives the eternal.\n\nWhat matters the brevity of the individual span, seeing that the\ngenerations, the centuries, and the worlds themselves are but occupied\nforever with the ceaseless reproduction of the hymn of life, in all\nthe hundred thousand modes and variations which make up the universal\nsymphony? The motive is always the same; the monad has but one law:\nall truths are but the variation of one single truth. The universe\nrepresents the infinite wealth of the Spirit seeking in vain to exhaust\nall possibilities, and the goodness of the Creator, who would fain share\nwith the created all that sleeps within the limbo of Omnipotence.\n\nTo contemplate and adore, to receive and give back, to have uttered\none\u2019s note and moved one\u2019s grain of sand, is all which is expected from\nsuch insects as we are; it is enough to give motive and meaning to our\nfugitive apparition in existence....\n\nAfter the concert was over the paved esplanade behind the hotels and the\ntwo roads leading to the Hague were alive with people. One might have\nfancied one\u2019s self upon one of the great Parisian boulevards just when\nthe theaters are emptying themselves--there were so many carriages,\nomnibuses, and cabs. Then, when the human tumult had disappeared, the\npeace of the starry heaven shone out resplendent, and the dreamy glimmer\nof the Milky Way was only answered by the distant murmur of the ocean.\n\n_Later_.--What is it which has always come between real life and me?\nWhat glass screen has, as it were, interposed itself between me and the\nenjoyment, the possession, the contact of things, leaving me only the\nrole of the looker-on?\n\nFalse shame, no doubt. I have been ashamed to desire. Fatal result\nof timidity, aggravated by intellectual delusion! This renunciation\nbeforehand of all natural ambitions, this systematic putting aside of\nall longings and all desires, has perhaps been false in idea; it has\nbeen too like a foolish, self-inflicted mutilation. Fear, too, has had a\nlarge share in it--\n\n  \u201cLa peur de ce que j\u2019aime est ma fatalit\u00e9.\u201d\n\nI very soon discovered that it was simpler for me to give up a wish than\nto satisfy it. Not being able to obtain all that my nature longed for,\nI renounced the whole _en bloc_, without even taking the trouble to\ndetermine in detail what might have attracted me; for what was the good\nof stirring up trouble in one\u2019s self and evoking images of inaccessible\ntreasure?\n\nThus I anticipated in spirit all possible disillusions, in the true\nstoical fashion. Only, with singular lack of logic, I have sometimes\nallowed regret to overtake me, and I have looked at conduct founded upon\nexceptional principles with the eyes of the ordinary man. I should have\nbeen ascetic to the end; contemplation ought to have been enough for me,\nespecially now, when the hair begins to whiten. But, after all, I am\na man, and not a theorem. A system cannot suffer, but I suffer. Logic\nmakes only one demand--that of consequence; but life makes a thousand;\nthe body wants health, the imagination cries out for beauty, and the\nheart for love; pride asks for consideration, the soul yearns for peace,\nthe conscience for holiness; our whole being is athirst for happiness\nand for perfection; and we, tottering, mutilated, and incomplete, cannot\nalways feign philosophic insensibility; we stretch out our arms toward\nlife, and we say to it under our breath, \u201cWhy--why--hast thou deceived\nme?\u201d\n\nAugust 19,1873. (_Scheveningen_).--I have had a morning walk. It has\nbeen raining in the night. There are large clouds all round; the sea,\nveined with green and drab, has put on the serious air of labor. She\nis about her business, in no threatening but at the same time in no\nlingering mood. She is making her clouds, heaping up her sands, visiting\nher shores and bathing them with foam, gathering up her floods for\nthe tide, carrying the ships to their destinations, and feeding the\nuniversal life. I found in a hidden nook a sheet of fine sand which the\nwater had furrowed and folded like the pink palate of a kitten\u2019s mouth,\nor like a dappled sky. Everything repeats itself by analogy, and each\nlittle fraction of the earth reproduces in a smaller and individual\nform all the phenomena of the planet. Farther on I came across a bank of\ncrumbling shells, and it was borne in upon me that the sea-sand itself\nmight well be only the detritus of the organic life of preceding eras,\na vast monument or pyramid of immemorial age, built up by countless\ngenerations of molluscs who have labored at the architecture of the\nshores like good workmen of God. If the dunes and the mountains are the\ndust of living creatures who have preceded us, how can we doubt but that\nour death will be as serviceable as our life, and that nothing which has\nbeen lent is lost? Mutual borrowing and temporary service seem to be the\nlaw of existence. Only, the strong prey upon and devour the weak,\nand the concrete inequality of lots within the abstract equality of\ndestinies wounds and disquiets the sense of justice.\n\n_Same day_.--A new spirit governs and inspires the generation which will\nsucceed me. It is a singular sensation to feel the grass growing under\none\u2019s feet, to see one\u2019s self intellectually uprooted. One must address\none\u2019s contemporaries. Younger men will not listen to you. Thought, like\nlove, will not tolerate a gray hair. Knowledge herself loves the young,\nas Fortune used to do in olden days. Contemporary civilization does\nnot know what to do with old age; in proportion as it defies physical\nexperiment, it despises moral experience. One sees therein the triumph\nof Darwinism; it is a state of war, and war must have young soldiers; it\ncan only put up with age in its leaders when they have the strength and\nthe mettle of veterans.\n\nIn point of fact, one must either be strong or disappear, either\nconstantly rejuvenate one\u2019s self or perish. It is as though the humanity\nof our day had, like the migratory birds, an immense voyage to make\nacross space; she can no longer support the weak or help on the\nlaggards. The great assault upon the future makes her hard and pitiless\nto all who fall by the way. Her motto is, \u201cThe devil take the hindmost.\u201d\n\nThe worship of strength has never lacked altars, but it looks as though\nthe more we talk of justice and humanity, the more that other god sees\nhis kingdom widen.\n\nAugust 20, 1873. (_Scheveningen_).--I have now watched the sea which\nbeats upon this shore under many different aspects. On the whole, I\nshould class it with the Baltic. As far as color, effect, and landscape\ngo, it is widely different from the Breton or Basque ocean, and, above\nall, from the Mediterranean. It never attains to the blue-green of the\nAtlantic, nor the indigo of the Ionian Sea. Its scale of color runs from\nflint to emerald, and when it turns to blue, the blue is a turquoise\nshade splashed with gray. The sea here is not amusing itself; it has a\nbusy and serious air, like an Englishman or a Dutchman. Neither polyps\nnor jelly-fish, neither sea-weed nor crabs enliven the sands at low\nwater; the sea life is poor and meagre. What is wonderful is the\nstruggle of man against a miserly and formidable power. Nature has done\nlittle for him, but she allows herself to be managed. Stepmother though\nshe be, she is accommodating, subject to the occasional destruction of a\nhundred thousand lives in a single inundation.\n\nThe air inside the dune is altogether different from that outside it.\nThe air of the sea is life-giving, bracing, oxydized; the air inland\nis soft, relaxing, and warm. In the same way there are two Hollands\nin every Dutchman: there is the man of the _polder_, heavy, pale,\nphlegmatic, slow, patient himself, and trying to the patience of others,\nand there is the man of the _dune_, of the harbor, the shore, the sea,\nwho is tenacious, seasoned, persevering, sunburned, daring. Where the\ntwo agree is in calculating prudence, and in methodical persistency of\neffort.\n\nAugust 22, 1873. (_Scheveningen_).--The weather is rainy, the whole\natmosphere gray; it is a time favorable to thought and meditation. I\nhave a liking for such days as these; they revive one\u2019s converse with\none\u2019s self and make it possible to live the inner life; they are quiet\nand peaceful, like a song in a minor key. We are nothing but thought,\nbut we feel our life to its very center. Our very sensations turn to\nreverie. It is a strange state of mind; it is like those silences\nin worship which are not the empty moments of devotion, but the full\nmoments, and which are so because at such times the soul, instead\nof being polarized, dispersed, localized, in a single impression or\nthought, feels her own totality and is conscious of herself. She tastes\nher own substance. She is no longer played upon, colored, set in motion,\naffected, from without; she is in equilibrium and at rest. Openness and\nself-surrender become possible to her; she contemplates and she adores.\nShe sees the changeless and the eternal enwrapping all the phenomena of\ntime. She is in the religious state, in harmony with the general order,\nor at least in intellectual harmony. For _holiness_, indeed, more is\nwanted--a harmony of will, a perfect self-devotion, death to self and\nabsolute submission.\n\nPsychological peace--that harmony which is perfect but virtual--is but\nthe zero, the potentiality of all numbers; it is not that moral peace\nwhich is victorious over all ills, which is real, positive, tried by\nexperience, and able to face whatever fresh storms may assail it.\n\nThe peace of fact is not the peace of principle. There are indeed two\nhappinesses, that of nature and that of conquest--two equilibria, that\nof Greece and that of Nazareth--two kingdoms, that of the natural man\nand that of the regenerate man.\n\n_Later_. (_Scheveningen_).--Why do doctors so often make mistakes?\nBecause they are not sufficiently individual in their diagnoses or their\ntreatment. They class a sick man under some given department of their\nnosology, whereas every invalid is really a special case, a unique\nexample. How is it possible that so coarse a method of sifting should\nproduce judicious therapeutics? Every illness is a factor simple or\ncomplex, which is multiplied by a second factor, invariably complex--the\nindividual, that is to say, who is suffering from it, so that the result\nis a special problem, demanding a special solution, the more so the\ngreater the remoteness of the patient from childhood or from country\nlife.\n\nThe principal grievance which I have against the doctors is that they\nneglect the real problem, which is to seize the unity of the individual\nwho claims their care. Their methods of investigation are far too\nelementary; a doctor who does not read you to the bottom is ignorant of\nessentials. To me the ideal doctor would be a man endowed with profound\nknowledge of life and of the soul, intuitively divining any suffering\nor disorder of whatever kind, and restoring peace by his mere presence.\nSuch a doctor is possible, but the greater number of them lack\nthe higher and inner life, they know nothing of the transcendent\nlaboratories of nature; they seem to me superficial, profane, strangers\nto divine things, destitute of intuition and sympathy. The model doctor\nshould be at once a genius, a saint, a man of God.\n\nSeptember 11, 1873. (_Amsterdam_).--The doctor has just gone. He says\nI have fever about me, and does not think that I can start for another\nthree days without imprudence. I dare not write to my Genevese friends\nand tell them that I am coming back from the sea in a radically worse\nstate of strength and throat than when I went there, and that I have\nonly wasted my time, my trouble, my money, and my hopes....\n\nThis contradictory double fact--on the one side an eager hopefulness\nspringing up afresh after all disappointments, and on the other an\nexperience almost invariably unfavorable--can be explained like all\nillusions by the whim of nature, which either wills us to be deceived or\nwills us to act as if we were so.\n\nSkepticism is the wiser course, but in delivering us from error it\ntends to paralyze life. Maturity of mind consists in taking part in the\nprescribed game as seriously as though one believed in it. Good-humored\ncompliance, tempered by a smile, is, on the whole, the best line to\ntake; one lends one\u2019s self to an optical illusion, and the voluntary\nconcession has an air of liberty. Once imprisoned in existence, we must\nsubmit to its laws with a good grace; to rebel against it only ends\nin impotent rage, when once we have denied ourselves the solution of\nsuicide.\n\nHumility and submission, or the religious point of view; clear-eyed\nindulgence with a touch of irony, or the point of view of worldly\nwisdom--these two attitudes are possible. The second is sufficient for\nthe minor ills of life, the other is perhaps necessary in the greater\nones. The pessimism of Schopenhauer supposes at least health and\nintellect as means of enduring the rest of life. But optimism either of\nthe stoical or the Christian sort is needed to make it possible for\nus to bear the worst sufferings of flesh, heart and soul. If we are to\nescape the grip of despair, we must believe either that the whole of\nthings at least is good, or that grief is a fatherly grace, a purifying\ntrial.\n\nThere can be no doubt that the idea of a happy immortality, serving as\na harbor of refuge from the tempests of this mortal existence, and\nrewarding the fidelity, the patience, the submission, and the courage of\nthe travelers on life\u2019s sea--there can be no doubt that this idea, the\nstrength of so many generations, and the faith of the church, carries\nwith it inexpressible consolation to those who are wearied, burdened,\nand tormented by pain and suffering. To feel one\u2019s self individually\ncared for and protected by God gives a special dignity and beauty to\nlife. Monotheism lightens the struggle for existence. But does the study\nof nature allow of the maintenance of those local revelations which are\ncalled Mosaism, Christianity, Islamism? These religions founded upon an\ninfantine cosmogony, and upon a chimerical history of humanity, can they\nbear confronting with modern astronomy and geology? The present mode of\nescape, which consists in trying to satisfy the claims of both science\nand faith--of the science which contradicts all the ancient beliefs,\nand the faith which, in the case of things that are beyond nature\nand incapable of verification, affirms them on her own responsibility\nonly--this mode of escape cannot last forever. Every fresh cosmical\nconception demands a religion which corresponds to it. Our age of\ntransition stands bewildered between the two incompatible methods,\nthe scientific method and the religious method, and between the two\ncertitudes, which contradict each other.\n\nSurely the reconciliation of the two must be sought for in the moral\nlaw, which is also a fact, and every step of which requires for its\nexplanation another cosmos than the cosmos of necessity. Who knows if\nnecessity is not a particular case of liberty, and its condition? Who\nknows if nature is not a laboratory for the fabrication of thinking\nbeings who are ultimately to become free creatures? Biology protests,\nand indeed the supposed existence of souls, independently of time,\nspace, and matter, is a fiction of faith, less logical than the Platonic\ndogma. But the question remains open. We may eliminate the idea of\npurpose from nature, yet, as the guiding conception of the highest being\nof our planet, it is a fact, and a fact which postulates a meaning in\nthe history of the universe.\n\nMy thought is straying in vague paths: why? because I have no creed.\nAll my studies end in notes of interrogation, and that I may not draw\npremature or arbitrary conclusions I draw none.\n\n_Later on_.--My creed has melted away, but I believe in good, in the\nmoral order, and in salvation; religion for me is to live and die in\nGod, in complete abandonment to the holy will which is at the root of\nnature and destiny. I believe even in the gospel, the good news--that\nis to say, in the reconciliation of the sinner with God, by faith in the\nlove of a pardoning Father.\n\nOctober 4, 1873. (_Geneva_).--I have been dreaming a long while in the\nmoonlight, which floods my room with a radiance, full of vague mystery.\nThe state of mind induced in us by this fantastic light is itself so dim\nand ghost-like that analysis loses its way in it, and arrives at nothing\narticulate. It is something indefinite and intangible, like the noise of\nwaves which is made up of a thousand fused and mingled sounds. It is\nthe reverberation of all the unsatisfied desires of the soul, of all the\nstifled sorrows of the heart, mingling in a vague sonorous whole, and\ndying away in cloudy murmurs. All those imperceptible regrets, which\nnever individually reach the consciousness, accumulate at last into a\ndefinite result; they become the voice of a feeling of emptiness and\naspiration; their tone is melancholy itself. In youth the tone of\nthese Aeolian vibrations of the heart is all hope--a proof that these\nthousands of indistinguishable accents make up indeed the fundamental\nnote of our being, and reveal the tone of our whole situation. Tell me\nwhat you feel in your solitary room when the full moon is shining in\nupon you and your lamp is dying out, and I will tell you how old you\nare, and I shall know if you are happy.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe best path through life is the high road, which initiates us at\nthe right moment into all experience. Exceptional itineraries are\nsuspicious, and matter for anxiety. What is normal is at once most\nconvenient, most honest, and most wholesome. Cross roads may tempt us\nfor one reason or another, but it is very seldom that we do not come to\nregret having taken them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEach man begins the world afresh, and not one fault of the first man has\nbeen avoided by his remotest descendant. The collective experience\nof the race accumulates, but individual experience dies with the\nindividual, and the result is that institutions become wiser and\nknowledge as such increases; but the young man, although more\ncultivated, is just as presumptuous, and not less fallible to-day than\nhe ever was. So that absolutely there is progress, and relatively there\nis none. Circumstances improve, but merit remains the same. The whole is\nbetter, perhaps, but man is not positively better--he is only different.\nHis defects and his virtues change their form, but the total balance\ndoes not show him to be the richer. A thousand things advance, nine\nhundred and ninety-eight fall back, this is progress. There is nothing\nin it to be proud of, but something, after all, to console one.\n\nFebruary 4, 1874.--I am still reading the \u201cOrigines du Christianisme\u201d by\nErnest Havet. [Footnote: Ernest Havet, born 1813, a distinguished French\nscholar and professor. He became professor of Latin oratory at the\nColl\u00e8ge de France in 1855, and a member of the Institute in January,\n1880. His admirable edition of the \u201cPens\u00e9es de Pascal\u201d is well-known.\n\u201cLe Christianisme et ses Origines,\u201d an important book, in four volumes,\nwas developed from a series of articles in the _Revue des deux Mondes_,\nand the _Revue Contemporaine_.] I like the book and I dislike it. I like\nit for its independence and courage; I dislike it for the insufficiency\nof its fundamental ideas, and the imperfection of its categories.\n\nThe author, for instance, has no clear idea of religion; and his\nphilosophy of history is superficial. He is a Jacobin. \u201cThe Republic and\nFree Thought\u201d--he cannot get beyond that. This curt and narrow school\nof opinion is the refuge of men of independent mind, who have been\nscandalized by the colossal fraud of ultramontanism; but it leads rather\nto cursing history than to understanding it. It is the criticism of the\neighteenth century, of which the general result is purely negative.\nBut Voltairianism is only the half of the philosophic mind. Hegel frees\nthought in a very different way.\n\nHavet, too, makes another mistake. He regards Christianity as synonymous\nwith Roman Catholicism and with the church. I know very well that the\nRoman Church does the same, and that with her the assimilation is a\nmatter of sound tactics; but scientifically it is inexact. We ought\nnot even to identify Christianity with the gospel, nor the gospel with\nreligion in general. It is the business of critical precision to\nclear away these perpetual confusions in which Christian practice and\nChristian preaching abound. To disentangle ideas, to distinguish and\nlimit them, to fit them into their true place and order, is the first\nduty of science whenever it lays hands upon such chaotic and complex\nthings as manners, idioms, or beliefs. Entanglement is the condition\nof life; order and clearness are the signs of serious and successful\nthought.\n\nFormerly it was the ideas of nature which were a tissue of errors and\nincoherent fancies; now it is the turn of moral and psychological ideas.\nThe best issue from the present Babel would be the formation or the\nsketching out of a truly scientific science of man.\n\nFebruary 16, 1874.--The multitude, who already possess force, and even,\naccording to the Republican view, right, have always been persuaded by\nthe Cleons of the day that enlightenment, wisdom, thought, and reason,\nare also theirs. The game of these conjurors and quacks of universal\nsuffrage has always been to flatter the crowd in order to make an\ninstrument of it. They pretend to adore the puppet of which they pull\nthe threads.\n\nThe theory of radicalism is a piece of juggling, for it supposes\npremises of which it knows the falsity; it manufactures the oracle\nwhose revelations it pretends to adore; it proclaims that the multitude\ncreates a brain for itself, while all the time it is the clever man who\nis the brain of the multitude, and suggests to it what it is supposed\nto invent. To reign by flattery has been the common practice of the\ncourtiers of all despotisms, the favorites of all tyrants; it is an old\nand trite method, but none the less odious for that.\n\nThe honest politician should worship nothing but reason and justice, and\nit is his business to preach them to the masses, who represent, on\nan average, the age of childhood and not that of maturity. We corrupt\nchildhood if we tell it that it cannot be mistaken, and that it knows\nmore than its elders. We corrupt the masses when we tell them that they\nare wise and far-seeing and possess the gift of infallibility.\n\nIt is one of Montesquieu\u2019s subtle remarks, that the more wise men you\nheap together the less wisdom you will obtain. Radicalism pretends that\nthe greater number of illiterate, passionate, thoughtless--above all,\nyoung people, you heap together, the greater will be the enlightenment\nresulting. The second thesis is no doubt the repartee to the first, but\nthe joke is a bad one. All that can be got from a crowd is instinct\nor passion; the instinct may be good, but the passion may be bad, and\nneither is the instinct capable of producing a clear idea, nor the\npassion of leading to a just resolution.\n\nA crowd is a material force, and the support of numbers gives a\nproposition the force of law; but that wise and ripened temper of mind\nwhich takes everything into account, and therefore tends to truth, is\nnever engendered by the impetuosity of the masses. The masses are the\nmaterial of democracy, but its form--that is to say, the laws which\nexpress the general reason, justice, and utility--can only be rightly\nshaped by wisdom, which is by no means a universal property. The\nfundamental error of the radical theory is to confound the right to do\ngood with good itself, and universal suffrage with universal wisdom.\nIt rests upon a legal fiction, which assumes a real equality of\nenlightenment and merit among those whom it declares electors. It is\nquite possible, however, that these electors may not desire the public\ngood, and that even if they do, they may be deceived as to the manner\nof realizing it. Universal suffrage is not a dogma--it is an instrument;\nand according to the population in whose hands it is placed, the\ninstrument is serviceable or deadly to the proprietor.\n\nFebruary 27, 1874.--Among the peoples, in whom the social gifts are the\nstrongest, the individual fears ridicule above all things, and ridicule\nis the certain result of originality. No one, therefore, wishes to make\na party of his own; every one wishes to be on the side of all the world.\n\u201cAll the world\u201d is the greatest of powers; it is sovereign, and calls\nitself _we_. _We_ dress, _we_ dine, _we_ walk, _we_ go out, _we_ come\nin, like this, and not like that. This _we_ is always right, whatever\nit does. The subjects of _We_ are more prostrate than the slaves of the\nEast before the Padishah. The good pleasure of the sovereign decides\nevery appeal; his caprice is law. What _we_ does or says is called\ncustom, what it thinks is called opinion, what it believes to be\nbeautiful or good is called fashion. Among such nations as these _we_\nis the brain, the conscience, the reason, the taste, and the judgment\nof all. The individual finds everything decided for him without his\ntroubling about it. He is dispensed from the task of finding out\nanything whatever. Provided that he imitates, copies, and repeats the\nmodels furnished by _we_, he has nothing more to fear. He knows all that\nhe need know, and has entered into salvation.\n\nApril 29, 1874.--Strange reminiscence! At the end of the terrace of La\nTreille, on the eastern side, as I looked down the slope, it seemed to\nme that I saw once more in imagination a little path which existed\nthere when I was a child, and ran through the bushy underwood, which\nwas thicker then than it is now. It is at least forty years since this\nimpression disappeared from my mind. The revival of an image so dead and\nso forgotten set me thinking. Consciousness seems to be like a book, in\nwhich the leaves turned by life successively cover and hide each other\nin spite of their semi-transparency; but although the book may be open\nat the page of the present, the wind, for a few seconds, may blow back\nthe first pages into view.\n\nAnd at death will these leaves cease to hide each other, and shall we\nsee all our past at once? Is death the passage from the successive to\nthe simultaneous--that is to say, from time to eternity? Shall we\nthen understand, in its unity, the poem or mysterious episode of our\nexistence, which till then we have spelled out phrase by phrase? And\nis this the secret of that glory which so often enwraps the brow and\ncountenance of those who are newly dead? If so, death would be like the\narrival of a traveler at the top of a great mountain, whence he sees\nspread out before him the whole configuration of the country, of which\ntill then he had had but passing glimpses. To be able to overlook one\u2019s\nown history, to divine its meaning in the general concert and in the\ndivine plan, would be the beginning of eternal felicity. Till then we\nhad sacrificed ourselves to the universal order, but then we should\nunderstand and appreciate the beauty of that order. We had toiled\nand labored under the conductor of the orchestra; and we should find\nourselves become surprised and delighted hearers. We had seen nothing\nbut our own little path in the mist; and suddenly a marvelous panorama\nand boundless distances would open before our dazzled eyes. Why not?\n\nMay 31, 1874.--I have been reading the philosophical poems of Madame\nAckermann. She has rendered in fine verse that sense of desolation which\nhas been so often stirred in me by the philosophy of Schopenhauer, of\nHartmann, Comte, and Darwin. What tragic force and power! What thought\nand passion! She has courage for everything, and attacks the most\ntremendous subjects.\n\nScience is implacable; will it suppress all religions? All those\nwhich start from a false conception of nature, certainly. But if the\nscientific conception of nature proves incapable of bringing harmony and\npeace to man, what will happen? Despair is not a durable situation. We\nshall have to build a moral city without God, without an immortality\nof the soul, without hope. Buddhism and stoicism present themselves as\npossible alternatives.\n\nBut even if we suppose that there is no finality in the cosmos, it is\ncertain that man has ends at which he aims, and if so the notion of\nend or purpose is a real phenomenon, although a limited one. Physical\nscience may very well be limited by moral science, and _vice vers\u00e2_. But\nif these two conceptions of the world are in opposition, which must give\nway?\n\nI still incline to believe that nature is the virtuality of mind--that\nthe soul is the fruit of life, and liberty the flower of necessity--that\nall is bound together, and that nothing can be done without. Our modern\nphilosophy has returned to the point of view of the Ionians, the [Greek:\n_physikoi_], or naturalist thinkers. But it will have to pass once\nmore through Plato and through Aristotle, through the philosophy of\n\u201cgoodness\u201d and \u201cpurpose,\u201d through the science of mind.\n\nJuly 3, 1874.--Rebellion against common sense is a piece of childishness\nof which I am quite capable. But it does not last long. I am soon\nbrought back to the advantages and obligations of my situation; I return\nto a calmer self-consciousness. It is disagreeable to me, no doubt, to\nrealize all that is hopelessly lost to me, all that is now and will\nbe forever denied to me; but I reckon up my privileges as well as my\nlosses--I lay stress on what I have, and not only on what I want. And\nso I escape from that terrible dilemma of \u201call or nothing,\u201d which for me\nalways ends in the adoption of the second alternative. It seems to me\nat such times that a man may without shame content himself with being\n_some_ thing and _some_ one--\n\n  \u201cNi si haut, ni si bas....\u201d\n\nThese brusque lapses into the formless, indeterminate state, are the\nprice of my critical faculty. All my former habits become suddenly\nfluid; it seems to me that I am beginning life over again, and that all\nmy acquired capital has disappeared at a stroke. I am forever new-born;\nI am a mind which has never taken to itself a body, a country, an\navocation, a sex, a species. Am I even quite sure of being a man, a\nEuropean, an inhabitant of this earth? It seems to me so easy to be\nsomething else, that to be what I am appears to me a mere piece of\narbitrary choice. I cannot possibly take an accidental structure of\nwhich the value is purely relative, seriously. When once a man has\ntouched the absolute, all that might be other than what it is seems to\nhim indifferent. All these ants pursuing their private ends excite his\nmirth. He looks down from the moon upon his hovel; he beholds the earth\nfrom the heights of the sun; he considers his life from the point of\nview of the Hindoo pondering the days of Brahma; he sees the finite from\nthe distance of the infinite, and thenceforward the insignificance of\nall those things which men hold to be important makes effort ridiculous,\npassion burlesque, and prejudice absurd.\n\nAugust 7, 1874. (_Clarens_).--A day perfectly beautiful, luminous,\nlimpid, brilliant.\n\nI passed the morning in the churchyard; the \u201cOasis\u201d was delightful.\nInnumerable sensations, sweet and serious, peaceful and solemn, passed\nover me.... Around me Russians, English, Swedes, Germans, were sleeping\ntheir last sleep under the shadow of the Cubly. The landscape was one\nvast splendor; the woods were deep and mysterious, the roses full blown;\nall around me were butterflies--a noise of wings--the murmur of birds.\nI caught glimpses through the trees of distant mists, of soaring\nmountains, of the tender blue of the lake.... A little conjunction of\nthings struck me. Two ladies were tending and watering a grave; two\nnurses were suckling their children. This double protest against death\nhad something touching and poetical in it. \u201cSleep, you who are dead; we,\nthe living, are thinking of you, or at least carrying on the pilgrimage\nof the race!\u201d such seemed to me the words in my ear. It was clear to me\nthat the Oasis of Clarens is the spot in which I should like to rest.\nHere I am surrounded with memories; here death is like a sleep--a sleep\ninstinct with hope.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHope is not forbidden us, but peace and submission are the essentials.\n\nSeptember 1, 1874. (_Clarens_).--On waking it seemed to me that I was\nstaring into the future with wide startled eyes. Is it indeed to _me_\nthat these things apply. [Footnote: Amiel had just received at the\nhands of his doctor the medical verdict, which was his _arr\u00eat de mort_.]\nIncessant and growing humiliation, my slavery becoming heavier, my\ncircle of action steadily narrower!... What is hateful in my situation\nis that deliverance can never be hoped for, and that one misery will\nsucceed another in such a way as to leave me no breathing space, not\neven in the future, not even in hope. All possibilities are closed to\nme, one by one. It is difficult for the natural man to escape from a\ndumb rage against inevitable agony.\n\n_Noon_.--An indifferent nature? A Satanic principle of things? A\ngood and just God? Three points of view. The second is improbable and\nhorrible. The first appeals to our stoicism. My organic combination has\nnever been anything but mediocre; it has lasted as long as it could.\nEvery man has his turn, and all must submit. To die quickly is a\nprivilege; I shall die by inches. Well, submit. Rebellion would be\nuseless and senseless. After all, I belong to the better-endowed half of\nhuman-kind, and my lot is superior to the average.\n\nBut the third point of view alone can give joy. Only is it tenable? Is\nthere a particular Providence directing all the circumstances of our\nlife, and therefore imposing all our trials upon us for educational\nends? Is this heroic faith compatible with our actual knowledge of the\nlaws of nature? Scarcely; But what this faith makes objective we may\nhold as subjective truth. The moral being may moralize his sufferings by\nusing natural facts for his own inner education. What he cannot change\nhe calls the will of God, and to will what God wills brings him peace.\n\nTo nature both our continued existence and our morality are equally\nindifferent. But God, on the other hand, if God is, desires our\nsanctification; and if suffering purifies us, then we may console\nourselves or suffering. This is what makes the great advantage of the\nChristian faith; it is the triumph over pain, the victory over death.\nThere is but one thing necessary--death unto sin, the immolation of\nour selfish will, the filial sacrifice of our desires. Evil consists\nin living for _self_--that is to say, for one\u2019s own vanity, pride,\nsensuality, or even health. Righteousness consists in willingly\naccepting one\u2019s lot, in submitting to, and espousing the destiny\nassigned us, in willing what God commands, in renouncing what he forbids\nus, in consenting to what he takes from us or refuses us.\n\nIn my own particular case, what has been taken from me is health--that\nis to say, the surest basis of all independence; but friendship and\nmaterial comfort are still left to me; I am neither called upon to bear\nthe slavery of poverty nor the hell of absolute isolation.\n\nHealth cut off, means marriage, travel, study, and work forbidden or\nendangered. It means life reduced in attractiveness and utility by\nfive-sixths.\n\nThy will be done!\n\nSeptember 14, 1874. (_Charnex_).--A long walk and conversation with----.\nWe followed a high mountain path. Seated on the turf, and talking with\nopen heart, our eyes wandered over the blue immensity below us, and\nthe smiling outlines of the shore. All was friendly, azure-tinted,\ncaressing, to the sight. The soul I was reading was profound and pure.\nSuch an experience is like a flight into paradise. A few light clouds\nclimbed the broad spaces of the sky, steamers made long tracks upon the\nwater at our feet, white sails were dotted over the vast distance of\nthe lake, and sea-gulls like gigantic butterflies quivered above its\nrippling surface.\n\nSeptember 21, 1874. (_Charnex_).--A wonderful day! Never has the lake\nbeen bluer, or the landscape softer. It was enchanting. But tragedy is\nhidden under the eclogue; the serpent crawls under the flowers. All the\nfuture is dark. The phantoms which for three or four weeks I have been\nable to keep at bay, wait for me behind the door, as the Eumenides\nwaited for Orestes. Hemmed in on all sides!\n\n  \u201cOn ne croit plus \u00e0 son \u00e9toile,\n   On sent que derri\u00e8re la toile\n   Sont le deuil, les maux et la mort.\u201d\n\nFor a fortnight I have been happy, and now this happiness is going.\n\nThere are no more birds, but a few white or blue butterflies are still\nleft. Flowers are becoming rare--a few daisies in the fields, some blue\nor yellow chicories and colchicums, some wild geraniums growing among\nfragments of old walls, and the brown berries of the privet--this is all\nwe were able to find. In the fields they are digging potatoes, beating\ndown the nuts, and beginning the apple harvest. The leaves are thinning\nand changing color; I watch them turning red on the pear-trees, gray on\nthe plums, yellow on the walnut-trees, and tinging the thickly-strewn\nturf with shades of reddish-brown. We are nearing the end of the fine\nweather; the coloring is the coloring of late autumn; there is no need\nnow to keep out of the sun. Everything is soberer, more measured, more\nfugitive, less emphatic. Energy is gone, youth is past, prodigality\nat an end, the summer over. The year is on the wane and tends toward\nwinter; it is once more in harmony with my own age and position, and\nnext Sunday it will keep my birthday. All these different consonances\nform a melancholy harmony.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe distinguishing mark of religion is not so much liberty as obedience,\nand its value is measured by the sacrifices which it can extract from\nthe individual.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA young girl\u2019s love is a kind of piety. We must approach it with\nadoration if we are not to profane it, and with poetry if we are to\nunderstand it. If there is anything in the world which gives us a sweet,\nineffable impression, of the ideal, it is this trembling modest love. To\ndeceive it would be a crime. Merely to watch its unfolding life is bliss\nto the beholder; he sees in it the birth of a divine marvel. When the\ngarland of youth fades on our brow, let us try at least to have the\nvirtues of maturity; may we grow better, gentler, graver, like the fruit\nof the vine, while its leaf withers and falls.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the\nmost difficult chapters in the great art of living.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature, and\na continuous moral progress toward inward contentment and religious\nsubmission, is less liable than any one else to miss and waste life.\n\nJanuary 2, 1875. (_Hy\u00e8res_.)--In spite of my sleeping draught I have\nhad a bad night. Once it seemed as if I must choke, for I could breathe\nneither way.\n\nCould I be more fragile, more sensitive, more vulnerable! People talk to\nme as if there were still a career before me, while all the time I know\nthat the ground is slipping from under me, and that the defense of my\nhealth is already a hopeless task. At bottom, I am only living on out of\ncomplaisance and without a shadow of self-delusion. I know that not\none of my desires will be realized, and for a long time I have had no\ndesires at all. I simply accept what comes to me as though it were a\nbird perching on my window. I smile at it, but I know very well that my\nvisitor has wings and will not stay long. The resignation which comes\nfrom despair has a kind of melancholy sweetness. It looks at life as\na man sees it from his death-bed, and judges it without bitterness and\nwithout vain regrets.\n\nI no longer hope to get well, or to be useful, or to be happy. I hope\nthat those who have loved me will love me to the end; I should wish to\nhave done them some good, and to leave them a tender memory of myself.\nI wish to die without rebellion and without weakness; that is about all.\nIs this relic of hope and of desire still too much? Let all be as God\nwill. I resign myself into his hands.\n\nJanuary 22, 1875. (_Hy\u00e8res_).--The French mind, according to Gioberti,\napprehends only the outward form of truth, and exaggerates it by\nisolating it, so that it acts as a solvent upon the realities with which\nit works. It takes the shadow for the substance, the word for the thing,\nappearance for reality, and abstract formula for truth. It lives in a\nworld of intellectual _assignats_. If you talk to a Frenchman of art, of\nlanguage, of religion, of the state, of duty, of the family, you feel in\nhis way of speaking that his thought remains outside the subject, that\nhe never penetrates into its substance, its inmost core. He is not\nstriving to understand it in its essence, but only to say something\nplausible about it. On his lips the noblest words become thin and empty;\nfor example--mind, idea, religion. The French mind is superficial and\nyet not comprehensive; it has an extraordinarily fine edge, and yet no\npenetrating power. Its desire is to enjoy its own resources by the help\nof things, but it has none of the respect, the disinterestedness, the\npatience, and the self-forgetfulness, which, are indispensable if we\nwish to see things as they are. Far from being the philosophic mind, it\nis a mere counterfeit of it, for it does not enable a man to solve any\nproblem whatever, and remains incapable of understanding all that\nis living, complex, and concrete. Abstraction is its original sin,\npresumption its incurable defect, and plausibility its fatal limit.\n\nThe French language has no power of expressing truths of birth and\ngermination; it paints effects, results, the _caput mortuum_, but not\nthe cause, the motive power, the native force the development of any\nphenomenon whatever. It is analytic and descriptive, but it explains\nnothing, for it avoids all beginnings and processes of formation. With\nit crystallization is not the mysterious act itself by which a substance\npasses from the fluid state to the solid state. It is the product of\nthat act.\n\nThe thirst for truth is not a French passion. In everything appearance\nis preferred to reality, the outside to the inside, the fashion to\nthe material, that which shines to that which profits, opinion to\nconscience. That is to say, the Frenchman\u2019s center of gravity is always\noutside him--he is always thinking of others, playing to the gallery.\nTo him individuals are so many zeros; the unit which turns them into a\nnumber must be added from outside; it may be royalty, the writer of the\nday, the favorite newspaper, or any other temporary master of fashion.\nAll this is probably the result of an exaggerated sociability, which\nweakens the soul\u2019s forces of resistance, destroys its capacity for\ninvestigation and personal conviction, and kills in it the worship of\nthe ideal.\n\nJanuary 27, 1875. (_Hy\u00e8res_).--The whole atmosphere has a luminous\nserenity, a limpid clearness. The islands are like swans swimming in a\ngolden stream. Peace, splendor, boundless space!... And I meanwhile look\nquietly on while the soft hours glide away. I long to catch the wild\nbird, happiness, and tame it. Above all, I long to share it with others.\nThese delicious mornings impress me indescribably. They intoxicate\nme, they carry me away. I feel beguiled out of myself, dissolved in\nsunbeams, breezes, perfumes, and sudden impulses of joy. And yet all the\ntime I pine for I know not what intangible Eden.\n\nLamartine in the \u201cPr\u00e9ludes\u201d has admirably described this oppressive\neffect of happiness on fragile human nature. I suspect that the reason\nfor it is that the finite creature feels itself invaded by the infinite,\nand the invasion produces dizziness, a kind of vertigo, a longing\nto fling one\u2019s self into the great gulf of being. To feel life too\nintensely is to yearn for death; and for man, to die means to become\nlike unto the gods--to be initiated into the great mystery. Pathetic and\nbeautiful illusion.\n\n_Ten o\u2019clock in the evening_.--From one end to the other the day has\nbeen perfect, and my walk this afternoon to Beau Vallon was one long\ndelight. It was like an expedition into Arcadia. Here was a wild and\nwoodland corner, which would have made a fit setting for a dance of\nnymphs, and there an ilex overshadowing a rock, which reminded me of an\node of Horace or a drawing of Tibur. I felt a kind of certainty that\nthe landscape had much that was Greek in it. And what made the sense of\nresemblance the more striking was the sea, which one feels to be always\nnear, though one may not see it, and which any turn of the valley may\nbring into view. We found out a little tower with an overgrown garden,\nof which the owner might have been taken for a husbandman of the\nOdyssey. He could scarcely speak any French, but was not without a\ncertain grave dignity. I translated to him the inscription on his\nsun-dial, \u201c_Hora est benefaciendi_,\u201d which is beautiful, and pleased him\ngreatly. It would be an inspiring place to write a novel in. Only I do\nnot know whether the little den would have a decent room, and one\nwould certainly have to live upon eggs, milk, and figs, like Philemon.\nFebruary 15, 1875. (_Hy\u00e8res_).--I have just been reading the two last\n\u201cDiscours\u201d at the French Academy, lingering over every word and weighing\nevery idea. This kind of writing is a sort of intellectual dainty, for\nit is the art \u201cof expressing truth with all the courtesy and finesse\npossible;\u201d the art of appearing perfectly at ease without the smallest\nloss of manners; of being gracefully sincere, and of making criticism\nitself a pleasure to the person criticized. Legacy as it is from\nthe monarchical tradition, this particular kind of eloquence is the\ndistinguishing mark of those men of the world who are also men of\nbreeding, and those men of letters who are also gentlemen. Democracy\ncould never have invented it, and in this delicate _genre_ of literature\nFrance may give points to all rival peoples, for it is the fruit of that\nrefined and yet vigorous social sense which is produced by court and\ndrawing-room life, by literature and good company, by means of a mutual\neducation continued for centuries. This complicated product is as\noriginal in its way as Athenian eloquence, but it is less healthy and\nless durable. If ever France becomes Americanized this _genre_ at least\nwill perish, without hope of revival.\n\nApril 16, 1875. (_Hy\u00e8res_).--I have already gone through the various\nemotions of leave-taking. I have been wandering slowly through the\nstreets and up the castle hill, gathering a harvest of images and\nrecollections. Already I am full of regret that I have not made a better\nstudy of the country, in which I have now spent four months and more. It\nis like what happens when a friend dies; we accuse ourselves of having\nloved him too little, or loved him ill; or it is like our own death,\nwhen we look back upon life and feel that it has been misspent.\n\nAugust 16,1875.--Life is but a daily oscillation between revolt and\nsubmission, between the instinct of the _ego_, which is to expand,\nto take delight in its own tranquil sense of inviolability, if not to\ntriumph in its own sovereignty, and the instinct of the soul, which is\nto obey the universal order, to accept the will of God.\n\nThe cold renunciation of disillusioned reason brings no real peace.\nPeace is only to be found in reconciliation with destiny, when destiny\nseems, in the religious sense of the word, _good_; that is to say, when\nman feels himself directly in the presence of God. Then, and then only,\ndoes the will acquiesce. Nay more, it only completely acquiesces when it\nadores. The soul only submits to the hardness of fate by virtue of\nits discovery of a sublime compensation--the loving kindness of the\nAlmighty. That is to say, it cannot resign itself to lack or famine,\nit shrinks from the void around it, and the happiness either of hope or\nfaith is essential to it. It may very well vary its objects, but some\nobject it must have. It may renounce its former idols, but it will\ndemand another cult. The soul hungers and thirsts after happiness, and\nit is in vain that everything deserts it--it will never submit to its\nabandonment.\n\nAugust 28, 1875. (_Geneva_).--A word used by Sainte-Beuve \u00e0 propos of\nBenjamin Constant has struck me: it is the word _consideration_. To\npossess or not to possess _consideration_ was to Madame de Sta\u00ebl a\nmatter of supreme importance--the loss of it an irreparable evil, the\nacquirement of it a pressing necessity. What, then, is this good thing?\nThe esteem of the public. And how is it gained? By honorable character\nand life, combined with a certain aggregate of services rendered and\nof successes obtained. It is not exactly a good conscience, but it\nis something like it, for it is the witness from without, if not the\nwitness from within. _Consideration_ is not reputation, still less\ncelebrity, fame, or glory; it has nothing to do with _savoir faire_, and\nis not always the attendant of talent or genius. It is the reward given\nto constancy in duty, to probity of conduct. It is the homage rendered\nto a life held to be irreproachable. It is a little more than esteem,\nand a little less than admiration. To enjoy public consideration is\nat once a happiness and a power. The loss of it is a misfortune and a\nsource of daily suffering. Here am I, at the age of fifty-three,\nwithout ever having given this idea the smallest place in my life. It is\ncurious, but the desire for consideration has been to me so little of a\nmotive that I have not even been conscious of such an idea at all.\nThe fact shows, I suppose, that for me the audience, the gallery, the\npublic, has never had more than a negative importance. I have neither\nasked nor expected anything from it, not even justice; and to be a\ndependent upon it, to solicit its suffrages and its good graces, has\nalways seemed to me an act of homage and flunkeyism against which my\npride has instinctively rebelled. I have never even tried to gain the\ngood will of a _c\u00f4ter\u00ece_ or a newspaper, nor so much as the vote of\nan elector. And yet it would have been a joy to me to be smiled upon,\nloved, encouraged, welcomed, and to obtain what I was so ready to\ngive, kindness and good will. But to hunt down consideration and\nreputation--to force the esteem of others--seemed to me an effort\nunworthy of myself, almost a degradation. I have never even thought of\nit.\n\nPerhaps I have lost consideration by my indifference to it. Probably I\nhave disappointed public expectation by thus allowing an over-sensitive\nand irritable consciousness to lead me into isolation and retreat. I\nknow that the world, which is only eager to silence you when you do\nspeak, is angry with your silence as soon as its own action has killed\nin you the wish to speak. No doubt, to be silent with a perfectly clear\nconscience a man must not hold a public office. I now indeed say to\nmyself that a professor is morally bound to justify his position by\npublication; that students, authorities, and public are placed thereby\nin a healthier relation toward him; that it is necessary for his good\nrepute in the world, and for the proper maintenance of his position. But\nthis point of view has not been a familiar one to me. I have endeavored\nto give conscientious lectures, and I have discharged all the subsidiary\nduties of my post to the best of my ability; but I have never been able\nto bend myself to a struggle with hostile opinion, for all the while my\nheart has been full of sadness and disappointment, and I have known\nand felt that I have been systematically and deliberately isolated.\nPremature despair and the deepest discouragement have been my constant\nportion. Incapable of taking any interest in my talents for my own sake,\nI let everything slip as soon as the hope of being loved for them and\nby them had forsaken me. A hermit against my will, I have not even found\npeace in solitude, because my inmost conscience has not been any better\nsatisfied than my heart.\n\nDoes not all this make up a melancholy lot, a barren failure of a life?\nWhat use have I made of my gifts, of my special circumstances, of my\nhalf-century of existence? What have I paid back to my country? Are all\nthe documents I have produced, taken together, my correspondence, these\nthousands of journal pages, my lectures, my articles, my poems, my notes\nof different kinds, anything better than withered leaves? To whom and to\nwhat have I been useful? Will my name survive me a single day, and will\nit ever mean anything to anybody? A life of no account! A great many\ncomings and goings, a great many scrawls--for nothing. When all is added\nup--nothing! And worst of all, it has not been a life used up in the\nservice of some adored object, or sacrificed to any future hope.\nIts sufferings will have been vain, its renunciations useless, its\nsacrifices gratuitous, its dreariness without reward.... No, I am wrong;\nit will have had its secret treasure, its sweetness, its reward. It will\nhave inspired a few affections of great price; it will have given joy to\na few souls; its hidden existence will have had some value. Besides,\nif in itself it has been nothing, it has understood much. If it has not\nbeen in harmony with the great order, still it has loved it. If it has\nmissed happiness and duty, it has at least felt its own nothingness, and\nimplored its pardon.\n\n_Later on._--There is a great affinity in me with the Hindoo\ngenius--that mind, vast, imaginative, loving, dreamy, and speculative,\nbut destitute of ambition, personality, and will. Pantheistic\ndisinterestedness, the effacement of the self in the great whole,\nwomanish gentleness, a horror of slaughter, antipathy to action--these\nare all present in my nature, in the nature at least which has been\ndeveloped by years and circumstances. Still the West has also had its\npart in me. What I have found difficult is to keep up a prejudice in\nfavor of any form, nationality, or individuality whatever. Hence my\nindifference to my own person, my own usefulness, interest, or opinions\nof the moment. What does it all matter? _Omnis determinatio est\nnegatio_. Grief localizes us, love particularizes us, but thought\ndelivers us from personality.... To be a man is a poor thing, to be\na man is well; to be _the_ man--man in essence and in principle--that\nalone is to be desired.\n\nYes, but in these Brahmanic aspirations what becomes of the\nsubordination of the individual to duty? Pleasure may lie in ceasing to\nbe individual, but duty lies in performing the microscopic task allotted\nto us. The problem set before us is to bring our daily task into the\ntemple of contemplation and ply it there, to act as in the presence of\nGod, to interfuse one\u2019s little part with religion. So only can we inform\nthe detail of life, all that is passing, temporary, and insignificant,\nwith beauty and nobility. So may we dignify and consecrate the meanest\nof occupations. So may we feel that we are paying our tribute to the\nuniversal work and the eternal will. So are we reconciled with life and\ndelivered from the fear of death. So are we in order and at peace.\n\nSeptember 1, 1875.--I have been working for some hours at my article on\nMme. de Sta\u00ebl, but with what labor, what painful effort! When I write\nfor publication every word is misery, and my pen stumbles at every line,\nso anxious am I to find the ideally best expression, and so great is the\nnumber of possibilities which open before me at every step.\n\nComposition demands a concentration, decision, and pliancy which I no\nlonger possess. I cannot fuse together materials and ideas. If we are\nto give anything a form, we must, so to speak, be the tyrants of it.\n[Footnote: Compare this paragraph from the \u201cPens\u00e9es of a new writer,\nM. Joseph Roux, a country cur\u00e9, living in a remote part of the _Bas\nLimousin_, whose thoughts have been edited and published this year by M.\nPaul Mari\u00e9ton (Paris: Alphonse Lemerre):\n\n\u201cLe verbe ne souffre et ne connait que la volont\u00e9 qui le dompte, et\nn\u2019emporte loin sans p\u00e9ril que l\u2019intelligence qui lui m\u00e9nage avec empire\nl\u2019\u00e9peron et le frein.\u201d]\n\nWe must treat our subject brutally, and not be always trembling lest we\nare doing it a wrong. We must be able to transmute and absorb it into\nour own substance. This sort of confident effrontery is beyond me: my\nwhole nature tends to that impersonality which respects and subordinates\nitself to the object; it is love of truth which holds me back from\nconcluding and deciding. And then I am always retracing my steps:\ninstead of going forward I work in a circle: I am afraid of having\nforgotten a point, of having exaggerated an expression, of having used\na word out of place, while all the time I ought to have been thinking\nof essentials and aiming at breadth of treatment. I do not know how to\nsacrifice anything, how to give up anything whatever. Hurtful timidity,\nunprofitable conscientiousness, fatal slavery to detail!\n\nIn reality I have never given much thought to the art of writing, to\nthe best way of making an article, an essay, a book, nor have I ever\nmethodically undergone the writer\u2019s apprenticeship; it would have been\nuseful to me, and I was always ashamed of what was useful. I have felt,\nas it were, a scruple against trying to surprise the secret of the\nmasters of literature, against picking _chef-d\u2019oeuvres_ to pieces. When\nI think that I have always postponed the serious study of the art of\nwriting, from a sort of awe of it, and a secret love of its beauty, I\nam furious with my own stupidity, and with my own respect. Practice and\nroutine would have given me that ease, lightness, and assurance, without\nwhich the natural gift and impulse dies away. But on the contrary,\nI have developed two opposed habits of mind, the habit of scientific\nanalysis which exhausts the material offered to it, and the habit of\nimmediate notation of passing impressions. The art of composition lies\nbetween the two; you want for it both the living unity of the thing and\nthe sustained operation of thought.\n\nOctober 25, 1875.--I have been listening to M. Taine\u2019s first lecture\n(on the \u201cAncien R\u00e9gime\u201d) delivered in the university hall. It was an\nextremely substantial piece of work--clear, instructive, compact, and\nfull of matter. As a writer he shows great skill in the French method of\nsimplifying his subject by massing it in large striking divisions; his\ngreat defect is a constant straining after points; his principal merit\nis the sense he has of historical reality, his desire to see things\nas they are. For the rest, he has extreme openness of mind, freedom of\nthought, and precision of language. The hall was crowded.\n\nOctober 26, 1875.--All origins are secret; the principle of every\nindividual or collective life is a mystery--that is to say, something\nirrational, inexplicable, not to be defined. We may even go farther\nand say, Every individuality is an insoluble enigma, and no beginning\nexplains it. In fact, all that has _become_ may be explained\nretrospectively, but the beginning of anything whatever did not\n_become_. It represents always the \u201c_fiat lux_,\u201d the initial miracle,\nthe act of creation; for it is the consequence of nothing else, it\nsimply appears among anterior things which make a _milieu_, an occasion,\na surrounding for it, but which are witnesses of its appearance without\nunderstanding whence it comes.\n\nPerhaps also there are no true individuals, and, if so, no beginning but\none only, the primordial impulse, the first movement. All men on this\nhypothesis would be but _man_ in two sexes; man again might be reduced\nto the animal, the animal to the plant, and the only individuality left\nwould be a living nature, reduced to a living matter, to the hylozoism\nof Thales. However, even upon this hypothesis, if there were but one\nabsolute beginning, relative beginnings would still remain to us as\nmultiple symbols of the absolute. Every life, called individual for\nconvenience sake and by analogy, would represent in miniature the\nhistory of the world, and would be to the eye of the philosopher a\nmicroscopic compendium of it.\n\nThe history of the formation of ideas is what, frees the mind.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA philosophic truth does not become popular until some eloquent soul has\nhumanized it or some gifted personality has translated and embodied it.\nPure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated\nby contagion.\n\nJanuary 30, 1876.--After dinner I went two steps off, to Marc Monnier\u2019s,\nto hear the \u201cLuthier de Cr\u00e9mone,\u201d a one-act comedy in verse, read by the\nauthor, Fran\u00e7ois Copp\u00e9e.\n\nIt was a feast of fine sensations, of literary dainties. For the little\npiece is a pearl. It is steeped in poetry, and every line is a fresh\npleasure to one\u2019s taste.\n\nThis young _maestro_ is like the violin he writes about, vibrating and\npassionate; he has, besides delicacy, point, grace, all that a writer\nwants to make what is simple, na\u00efve, heartfelt, and out of the beaten\ntrack, acceptable to a cultivated society.\n\nHow to return to nature through art: there is the problem of all highly\ncomposite literatures like our own. Rousseau himself attacked letters\nwith all the resources of the art of writing, and boasted the delights\nof savage life with a skill and adroitness developed only by the most\nadvanced civilization. And it is indeed this marriage of contraries\nwhich charms us; this spiced gentleness, this learned innocence, this\ncalculated simplicity, this yes and no, this foolish wisdom. It is the\nsupreme irony of such combinations which tickles the taste of advanced\nand artificial epochs, epochs when men ask for two sensations at once,\nlike the contrary meanings fused by the smile of La Gioconda. And\nour satisfaction, too, in work of this kind is best expressed by that\nambiguous curve of the lip which says: I feel your charm, but I am not\nyour dupe; I see the illusion both from within and from without; I yield\nto you, but I understand you; I am complaisant, but I am proud; I am\nopen to sensations, yet not the slave of any; you have talent, I have\nsubtlety of perception; we are quits, and we understand each other.\n\nFebruary 1, 1876.--This evening we talked of the infinitely great and\nthe infinitely small. The great things of the universe are for----so\nmuch easier to understand than the small, because all greatness is a\nmultiple of herself, whereas she is incapable of analyzing what requires\na different sort of measurement.\n\nIt is possible for the thinking being to place himself in all points of\nview, and to teach his soul to live under the most different modes of\nbeing. But it must be confessed that very few profit by the possibility.\nMen are in general imprisoned, held in a vice by their circumstances\nalmost as the animals are, but they have very little suspicion of it\nbecause they have so little faculty of self-judgment. It is only the\ncritic and the philosopher who can penetrate into all states of being,\nand realize their life from within.\n\nWhen the imagination shrinks in fear from the phantoms which it creates,\nit may be excused because it is imagination. But when the intellect\nallows itself to be tyrannized over or terrified by the categories to\nwhich itself gives birth, it is in the wrong, for it is not allowed to\nintellect--the critical power of man--to be the dupe of anything.\n\nNow, in the superstition of size the mind is merely the dupe of itself,\nfor it creates the notion of space. The created is not more than the\ncreator, the son not more than the father. The point of view wants\nrectifying. The mind has to free itself from space, which gives it a\nfalse notion of itself, but it can only attain this freedom by reversing\nthings and by learning to see space in the mind instead of the mind in\nspace. How can it do this? Simply by reducing space to its virtuality.\nSpace is dispersion; mind is concentration.\n\nAnd that is why God is present everywhere, without taking up a thousand\nmillions of cube leagues, nor a hundred times more nor a hundred times\nless.\n\nIn the state of thought the universe occupies but a single point; but in\nthe state of dispersion and analysis this thought requires the heaven of\nheavens for its expansion.\n\nIn the same way, time and number are contained in the mind. Man, as\nmind, is not their inferior, but their superior.\n\nIt is true that before he can reach this state of freedom his own body\nmust appear to him at will either speck or world--that is to say,\nhe must be independent of it. So long as the self still feels itself\nspatial, dispersed, corporeal, it is but a soul, it is not a mind; it\nis conscious of itself only as the animal is, the impressionable,\naffectionate, active and restless animal.\n\nThe mind being the subject of phenomena cannot be itself phenomenal; the\nmirror of an image, if it was an image, could not be a mirror. There can\nbe no echo without a noise. Consciousness means some one who experiences\nsomething. And all the somethings together cannot take the place of the\nsome one. The phenomenon exists only for a point which is not itself,\nand for which it is an object. The perceptible supposes the perceiver.\n\nMay 15, 1876.--This morning I corrected the proofs of the \u201cEtrang\u00e8res.\u201d\n [Footnote: _Les Etrang\u00e8res: Po\u00e9sies traduites de diverses litt\u00e9ratures_,\npar H. F. Amiel, 1876.] Here at least is one thing off my hands. The\npiece of prose theorizing which ends the volume pleased and satisfied\nme a good deal more than my new meters. The book, as a whole, may be\nregarded as an attempt to solve the problem of French verse-translation\nconsidered as a special art. It is science applied to poetry. It ought\nnot, I think, to do any discredit to a philosopher, for, after all, it\nis nothing but applied psychology.\n\nDo I feel any relief, any joy, pride, hope? Hardly. It seems to me that\nI feel nothing at all, or at least my feeling is so vague and doubtful\nthat I cannot analyze it. On the whole, I am rather tempted to say to\nmyself, how much labor for how small a result--_Much ado about nothing!_\nAnd yet the work in itself is good, is successful. But what does\nverse-translation matter? Already my interest in it is fading; my mind\nand my energies clamor for something else.\n\nWhat will Edmond Scherer say to the volume?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo the inmost self of me this literary attempt is quite indifferent--a\nLilliputian affair. In comparing my work with other work of the same\nkind, I find a sort of relative satisfaction; but I see the intrinsic\nfutility of it, and the insignificance of its success or failure. I do\nnot believe in the public; I do not believe in my own work; I have\nno ambition, properly speaking, and I blow soap-bubbles for want of\nsomething to do.\n\n  \u201cCar le n\u00e9ant peut seul bien cacher l\u2019infini.\u201d\n\nSelf-satire, disillusion, absence of prejudice, may be freedom, but they\nare not strength.\n\nJuly 12, 1876.--Trouble on trouble. My cough has been worse than ever.\nI cannot see that the fine weather or the holidays have made any change\nfor the better in my state of health. On the contrary, the process of\ndemolition seems more rapid. It is a painful experience, this premature\ndecay!... \u201c_Apr\u00e8s tant de malheurs, que vous reste-t-il? Moi._\u201d This\n_\u201cmoi\u201d_ is the central consciousness, the trunk of all the branches\nwhich have been cut away, that which bears every successive mutilation.\nSoon I shall have nothing else left than bare intellect. Death reduces\nus to the mathematical \u201cpoint;\u201d the destruction which precedes it forces\nus back, as it were, by a series of ever-narrowing concentric circles to\nthis last inaccessible refuge. Already I have a foretaste of that zero\nin which all forms and all modes are extinguished. I see how we return\ninto the night, and inversely I understand how we issue from it. Life is\nbut a meteor, of which the whole brief course is before me. Birth, life,\ndeath assume a fresh meaning to us at each phase of our existence. To\nsee one\u2019s self as a firework in the darkness--to become a witness of\none\u2019s own fugitive phenomenon--this is practical psychology. I prefer\nindeed the spectacle of the world, which is a vaster and more splendid\nfirework; but when illness narrows my horizon and makes me dwell\nperforce upon my own miseries, these miseries are still capable of\nsupplying food for my psychological curiosity. What interests me in\nmyself, in spite of my repulsions is, that I find in my own case a\ngenuine example of human nature, and therefore a specimen of general\nvalue. The sample enables me to understand a multitude of similar\nsituations, and numbers of my fellow-men.\n\nTo enter consciously into all possible modes of being would be\nsufficient occupation for hundreds of centuries--at least for our finite\nintelligences, which are conditioned by time. The progressive happiness\nof the process, indeed may be easily poisoned and embittered by the\nambition which asks for everything at once, and clamors to reach\nthe absolute at a bound. But it may be answered that aspirations are\nnecessarily prophetic, for they could only have come into being under\nthe action of the same cause which will enable them to reach their goal.\nThe soul can only imagine the absolute because the absolute exists; our\nconsciousness of a possible perfection is the guarantee that perfection\nwill be realized.\n\nThought itself is eternal. It is the consciousness of thought which\nis gradually achieved through the long succession of ages, races, and\nhumanities. Such is the doctrine of Hegel. The history of the mind is,\naccording to him one of approximation to the absolute, and the absolute\ndiffers at the two ends of the story. It _was_ at the beginning; it\n_knows itself_ at the end. Or rather it advances in the possession\nof itself with the gradual unfolding of creation. Such also was the\nconception of Aristotle.\n\nIf the history of the mind and of consciousness is the very marrow and\nessence of being, then to be driven back on psychology, even personal\npsychology, is to be still occupied with the main question of things, to\nkeep to the subject, to feel one\u2019s self in the center of the universal\ndrama. There is comfort in the idea. Everything else may be taken away\nfrom us, but if thought remains we are still connected by a magic thread\nwith the axis of the world. But we may lose thought and speech. Then\nnothing remains but simple feeling, the sense of the presence of God\nand of death in God--the last relic of the human privilege, which is to\nparticipate in the whole, to commune with the absolute.\n\n  \u201cTa vie est un \u00e9clair qui meurt dans son nuage,\n   Mais l\u2019\u00e9clair t\u2019a sauv\u00e9 s\u2019il t\u2019a fait voir le ciel.\u201d\n\nJuly 26, 1876.--A private journal is a friend to idleness. It frees us\nfrom the necessity of looking all round a subject, it puts up with every\nkind of repetition, it accompanies all the caprices and meanderings of\nthe inner life, and proposes to itself no definite end. This journal\nof mine represents the material of a good many volumes: what prodigious\nwaste of time, of thought, of strength! It will be useful to nobody, and\neven for myself--it has rather helped me to shirk life than to practice\nit. A journal takes the place of a confidant, that is, of friend or\nwife; it becomes a substitute for production, a substitute for country\nand public. It is a grief-cheating device, a mode of escape and\nwithdrawal; but, factotum as it is, though it takes the place of\neverything, properly speaking it represents nothing at all....\n\nWhat is it which makes the history of a soul? It is the stratification\nof its different stages of progress, the story of its acquisitions\nand of the general course of its destiny. Before my history can teach\nanybody anything, or even interest myself, it must be disentangled from\nits materials, distilled and simplified. These thousands of pages are\nbut the pile of leaves and bark from which the essence has still to\nbe extracted. A whole forest of cinchonas are worth but one cask of\nquinine. A whole Smyrna rose-garden goes to produce one vial of perfume.\n\nThis mass of written talk, the work of twenty-nine years, may in the end\nbe worth nothing at all; for each is only interested in his own romance,\nhis own individual life. Even I perhaps shall never have time to read\nthem over myself. So--so what? I shall have lived my life, and life\nconsists in repeating the human type, and the burden of the human song,\nas myriads of my kindred have done, are doing, and will do, century\nafter century. To rise to consciousness of this burden and this type is\nsomething, and we can scarcely achieve anything further. The realization\nof the type is more complete, and the burden a more joyous one, if\ncircumstances are kind and propitious, but whether the puppets have done\nthis or that--\n\n  \u201cTrois p\u2019tits tours et puis s\u2019en vont!\u201d\n\neverything falls into the same gulf at last, and comes to very much the\nsame thing.\n\nTo rebel against fate--to try to escape the inevitable issue--is almost\npuerile. When the duration of a centenarian and that of an insect are\nquantities sensibly equivalent--and geology and astronomy enable us to\nregard such durations from this point of view--what is the meaning of\nall our tiny efforts and cries, the value of our anger, our ambition,\nour hope? For the dream of a dream it is absurd to raise these\nmake-believe tempests. The forty millions of infusoria which make up a\ncube-inch of chalk--do they matter much to us? and do the forty millions\nof men who make up France matter any more to an inhabitant of the moon\nor Jupiter?\n\nTo be a conscious monad--a nothing which knows itself to be the\nmicroscopic phantom of the universe: this is all we can ever attain to.\n\nSeptember 12, 1876.--What is your own particular absurdity? Why,\nsimply that you exhaust yourself in trying to understand wisdom without\npracticing it, that you are always making preparations for nothing, that\nyou live without living. Contemplation which has not the courage to be\npurely contemplative, renunciation which does not renounce completely,\nchronic contradiction--there is your case. Inconsistent skepticism,\nirresolution, not convinced but incorrigible, weakness which will not\naccept itself and cannot transform itself into strength--there is your\nmisery.\n\nThe comic side of it lies in capacity to direct others, becoming\nincapacity to direct one\u2019s self, in the dream of the infinitely great\nstopped short by the infinitely little, in what seems to be the utter\nuselessness of talent. To arrive at immobility by excess of motion, at\nzero from abundance of numbers, is a strange farce, a sad comedy; the\npoorest gossip can laugh at its absurdity.\n\nSeptember 19, 1876.--My reading to-day has been Doudan\u2019s \u201cLettres et\nM\u00e9langes.\u201d [Footnote: Xim\u00e9n\u00e8s Doudan, born in 1800, died 1872, the\nbrilliant friend and tutor of the De Broglie family, whose conversation\nwas so much sought after in life, and whose letters have been so eagerly\nread in France since his death. Compare M. Scherer\u2019s two articles\non Doudan\u2019s \u201cLettres\u201d and \u201cPens\u00e9es\u201d in his last published volume\nof essays.] A fascinating book! Wit, grace, subtlety, imagination,\nthought--these letters possess them all. How much I regret that I never\nknew the man himself. He was a Frenchman of the best type, _un d\u00e9licat\nn\u00e9 sublime_, to quote Sainte-Beuve\u2019s expression. Fastidiousness of\ntemper, and a too keen love of perfection, led him to withhold his\ntalent from the public, but while still living, and within his own\ncircle, he was the recognized equal of the best. He scarcely lacked\nanything except that fraction of ambition, of brutality and material\nforce which are necessary to success in this world; but he was\nappreciated by the best society of Paris, and he cared for nothing else.\nHe reminds me of Joubert.\n\nSeptember 20th.--To be witty is to satisfy another\u2019s wits by the\nbestowal on him of two pleasures, that of understanding one thing and\nthat of guessing another, and so achieving a double stroke.\n\nThus Doudan scarcely ever speaks out his thought directly; he disguises\nand suggests it by imagery, allusion, hyperbole; he overlays it\nwith light irony and feigned anger, with gentle mischief and assumed\nhumility. The more the thing to be guessed differs from the thing\nsaid, the more pleasant surprise there is for the interlocutor or the\ncorrespondent concerned. These charming and delicate ways of expression\nallow a man to teach what he will without pedantry, and to venture what\nhe will without offense. There is something Attic and aerial in them;\nthey mingle grave and gay, fiction and truth, with a light grace of\ntouch such as neither La Fontaine nor Alcibiades would have been ashamed\nof. Socratic _badinage_ like this presupposes a free and equal mind,\nvictorious over physical ill and inward discontents. Such delicate\nplayfulness is the exclusive heritage of those rare natures in whom\nsubtlety is the disguise of superiority, and taste its revelation.\n\u201cWhat balance of faculties and cultivation it requires! What personal\ndistinction it shows! Perhaps only a valetudinarian would have been\ncapable of this _morbidezza_ of touch, this marriage of virile thought\nand feminine caprice. If there is excess anywhere, it lies perhaps in a\ncertain effeminacy of sentiment. Doudan can put up with nothing but\nwhat is perfect--nothing but what is absolutely harmonious; all that\nis rough, harsh, powerful, brutal, and unexpected, throws him into\nconvulsions. Audacity--boldness of all kinds--repels him. This Athenian\nof the Roman time is a true disciple of Epicurus in all matters of\nsight, hearing, and intelligence--a crumpled rose-leaf disturbs him.\n\n  \u201cUne ombre, un souffle, un rien, tout lui donnait la fi\u00e8vre.\u201d\n\nWhat all this softness wants is strength, creative and muscular force.\nHis range is not as wide as I thought it at first. The classical world\nand the Renaissance--that is to say, the horizon of La Fontaine--is his\nhorizon. He is out of his element in the German or Slav literatures. He\nknows nothing of Asia. Humanity for him is not much larger than France,\nand he has never made a bible of Nature. In music and painting he is\nmore or less exclusive. In philosophy he stops at Kant. To sum up: he\nis a man of exquisite and ingenious taste, but he is not a first-rate\ncritic, still less a poet, philosopher, or artist. He was an admirable\ntalker, a delightful letter writer, who might have become an author had\nhe chosen to concentrate himself. I must wait for the second volume in\norder to review and correct this preliminary impression.\n\nMidday.--I have now gone once more through the whole volume, lingering\nover the Attic charm of it, and meditating on the originality and\ndistinction of the man\u2019s organization. Doudan was a keen penetrating\npsychologist, a diviner of aptitudes, a trainer of minds, a man of\ninfinite taste and talent, capable of every _nuance_ and of every\ndelicacy; but his defect was a want of persevering energy of thought,\na lack of patience in execution. Timidity, unworldliness, indolence,\nindifference, confined him to the role of the literary counsellor and\nmade him judge of the field in which he ought rather to have fought. But\ndo I mean to blame him?--no indeed! In the first place, it would be to\nfire on my allies; in the second, very likely he chose the better part.\n\nWas it not Goethe who remarked that in the neighborhood of all famous\nmen we find men who never achieve fame, and yet were esteemed by those\nwho did, as their equals or superiors? Descartes, I think, said the same\nthing. Fame will not run after the men who are afraid of her. She makes\nmock of those trembling and respectful lovers who deserve but cannot\nforce her favors. The public is won by the bold, imperious talents--by\nthe enterprising and the skillful. It does not believe in modesty, which\nit regards as a device of impotence. The golden book contains but a\nsection of the true geniuses; it names those only who have taken glory\nby storm.\n\nNovember 15, 1876.--I have been reading \u201cL\u2019Avenir Religieux des Peuples\nCivilis\u00e9s,\u201d by Emile de Laveleye. The theory of this writer is that the\ngospel, in its pure form, is capable of providing the religion of the\nfuture, and that the abolition of all religious principle, which is what\nthe socialism of the present moment demands, is as much to be feared as\nCatholic superstition. The Protestant method, according to him, is the\nmeans of transition whereby sacerdotal Christianity passes into the pure\nreligion of the gospel. Laveleye does not think that civilization can\nlast without the belief in God and in another life. Perhaps he forgets\nthat Japan and China prove the contrary. But it is enough to determine\nhim against atheism if it can be shown that a general atheism would\nbring about a lowering of the moral average. After all, however, this is\nnothing but a religion of utilitarianism. A belief is not true because\nit is useful. And it is truth alone--scientific, established, proved,\nand rational truth--which is capable of satisfying nowadays the awakened\nminds of all classes. We may still say perhaps, \u201cfaith governs the\nworld\u201d--but the faith of the present is no longer in revelation or\nin the priest--it is in reason and in science. Is there a science of\ngoodness and happiness?--that is the question. Do justice and goodness\ndepend upon any particular religion? How are men to be made free,\nhonest, just, and good?--there is the point.\n\nOn my way through the book I perceived many new applications of my\nlaw of irony. Every epoch has two contradictory aspirations which are\nlogically antagonistic and practically associated. Thus the philosophic\nmaterialism of the last century was the champion of liberty. And at the\npresent moment we find Darwinians in love with equality, while Darwinism\nitself is based on the right of the stronger. Absurdity is interwoven\nwith life: real beings are animated contradictions, absurdities brought\ninto action. Harmony with self would mean peace, repose, and perhaps\nimmobility By far the greater number of human beings can only conceive\naction, or practice it, under the form of war--a war of competition at\nhome, a bloody war of nations abroad, and finally war with self. So that\nlife is a perpetual combat; it wills that which it wills not, and wills\nnot that it wills. Hence what I call the law of irony--that is to say,\nthe refutation of the self by itself, the concrete realization of the\nabsurd.\n\nIs such a result inevitable? I think not. Struggle is the caricature of\nharmony, and harmony, which is the association of contraries, is also a\nprinciple of movement. War is a brutal and fierce means of pacification;\nit means the suppression of resistance by the destruction or enslavement\nof the conquered. Mutual respect would be a better way out of\ndifficulties. Conflict is the result of the selfishness which will\nacknowledge no other limit than that of external force. The laws of\nanimality govern almost the whole of history. The history of man is\nessentially zoological; it becomes human late in the day, and then\nonly in the beautiful souls, the souls alive to justice, goodness,\nenthusiasm, and devotion. The angel shows itself rarely and with\ndifficulty through the highly-organized brute. The divine aureole plays\nonly with a dim and fugitive light around the brows of the world\u2019s\ngoverning race.\n\nThe Christian nations offer many illustrations of the law of irony.\nThey profess the citizenship of heaven, the exclusive worship of eternal\ngood; and never has the hungry pursuit of perishable joys, the love of\nthis world, or the thirst for conquest, been stronger or more active\nthan among these nations. Their official motto is exactly the reverse of\ntheir real aspiration. Under a false flag they play the smuggler with a\ndroll ease of conscience. Is the fraud a conscious one? No--it is but an\napplication of the law of irony. The deception is so common a one that\nthe delinquent becomes unconscious of it. Every nation gives itself the\nlie in the course of its daily life, and not one feels the ridicule\nof its position. A man must be a Japanese to perceive the burlesque\ncontradictions of the Christian civilization. He must be a native of\nthe moon to understand the stupidity of man and his state of constant\ndelusion. The philosopher himself falls under the law of irony, for\nafter having mentally stripped himself of all prejudice--having, that is\nto say, wholly laid aside his own personality, he finds himself slipping\nback perforce into the rags he had taken off, obliged to eat and drink,\nto be hungry, cold, thirsty, and to behave like all other mortals, after\nhaving for a moment behaved like no other. This is the point where\nthe comic poets are lying in wait for him; the animal needs revenge\nthemselves for his flight into the Empyrean, and mock him by their cry:\n_Thou art dust, thou art nothing, than art man_!\n\nNovember 26, 1876.--I have just finished a novel of Cherbuliez, \u201cLe\nfianc\u00e9 de Mademoiselle de St. Maur.\u201d It is a jeweled mosaic of precious\nstones, sparkling with a thousand lights. But the heart gets little\nfrom it. The Mephistophelian type of novel leaves one sad. This subtle,\nrefined world is strangely near to corruption; these artificial women\nhave an air of the Lower Empire. There is not a character who is not\nwitty, and neither is there one who has not bartered conscience for\ncleverness. The elegance of the whole is but a mask of immorality.\nThese stories of feeling in which there is no feeling make a strange and\npainful impression upon me.\n\nDecember 4, 1876.--I have been thinking a great deal of Victor\nCherbuliez. Perhaps his novels make up the most disputable part of his\nwork--they are so much wanting in simplicity, feeling, reality. And yet\nwhat knowledge, style, wit, and subtlety--how much thought everywhere,\nand what mastery of language! He astonishes one; I cannot but admire\nhim.\n\nCherbuliez\u2019s mind is of immense range, clear-sighted, keen, full of\nresource; he is an Alexandrian exquisite, substituting for the feeling\nwhich makes men earnest the irony which leaves them free. Pascal would\nsay of him--\u201cHe has never risen from the order of thought to the order\nof charity.\u201d But we must not be ungrateful. A Lucian is not worth an\nAugustine, but still he is Lucian. Those who enfranchise the mind\nrender service to man as well as those who persuade the heart. After the\nleaders come the liberators, and the negative and critical minds have\ntheir place and function beside the men of affirmation, the convinced\nand inspired souls. The positive element in Victor Cherbuliez\u2019s work is\nbeauty, not goodness, not moral or religious life. Aesthetically he\nis serious; what he respects is style. And therefore he has found\nhis vocation; for he is first and foremost a writer--a consummate,\nexquisite, and model writer. He does not win our love, but he claims our\nhomage.\n\nIn every union there is a mystery--a certain invisible bond which must\nnot be disturbed. This vital bond in the filial relation is respect;\nin friendship, esteem; in marriage, confidence; in the collective life,\npatriotism; in the religious life, faith. Such points are best left\nuntouched by speech, for to touch them is almost to profane them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMen of genius supply the substance of history, while the mass of men are\nbut the critical filter, the limiting, slackening, passive force needed\nfor the modification of the ideas supplied by genius. Stupidity is\ndynamically the necessary balance of intellect. To make an atmosphere\nwhich human life can breathe, oxygen must be combined with a great\ndeal--with three-fourths--of azote. And so, to make history, there must\nbe a great deal of resistance to conquer and of weight to drag.\n\nJanuary 5, 1877.--This morning I am altogether miserable, half-stifled\nby bronchitis--walking a difficulty--the brain weak--this last the worst\nmisery of all, for thought is my only weapon against my other ills.\nRapid deterioration of all the bodily powers, a dull continuous waste of\nvital organs, brain decay: this is the trial laid upon me, a trial that\nno one suspects! Men pity you for growing old outwardly; but what does\nthat matter?--nothing, so long as the faculties are intact. This boon of\nmental soundness to the last has been granted to so many students that\nI hoped for it a little. Alas, must I sacrifice that too? Sacrifice is\nalmost easy when we believe it laid upon us, asked of us, rather, by\na fatherly God and a watchful Providence; but I know nothing of this\nreligious joy. The mutilation of the self which is going on in me lowers\nand lessens me without doing good to anybody. Supposing I became blind,\nwho would be the gainer? Only one motive remains to me--that of manly\nresignation to the inevitable--the wish to set an example to others--the\nstoic view of morals pure and simple.\n\nThis moral education of the individual soul--is it then wasted? When our\nplanet has accomplished the cycle of its destinies, of what use will\nit have been to any one or anything in the universe? Well, it will have\nsounded its note in the symphony of creation. And for us, individual\natoms, seeing monads, we appropriate a momentary consciousness of the\nwhole and the unchangeable, and then we disappear. Is not this enough?\nNo, it is not enough, for if there is not progress, increase, profit,\nthere is nothing but a mere chemical play and balance of combinations.\nBrahma, after having created, draws his creation back into the gulf. If\nwe are a laboratory of the universal mind, may that mind at least profit\nand grow by us! If we realize the supreme will, may God have the joy\nof it! If the trustful humility of the soul rejoices him more than the\ngreatness of intellect, let us enter into his plan, his intention.\nThis, in theological language, is to live to the glory of God. Religion\nconsists in the filial acceptation of the divine will whatever it be,\nprovided we see it distinctly. Well, can we doubt that decay, sickness,\ndeath, are in the programme of our existence? Is not destiny the\ninevitable? And is not destiny the anonymous title of him or of that\nwhich the religions call God? To descend without murmuring the stream of\ndestiny, to pass without revolt through loss after loss, and diminution\nafter diminution, with no other limit than zero before us--this is\nwhat is demanded of us. Involution is as natural as evolution. We sink\ngradually back into the darkness, just as we issued gradually from it.\nThe play of faculties and organs, the grandiose apparatus of life, is\nput back bit by bit into the box. We begin by instinct; at the end comes\na clearness of vision which we must learn to bear with and to employ\nwithout murmuring upon our own failure and decay. A musical theme once\nexhausted, finds its due refuge and repose in silence.\n\nFebruary 6, 1877.--I spent the evening with the ----, and we talked\nof the anarchy of ideas, of the general want of culture, of what it is\nwhich keeps the world going, and of the assured march of science in the\nmidst of universal passion and superstition.\n\nWhat is rarest in the world is fair-mindedness, method, the critical\nview, the sense of proportion, the capacity for distinguishing. The\ncommon state of human thought is one of confusion, incoherence, and\npresumption, and the common state of human hearts is a state of\npassion, in which equity, impartiality, and openness to impressions are\nunattainable. Men\u2019s wills are always in advance of their intelligence,\ntheir desires ahead of their will, and accident the source of their\ndesires; so that they express merely fortuitous opinions which are not\nworth the trouble of taking seriously, and which have no other account\nto give of themselves than this childish one: I am, because I am. The\nart of finding truth is very little practiced; it scarcely exists,\nbecause there is no personal humility, nor even any love of truth among\nus. We are covetous enough of such knowledge as may furnish weapons to\nour hand or tongue, as may serve our vanity or gratify our craving\nfor power; but self-knowledge, the criticism of our own appetites and\nprejudices, is unwelcome and disagreeable to us.\n\nMan is a willful and covetous animal, who makes use of his intellect to\nsatisfy his inclinations, but who cares nothing for truth, who rebels\nagainst personal discipline, who hates disinterested thought and the\nidea of self-education. Wisdom offends him, because it rouses in him\ndisturbance and confusion, and because he will not see himself as he is.\n\nThe great majority of men are but tangled skeins, imperfect keyboards,\nso many specimens of restless or stagnant chaos--and what makes their\nsituation almost hopeless is the fact that they take pleasure in it.\nThere is no curing a sick man who believes himself in health.\n\nApril 5, 1877.--I have been thinking over the pleasant evening of\nyesterday, an experience in which the sweets of friendship, the charm\nof mutual understanding, aesthetic pleasure, and a general sense of\ncomfort, were happily combined and intermingled. There was not a crease\nin the rose-leaf. Why? Because \u201call that is pure, all that is honest,\nall that is excellent, all that is lovely and of good report,\u201d was there\ngathered together. \u201cThe incorruptibility of a gentle and quiet spirit,\u201d\n innocent mirth, faithfulness to duty, fine taste and sympathetic\nimagination, form an attractive and wholesome _milieu_ in which the soul\nmay rest.\n\nThe party--which celebrated the last day of vacation--gave much\npleasure, and not to me only. Is not making others happy the best\nhappiness? To illuminate for an instant the depths of a deep soul, to\ncheer those who bear by sympathy the burdens of so many sorrow-laden\nhearts and suffering lives, is to me a blessing and a precious\nprivilege. There is a sort of religious joy in helping to renew the\nstrength and courage of noble minds. We are surprised to find ourselves\nthe possessors of a power of which we are not worthy, and we long to\nexercise it purely and seriously.\n\nI feel most strongly that man, in all that he does or can do which is\nbeautiful, great, or good is but the organ and the vehicle of something\nor some one higher than himself. This feeling is religion. The religious\nman takes part with a tremor of sacred joy in these phenomena of which\nhe is the intermediary but not the source, of which he is the scene, but\nnot the author, or rather, the poet. He lends them voice, and will,\nand help, but he is respectfully careful to efface himself, that he may\nalter as little as possible the higher work of the genius who is making\na momentary use of him. A pure emotion deprives him of personality and\nannihilates the self in him. Self must perforce disappear when it is\nthe Holy Spirit who speaks, when it is God who acts. This is the mood in\nwhich the prophet hears the call, the young mother feels the movement\nof the child within, the preacher watches the tears of his audience.\nSo long as we are conscious of self we are limited, selfish, held\nin bondage; when we are in harmony with the universal order, when\nwe vibrate in unison with God, self disappears. Thus, in a perfectly\nharmonious choir, the individual cannot hear himself unless he makes\na false note. The religious state is one of deep enthusiasm, of moved\ncontemplation, of tranquil ecstasy. But how rare a state it is for us\npoor creatures harassed by duty, by necessity, by the wicked world, by\nsin, by illness! It is the state which produces inward happiness; but\nalas! the foundation of existence, the common texture of our days, is\nmade up of action, effort, struggle, and therefore dissonance. Perpetual\nconflict, interrupted by short and threatened truces--there is a true\npicture of our human condition.\n\nLet us hail, then, as an echo from heaven, as the foretaste of a more\nblessed economy, these brief moments of perfect harmony, these halts\nbetween two storms. Peace is not in itself a dream, but we know it only\nas the result of a momentary equilibrium--an accident. \u201cHappy are the\npeacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.\u201d\n\nApril 26, 1877.--I have been turning over again the \u201cParis\u201d of Victor\nHugo (1867). For ten years event after event has given the lie to the\nprophet, but the confidence of the prophet in his own imaginings is not\ntherefore a whit diminished. Humility and common sense are only fit for\nLilliputians. Victor Hugo superbly ignores everything that he has not\nforeseen. He does not see that pride is a limitation of the mind, and\nthat a pride without limitations is a littleness of soul. If he could\nbut learn to compare himself with other men, and France with other\nnations, he would see things more truly, and would not fall into these\nmad exaggerations, these extravagant judgments. But proportion and\nfairness will never be among the strings at his command. He is vowed\nto the Titanic; his gold is always mixed with lead, his insight with\nchildishness, his reason with madness. He cannot be simple; the only\nlight he has to give blinds you like that of a fire. He astonishes a\nreader and provokes him, he moves him and annoys him. There is always\nsome falsity of note in him, which accounts for the _malaise_ he so\nconstantly excites in me. The great poet in him cannot shake off the\ncharlatan.\n\nA few shafts of Voltairean irony would have shriveled the inflation\nof his genius and made it stronger by making it saner. It is a public\nmisfortune that the most powerful poet of a nation should not have\nbetter understood his role, and that, unlike those Hebrew prophets\nwho scourged because they loved, he should devote himself proudly and\nsystematically to the flattery of his countrymen. France is the world;\nParis is France; Hugo is Paris; peoples, bow down!\n\nMay 2, 1877.--Which nation is best worth belonging to? There is not one\nin which the good is not counterbalanced by evil. Each is a caricature\nof man, a proof that no one among them deserves to crush the others, and\nthat all have something to learn from all. I am alternately struck with\nthe qualities and with the defects of each, which is perhaps lucky for\na critic. I am conscious of no preference for the defects of north or\nsouth, of west or east; and I should find a difficulty in stating my own\npredilections. Indeed I myself am wholly indifferent in the matter,\nfor to me the question is not one of liking or of blaming, but of\nunderstanding. My point of view is philosophical--that is to\nsay, impartial and impersonal. The only type which pleases me is\nperfection--_man_, in short, the ideal man. As for the national man, I\nbear with and study him, but I have no admiration for him. I can only\nadmire the fine specimens of the race, the great men, the geniuses, the\nlofty characters and noble souls, and specimens of these are to be found\nin all the ethnographical divisions. The \u201ccountry of my choice\u201d (to\nquote Madame de Sta\u00ebl) is with the chosen souls. I feel no greater\ninclination toward the French, the Germans, the Swiss, the English,\nthe Poles, the Italians, than toward the Brazilians or the Chinese. The\nillusions of patriotism, of Chauvinist, family, or professional feeling,\ndo not exist for me. My tendency, on the contrary, is to feel with\nincreased force the lacunas, deformities, and imperfections of the\ngroup to which I belong. My inclination is to see things as they are,\nabstracting my own individuality, and suppressing all personal will and\ndesire; so that I feel antipathy, not toward this or that, but toward\nerror, prejudice, stupidity, exclusiveness, exaggeration. I love\nonly justice and fairness. Anger and annoyance are with me merely\nsuperficial; the fundamental tendency is toward impartiality and\ndetachment. Inward liberty and aspiration toward the true--these are\nwhat I care for and take pleasure in.\n\nJune 4, 1877.--I have just heard the \u201cRomeo and Juliet\u201d of Hector\nBerlioz. The work is entitled \u201cDramatic symphony for orchestra, with\nchoruses.\u201d The execution was extremely good. The work is interesting,\ncareful, curious, and suggestive, but it leaves one cold. When I come to\nreason out my impression I explain it in this way. To subordinate man\nto things--to annex the human voice, as a mere supplement, to the\norchestra--is false in idea. To make simple narrative out of dramatic\nmaterial, is a derogation, a piece of levity. A Romeo and Juliet in\nwhich there is no Romeo and no Juliet is an absurdity. To substitute\nthe inferior, the obscure, the vague, for the higher and the clear, is\na challenge to common sense. It is a violation of that natural hierarchy\nof things which is never violated with impunity. The musician has put\ntogether a series of symphonic pictures, without any inner connection,\na string of riddles, to which a prose text alone supplies meaning and\nunity. The only intelligible voice which is allowed to appear in the\nwork is that of Friar Laurence: his sermon could not be expressed in\nchords, and is therefore plainly sung. But the moral of a play is not\nthe play, and the play itself has been elbowed out by recitative.\n\nThe musician of the present day, not being able to give us what is\nbeautiful, torments himself to give us what is new. False originality,\nfalse grandeur, false genius! This labored art is wholly antipathetic to\nme. Science simulating genius is but a form of quackery.\n\nBerlioz as a critic is cleverness itself; as a musician he is learned,\ninventive, and ingenious, but he is trying to achieve the greater when\nhe cannot compass the lesser.\n\nThirty years ago, at Berlin, the same impression was left upon me by his\n\u201cInfancy of Christ,\u201d which I heard him conduct himself. His art seems to\nme neither fruitful nor wholesome; there is no true and solid beauty in\nit.\n\nI ought to say, however, that the audience, which was a fairly full one,\nseemed very well satisfied.\n\nJuly 17, 1877.--Yesterday I went through my La Fontaine, and noticed the\nomissions in him. He has neither butterfly nor rose. He utilizes neither\nthe crane, nor the quail, nor the dromedary, nor the lizard. There is\nnot a single echo of chivalry in him. For him, the history of France\ndates from Louis XIV. His geography only ranges, in reality, over a few\nsquare miles, and touches neither the Rhine nor the Loire, neither the\nmountains nor the sea. He never invents his subjects, but indolently\ntakes them ready-made from elsewhere. But with all this what an adorable\nwriter, what a painter, what an observer, what a humorist, what a\nstory-teller! I am never tired of reading him, though I know half his\nfables by heart. In the matter of vocabulary, turns, tones, phrases,\nidioms, his style is perhaps the richest of the great period, for it\ncombines, in the most skillful way, archaism and classic finish, the\nGallic and the French elements. Variety, satire, _finesse_, feeling,\nmovement, terseness, suavity, grace, gayety, at times even nobleness,\ngravity, grandeur--everything--is to be found in him. And then the\nhappiness of the epithets, the piquancy of the sayings, the felicity\nof his rapid sketches and unforeseen audacities, and the unforgettable\nsharpness of phrase! His defects are eclipsed by his immense variety of\ndifferent aptitudes.\n\nOne has only to compare his \u201cWoodcutter and Death\u201d with that of Boileau\nin order to estimate the enormous difference between the artist and the\ncritic who found fault with his work. La Fontaine gives you a picture of\nthe poor peasant under the monarchy; Boileau shows you nothing but a man\nperspiring under a heavy load. The first is a historical witness,\nthe second a mere academic rhymer. From La Fontaine it is possible to\nreconstruct the whole society of his epoch, and the old Champenois with\nhis beasts remains the only Homer France has ever possessed. He has as\nmany portraits of men and women as La Bruy\u00e8re, and Moli\u00e8re is not more\nhumorous.\n\nHis weak side is his epicureanism, with its tinge of grossness. This, no\ndoubt, was what made Lamartine dislike him. The religious note is absent\nfrom his lyre; there is nothing in him which shows any contact with\nChristianity, any knowledge of the sublimer tragedies of the soul. Kind\nnature is his goddess, Horace his prophet, and Montaigne his gospel. In\nother words, his horizon is that of the Renaissance. This pagan island\nin the full Catholic stream is very curious; the paganism of it is\nso perfectly sincere and na\u00efve. But indeed, Reblais, Moli\u00e8re, Saint\nEvremond, are much more pagan than Voltaire. It is as though, for the\ngenuine Frenchman, Christianity was a mere pose or costume--something\nwhich has nothing to do with the heart, with the real man, or his\ndeeper nature. This division of things is common in Italy too. It is the\nnatural effect of political religions: the priest becomes separated from\nthe layman, the believer from the man, worship from sincerity.\n\nJuly 18, 1877.--I have just come across a character in a novel with\na passion for synonyms, and I said to myself: Take care--that is your\nweakness too. In your search for close and delicate expression, you run\nthrough the whole gamut of synonyms, and your pen works too often in\nseries of three. Beware! Avoid mannerisms and tricks; they are signs\nof weakness. Subject and occasion only must govern the use of words.\nProcedure by single epithet gives strength; the doubling of a word gives\nclearness, because it supplies the two extremities of the series; the\ntrebling of it gives completeness by suggesting at once the beginning,\nmiddle, and end of the idea; while a quadruple phrase may enrich by\nforce of enumeration.\n\nIndecision being my principal defect, I am fond of a plurality of\nphrases which are but so many successive approximations and corrections.\nI am especially fond of them in this journal, where I write as it comes.\nIn serious composition _two_ is, on the whole, my category. But it would\nbe well to practice one\u2019s self in the use of the single word--of the\nshaft delivered promptly and once for all. I should have indeed to cure\nmyself of hesitation first. I see too many ways of saying things; a more\ndecided mind hits on the right way at once. Singleness of phrase implies\ncourage, self-confidence, clear-sightedness. To attain it there must be\nno doubting, and I am always doubting. And yet--\n\n  \u201cQuiconque est loup agisse en loup;\n  C\u2019est le plus certain de beaucoup.\u201d\n\nI wonder whether I should gain anything by the attempt to assume a\ncharacter which is not mine. My wavering manner, born of doubt and\nscruple, has at least the advantage of rendering all the different\nshades of my thought, and of being sincere. If it were to become terse,\naffirmative, resolute, would it not be a mere imitation?\n\nA private journal, which is but a vehicle for meditation and reverie,\nbeats about the bush as it pleases without being hound to make for\nany definite end. Conversation with self is a gradual process of\nthought-clearing. Hence all these synonyms, these waverings, these\nrepetitions and returns upon one\u2019s self. Affirmation maybe brief;\ninquiry takes time; and the line which thought follows is necessarily an\nirregular one.\n\nI am conscious indeed that at bottom there is but one right expression;\n[Footnote: Compare La Bruy\u00e8re:\n\n\u201cEntre toutes les differentes expressions qui peuvent rendre une seule\nde nos pens\u00e9es il n\u2019y en a qu\u2019une qui soit la bonne; on ne la rencontre\npas toujours en parlant ou en \u00e9crivant: il est vray n\u00e9anmoins qu\u2019elle\nexiste, que tout ce qui ne l\u2019est point est foible, et ne satisfait point\nun homme d\u2019esprit qui veut se faire entendre.\u201d] but in order to find\nit I wish to make my choice among all that are like it; and my mind\ninstinctively goes through a series of verbal modulations in search of\nthat shade which may most accurately render the idea. Or sometimes it is\nthe idea itself which has to be turned over and over, that I may know\nit and apprehend it better. I think, pen in hand; it is like the\ndisentanglement, the winding-off of a skein. Evidently the corresponding\nform of style cannot have the qualities which belong to thought which is\nalready sure of itself, and only seeks to communicate itself to others.\nThe function of the private journal is one of observation, experiment,\nanalysis, contemplation; that of the essay or article is to provoke\nreflection; that of the book is to demonstrate.\n\nJuly 21, 1877.--A superb night--a starry sky--Jupiter and Phoebe holding\nconverse before my windows. Grandiose effects of light and shade over\nthe courtyard. A sonata rose from the black gulf of shadow like a\nrepentant prayer wafted from purgatory. The picturesque was lost in\npoetry, and admiration in feeling.\n\nJuly 30, 1877.-- ... makes a very true remark about Renan, _a propos_ of\nthe volume of \u201cLes Evangiles.\u201d He brings out the contradiction between\nthe literary taste of the artist, which is delicate, individual, and\ntrue, and the opinions of the critic, which are borrowed, old-fashioned\nand wavering. This hesitancy of choice between the beautiful and the\ntrue, between poetry and prose, between art and learning, is, in fact,\ncharacteristic. Renan has a keen love for science, but he has a still\nkeener love for good writing, and, if necessary, he will sacrifice the\nexact phrase to the beautiful phrase. Science is his material rather\nthan his object; his object is style. A fine passage is ten times more\nprecious in his eyes than the discovery of a fact or the rectification\nof a date. And on this point I am very much with him, for a beautiful\npiece of writing is beautiful by virtue of a kind of truth which is\ntruer than any mere record of authentic facts. Rousseau also thought the\nsame. A chronicler may be able to correct Tacitus, but Tacitus survives\nall the chroniclers. I know well that the aesthetic temptation is the\nFrench temptation; I have often bewailed it, and yet, if I desired\nanything, it would be to be a writer, a great writer. Te leave a\nmonument behind, _aere perennius_, an imperishable work which might\nstir the thoughts, the feelings, the dreams of men, generation after\ngeneration--this is the only glory which I could wish for, if I were\nnot weaned even from this wish also. A book would be my ambition, if\nambition were not vanity and vanity of vanities.\n\nAugust 11, 1877.--The growing triumph of Darwinism--that is to say\nof materialism, or of force--threatens the conception of justice. But\njustice will have its turn. The higher human law cannot be the offspring\nof animality. Justice is the right to the maximum of individual\nindependence compatible with the same liberty for others; in other\nwords, it is respect for man, for the immature, the small, the feeble;\nit is the guarantee of those human collectivities, associations, states,\nnationalities--those voluntary or involuntary unions--the object of\nwhich is to increase the sum of happiness, and to satisfy the aspiration\nof the individual. That some should make use of others for their own\npurposes is an injury to justice. The right of the stronger is not a\nright, but a simple fact, which obtains only so long as there is\nneither protest nor resistance. It is like cold, darkness, weight, which\ntyrannize over man until he has invented artificial warmth, artificial\nlight, and machinery. Human industry is throughout an emancipation from\nbrute nature, and the advances made by justice are in the same way a\nseries of rebuffs inflicted upon the tyranny of the stronger. As the\nmedical art consists in the conquest of disease, so goodness consists in\nthe conquest of the blind ferocities and untamed appetites of the human\nanimal. I see the same law throughout--increasing emancipation of\nthe individual, a continuous ascent of being toward life, happiness,\njustice, and wisdom. Greed and gluttony are the starting-point,\nintelligence and generosity the goal.\n\nAugust 21, 1877. (_Baths of Ems_).--In the _salon_ there has been a\nperformance in chorus of \u201cLorelei\u201d and other popular airs. What in our\ncountry is only done for worship is done also in Germany for poetry and\nmusic. Voices blend together; art shares the privilege of religion. It\nis a trait which is neither French nor English, nor, I think, Italian.\nThe spirit of artistic devotion, of impersonal combination, of common,\nharmonious, disinterested action, is specially German; it makes a\nwelcome balance to certain clumsy and prosaic elements in the race.\n\n_Later_.--Perhaps the craving for independence of thought--the tendency\nto go back to first principles--is really proper to the Germanic mind\nonly. The Slavs and the Latins are governed rather by the collective\nwisdom of the community, by tradition, usage, prejudice, fashion; or,\nif they break through these, they are like slaves in revolt, without any\nreal living apprehension of the law inherent in things--the true law,\nwhich is neither written, nor arbitrary, nor imposed. The German wishes\nto get at nature; the Frenchman, the Spaniard, the Russian, stop at\nconventions. The root of the problem is in the question of the relations\nbetween God and the world. Immanence or transcendence--that, step by\nstep, decides the meaning of everything else. If the mind is radically\nexternal to things, it is not called upon to conform to them. If the\nmind is destitute of native truth, it must get its truth from outside,\nby revelations. And so you get thought despising nature, and in bondage\nto the church--so you have the Latin world!\n\nNovember 6, 1877. (_Geneva_).--We talk of love many years before we know\nanything about it, and we think we know it because we talk of it, or\nbecause we repeat what other people say of it, or what books tell us\nabout it. So that there are ignorances of different degrees, and degrees\nof knowledge which are quite deceptive. One of the worst plagues of\nsociety is this thoughtless inexhaustible verbosity, this careless\nuse of words, this pretense of knowing a thing because we talk about\nit--these counterfeits of belief, thought, love, or earnestness, which\nall the while are mere babble. The worst of it is, that as self-love\nis behind the babble, these ignorances of society are in general\nferociously affirmative; chatter mistakes itself for opinion, prejudice\nposes as principle. Parrots behave as though they were thinking beings;\nimitations give themselves out as originals; and politeness demands the\nacceptance of the convention. It is very wearisome.\n\nLanguage is the vehicle of this confusion, the instrument of this\nunconscious fraud, and all evils of the kind are enormously increased\nby universal education, by the periodical press, and by all the other\nprocesses of vulgarization in use at the present time. Every one deals\nin paper money; few have ever handled gold. We live on symbols, and even\non the symbols of symbols; we have never grasped or verified things for\nourselves; we judge everything, and we know nothing.\n\nHow seldom we meet with originality, individuality, sincerity,\nnowadays!--with men who are worth the trouble of listening to! The true\nself in the majority is lost in the borrowed self. How few are anything\nelse than a bundle of inclinations--anything more than animals--whose\nlanguage and whose gait alone recall to us the highest rank in nature!\n\nThe immense majority of our species are candidates for humanity, and\nnothing more. Virtually we are men; we might be, we ought to be, men;\nbut practically we do not succeed in realizing the type of our race.\nSemblances and counterfeits of men fill up the habitable earth, people\nthe islands and the continents, the country and the town. If we wish to\nrespect men we must forget what they are, and think of the ideal which\nthey carry hidden within them, of the just man and the noble, the man of\nintelligence and goodness, inspiration and creative force, who is loyal\nand true, faithful and trustworthy, of the higher man, in short, and\nthat divine thing we call a soul. The only men who deserve the name\nare the heroes, the geniuses, the saints, the harmonious, puissant, and\nperfect samples of the race.\n\nVery few individuals deserve to be listened to, but all deserve that our\ncuriosity with regard to them should be a pitiful curiosity--that the\ninsight we bring to bear on them should be charged with humility. Are we\nnot all shipwrecked, diseased, condemned to death? Let each work out his\nown salvation, and blame no one but himself; so the lot of all will\nbe bettered. Whatever impatience we may feel toward our neighbor, and\nwhatever indignation our race may rouse in us, we are chained one to\nanother, and, companions in labor and misfortune, have everything to\nlose by mutual recrimination and reproach. Let us be silent as to each\nother\u2019s weakness, helpful, tolerant, nay, tender toward each other! Or,\nif we cannot feel tenderness, may we at least feel pity! May we put away\nfrom us the satire which scourges and the anger which brands; the oil\nand wine of the good Samaritan are of more avail. We may make the ideal\na reason for contempt; but it is more beautiful to make it a reason for\ntenderness.\n\nDecember 9, 1877.--The modern haunters of Parnassus [Footnote: Amiel\u2019s\nexpression is _Les Parnassieus_, an old name revived, which nowadays\ndescribes the younger school of French poetry represented by such\nnames as Th\u00e9ophile Gautier, Leconte de Lisle, Th\u00e9odore de Bauville, and\nBaudelaire. The modern use of the word dates from the publication of\n\u201cLa Parnasse Contemporain\u201d (Lemerre, 1866).] carve urns of agate and\nof onyx, but inside the urns what is there?--ashes. Their work lacks\nfeeling, seriousness, sincerity, and pathos--in a word, soul and\nmoral life. I cannot bring myself to sympathize with such a way of\nunderstanding poetry. The talent shown is astonishing, but stuff and\nmatter are wanting. It is an effort of the imagination to stand alone--a\nsubstitute for everything else. We find metaphors, rhymes, music, color,\nbut not man, not humanity. Poetry of this factitious kind may beguile\none at twenty, but what can one make of it at fifty? It reminds me of\nPergamos, of Alexandria, of all the epochs of decadence when beauty of\nform hid poverty of thought and exhaustion of feeling. I strongly share\nthe repugnance which this poetical school arouses in simple people. It\nis as though it only cared to please the world-worn, the over-subtle,\nthe corrupted, while it ignores all normal healthy life, virtuous\nhabits, pure affections, steady labor, honesty, and duty. It is an\naffectation, and because it is an affectation the school is struck\nwith sterility. The reader desires in the poet something better than\na juggler in rhyme, or a conjurer in verse; he looks to find in him a\npainter of life, a being who thinks, loves, and has a conscience, who\nfeels passion and repentance.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nComposition is a process of combination, in which thought puts together\ncomplementary truths, and talent fuses into harmony the most contrary\nqualities of style.\n\nSo that there is no composition without effort, without pain even, as\nin all bringing forth. The reward is the giving birth to something\nliving--something, that is to say, which, by a kind of magic, makes\na living unity out of such opposed attributes as orderliness and\nspontaneity, thought and imagination, solidity and charm.\n\nThe true critic strives for a clear vision of things as they are--for\njustice and fairness; his effort is to get free from himself, so that he\nmay in no way disfigure that which he wishes to understand or reproduce.\nHis superiority to the common herd lies in this effort, even when its\nsuccess is only partial. He distrusts his own senses, he sifts his\nown impressions, by returning upon them from different sides and at\ndifferent times, by comparing, moderating, shading, distinguishing, and\nso endeavoring to approach more and more nearly to the formula which\nrepresents the maximum of truth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIs it not the sad natures who are most tolerant of gayety? They know\nthat gayety means impulse and vigor, that generally speaking it is\ndisguised kindliness, and that if it were a mere affair of temperament\nand mood, still it is a blessing.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe art which is grand and yet simple is that which presupposes the\ngreatest elevation both in artist and in public.\n\nHow much folly is compatible with ultimate wisdom and prudence? It is\ndifficult to say. The cleverest folk are those who discover soonest how\nto utilize their neighbor\u2019s experience, and so get rid in good time of\ntheir natural presumption.\n\nWe must try to grasp the spirit of things, to see correctly, to speak to\nthe point, to give practicable advice, to act on the spot, to arrive at\nthe proper moment, to stop in time. Tact, measure, occasion--all these\ndeserve our cultivation and respect.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nApril 22, 1878.--Letter from my cousin Julia. These kind old relations\nfind it very difficult to understand a man\u2019s life, especially a\nstudent\u2019s life. The hermits of reverie are scared by the busy world, and\nfeel themselves out of place in action. But after all, we do not change\nat seventy, and a good, pious old lady, half-blind and living in a\nvillage, can no longer extend her point of view, nor form any idea of\nexistences which have no relation with her own.\n\nWhat is the link by which these souls, shut in and encompassed as they\nare by the details of daily life, lay hold on the ideal? The link of\nreligious aspiration. Faith is the plank which saves them. They know\nthe meaning of the higher life; their soul is athirst for heaven. Their\nopinions are defective, but their moral experience is great; their\nintellect is full of darkness but their souls is full of light. We\nscarcely know how to talk to them about the things of earth, but\nthey are ripe and mature in the things of the heart. If they cannot\nunderstand us, it is for us to make advances to them, to speak their\nlanguage, to enter into their range of ideas, their modes of feeling. We\nmust approach them on their noble side, and, that we may show them\nthe more respect, induce them to open to us the casket of their most\ntreasured thoughts. There is always some grain of gold at the bottom\nof every honorable old age. Let it be our business to give it an\nopportunity of showing itself to affectionate eyes.\n\nMay 10, 1878.--I have just come back from a solitary walk. I heard\nnightingales, saw white lilac and orchard trees in bloom. My heart is\nfull of impressions showered upon it by the chaffinches, the golden\norioles, the grasshoppers, the hawthorns, and the primroses. A dull,\ngray, fleecy sky brooded with a certain melancholy over the nuptial\nsplendors of vegetation. Many painful memories stirred afresh in me;\nat Pr\u00e9 l\u2019Ev\u00e8que, at Jargonnant, at Villereuse, a score of\nphantoms--phantoms of youth--rose with sad eyes to greet me. The walls\nhad changed, and roads which were once shady and dreamy I found now\nwaste and treeless. But at the first trills of the nightingale a flood\nof tender feeling filled my heart. I felt myself soothed, grateful,\nmelted; a mood of serenity and contemplation took possession of me. A\ncertain little path, a very kingdom of green, with fountain, thickets,\ngentle ups and downs, and an abundance of singing-birds, delighted me,\nand did me inexpressible good. Its peaceful remoteness brought back the\nbloom of feeling. I had need of it.\n\nMay 19, 1878.--Criticism is above all a gift, an intuition, a matter\nof tact and _flair_; it cannot be taught or demonstrated--it is an art.\nCritical genius means an aptitude for discerning truth under appearances\nor in disguises which conceal it; for discovering it in spite of the\nerrors of testimony, the frauds of tradition, the dust of time, the loss\nor alteration of texts. It is the sagacity of the hunter whom nothing\ndeceives for long, and whom no ruse can throw off the trail. It is\nthe talent of the _Juge d\u2019Instruction_, who knows how to interrogate\ncircumstances, and to extract an unknown secret from a thousand\nfalsehoods. The true critic can understand everything, but he will be\nthe dupe of nothing, and to no convention will he sacrifice his duty,\nwhich is to find out and proclaim truth. Competent learning, general\ncultivation, absolute probity, accuracy of general view, human sympathy\nand technical capacity--how many things are necessary to the critic,\nwithout reckoning grace, delicacy, _savoir vivre_, and the gift of happy\nphrase-making!\n\nJuly 26, 1878.--Every morning I wake up with the same sense of vain\nstruggle against a mountain tide which is about to overwhelm me. I shall\ndie by suffocation, and the suffocation has begun; the progress it has\nalready made stimulates it to go on.\n\nHow can one make any plans when every day brings with it some fresh\nmisery? I cannot even decide on a line of action in a situation so full\nof confusion and uncertainty in which I look forward to the worst, while\nyet all is doubtful. Have I still a few years before me or only a\nfew months? Will death be slow or will it come upon me as a sudden\ncatastrophe? How am I to bear the days as they come? how am I to fill\nthem? How am I to die with calmness and dignity? I know not. Everything\nI do for the first time I do badly; but here everything is new; there\ncan be no help from experience; the end must be a chance! How mortifying\nfor one who has set so great a price upon independence--to depend upon a\nthousand unforeseen contingencies! He knows not how he will act or what\nhe will become; he would fain speak of these things with a friend of\ngood sense and good counsel--but who? He dares not alarm the affections\nwhich are most his own, and he is almost sure that any others would try\nto distract his attention, and would refuse to see the position as it\nis.\n\nAnd while I wait (wait for what?--certainty?) the weeks flow by like\nwater, and strength wastes away like a smoking candle....\n\nIs one free to let one\u2019s self drift into death without resistance? Is\nself-preservation a duty? Do we owe it to those who love us to prolong\nthis desperate struggle to its utmost limit? I think so, but it is one\nfetter the more. For we must then feign a hope which we do not feel,\nand hide the absolute discouragement of which the heart is really full.\nWell, why not? Those who succumb are bound in generosity not to cool the\nardor of those who are still battling, still enjoying.\n\nTwo parallel roads lead to the same result; meditation paralyzes me,\nphysiology condemns me. My soul is dying, my body is dying. In every\ndirection the end is closing upon me. My own melancholy anticipates and\nendorses the medical judgment which says, \u201cYour journey is done.\u201d The\ntwo verdicts point to the same result--that I have no longer a\nfuture. And yet there is a side of me which says, \u201cAbsurd!\u201d which is\nincredulous, and inclined to regard it all as a bad dream. In vain the\nreason asserts it; the mind\u2019s inward assent is still refused. Another\ncontradiction!\n\nI have not the strength to hope, and I have not the strength to submit.\nI believe no longer, and I believe still. I feel that I am dying, and\nyet I cannot realize that I am dying. Is it madness already? No, it\nis human nature taken in the act; it is life itself which is\na contradiction, for life means an incessant death and a daily\nresurrection; it affirms and it denies, it destroys and constructs, it\ngathers and scatters, it humbles and exalts at the same time. To live\nis to die partially--to feel one\u2019s self in the heart of a whirlwind of\nopposing forces--to be an enigma.\n\nIf the invisible type molded by these two contradictory currents--if\nthis form which presides over all my changes of being--has itself\ngeneral and original value, what does it matter whether it carries on\nthe game a few months or years longer, or not? It has done what it had\nto do, it has represented a certain unique combination, one particular\nexpression of the race. These types are shadows--_manes_. Century after\ncentury employs itself in fashioning them. Glory--fame--is the proof\nthat one type has seemed to the other types newer, rarer, and more\nbeautiful than the rest. The common types are souls too, only they\nhave no interest except for the Creator, and for a small number of\nindividuals.\n\nTo feel one\u2019s own fragility is well, but to be indifferent to it is\nbetter. To take the measure of one\u2019s own misery is profitable, but to\nunderstand its _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ is still more profitable. To mourn for\none\u2019s self is a last sign of vanity; we ought only to regret that which\nhas real values, and to regret one\u2019s self, is to furnish involuntary\nevidence that one had attached importance to one\u2019s self. At the same\ntime it is a proof of ignorance of our true worth and function. It\nis not necessary to live, but it is necessary to preserve one\u2019s type\nunharmed, to remain faithful to one\u2019s idea, to protect one\u2019s monad\nagainst alteration and degradation.\n\nNovember 7, 1878.--To-day we have been talking of realism in painting,\nand, in connection with it, of that poetical and artistic illusion which\ndoes not aim at being confounded with reality itself. Realism wishes\nto entrap sensation; the object of true art is only to charm the\nimagination, not to deceive the eye. When we see a good portrait we say,\n\u201cIt is alive!\u201d--in other words, our imagination lends it life. On the\nother hand, a wax figure produces a sort of terror in us; its frozen\nlife-likeness makes a deathlike impression on us, and we say, \u201cIt is a\nghost!\u201d In the one case we see what is lacking, and demand it; in the\nother we see what is given us, and we give on our side. Art, then,\naddresses itself to the imagination; everything that appeals to\nsensation only is below art, almost outside art. A work of art ought to\nset the poetical faculty in us to work, it ought to stir us to imagine,\nto complete our perception of a thing. And we can only do this when the\nartist leads the way. Mere copyist\u2019s painting, realistic reproduction,\npure imitation, leave us cold because their author is a machine, a\nmirror, an iodized plate, and not a soul.\n\nArt lives by appearances, but these appearances are spiritual visions,\nfixed dreams. Poetry represents to us nature become con-substantial\nwith the soul, because in it nature is only a reminiscence touched with\nemotion, an image vibrating with our own life, a form without weight--in\nshort, a mode of the soul. The poetry which is most real and objective\nis the expression of a soul which throws itself into things, and forgets\nitself in their presence more readily than others; but still, it is the\nexpression of the soul, and hence what we call style. Style may be\nonly collective, hieratic, national, so long as the artist is still the\ninterpreter of the community; it tends to become personal in proportion\nas society makes room for individuality and favors its expansion.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a way of killing truth by truths. Under the pretense that\nwe want to study it more in detail we pulverize the statue--it is an\nabsurdity of which our pedantry is constantly guilty. Those who can only\nsee the fragments of a thing are to me _esprits faux_, just as much as\nthose who disfigure the fragments. The good critic ought to be master\nof the three capacities, the three modes of seeing men and things--he\nshould be able simultaneously to see them as they are, as they might be,\nand as they ought to be.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nModern culture is a delicate electuary made up of varied savors and\nsubtle colors, which can be more easily felt than measured or defined.\nIts very superiority consists in the complexity, the association of\ncontraries, the skillful combination it implies. The man of to-day,\nfashioned by the historical and geographical influences of twenty\ncountries and of thirty centuries, trained and modified by all the\nsciences and all the arts, the supple recipient of all literatures, is\nan entirely new product. He finds affinities, relationships, analogies\neverywhere, but at the same time he condenses and sums up what is\nelsewhere scattered. He is like the smile of La Gioconda, which seems\nto reveal a soul to the spectator only to leave him the more certainly\nunder a final impression of mystery, so many different things are\nexpressed in it at once.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo understand things we must have been once in them and then have come\nout of them; so that first there must be captivity and then deliverance,\nillusion followed by disillusion, enthusiasm by disappointment. He\nwho is still under the spell, and he who has never felt the spell, are\nequally incompetent. We only know well what we have first believed, then\njudged. To understand we must be free, yet not have been always free.\nThe same truth holds, whether it is a question of love, of art, of\nreligion, or of patriotism. Sympathy is a first condition of criticism;\nreason and justice presuppose, at their origin, emotion.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat is an intelligent man? A man who enters with ease and completeness\ninto the spirit of things and the intention of persons, and who arrives\nat an end by the shortest route. Lucidity and suppleness of thought,\ncritical delicacy and inventive resource, these are his attributes.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnalysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and\ngerminates no more.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nJanuary 3, 1879.--Letter from----. This kind friend of mine has\nno pity.... I have been trying to quiet his over-delicate\nsusceptibilities.... It is difficult to write perfectly easy letters\nwhen one finds them studied with a magnifying glass, and treated like\nmonumental inscriptions, in which each character has been deliberately\nengraved with a view to an eternity of life. Such disproportion between\nthe word and its commentary, between the playfulness of the writer and\nthe analytical temper of the reader, is not favorable to ease of style.\nOne dares not be one\u2019s natural self with these serious folk who attach\nimportance to everything; it is difficult to write open-heartedly if one\nmust weigh every phrase and every word.\n\n_Esprit_ means taking things in the sense which they are meant to have,\nentering into the tone of other people, being able to place one\u2019s self\non the required level; _esprit_ is that just and accurate sense which\ndivines, appreciates, and weighs quickly, lightly, and well. The\nmind must have its play, the Muse is winged--the Greeks knew it, and\nSocrates.\n\nJanuary 13, 1879.--It is impossible for me to remember what letters\nI wrote yesterday. A single night digs a gulf between the self of\nyesterday and the self of to-day. My life is without unity of action,\nbecause my actions themselves are escaping from the control of memory.\nMy mental power, occupied in gaining possession of itself under the form\nof consciousness, seems to be letting go its hold on all that generally\npeoples the understanding, as the glacier throws off the stones and\nfragments fallen into its crevasses, that it may remain pure crystal.\nThe philosophic mind is both to overweight itself with too many material\nfacts or trivial memories. Thought clings only to thought--that is to\nsay, to itself, to the psychological process. The mind\u2019s only ambition\nis for an enriched experience. It finds its pleasure in studying the\nplay of its own facilities, and the study passes easily into an aptitude\nand habit. Reflection becomes nothing more than an apparatus for the\nregistration of the impressions, emotions, and ideas which pass across\nthe mind. The whole moulting process is carried on so energetically\nthat the mind is not only unclothed, but stripped of itself, and, so\nto speak, _de-substantiated_. The wheel turns so quickly that it melts\naround the mathematical axis, which alone remains cold because it is\nimpalpable, and has no thickness. All this is natural enough, but very\ndangerous.\n\nSo long as one is numbered among the living--so long, that is to say, as\none is still plunged in the world of men, a sharer of their interests,\nconflicts, vanities, passions, and duties, one is bound to deny one\u2019s\nself this subtle state of consciousness; one must consent to be a\nseparate individual, having one\u2019s special name, position, age, and\nsphere of activity. In spite of all the temptations of impersonality,\none must resume the position of a being imprisoned within certain limits\nof time and space, an individual with special surroundings, friends,\nenemies, profession, country, bound to house and feed himself, to make\nup his accounts and look after his affairs; in short, one must behave\nlike all the world. There are days when all these details seem to me a\ndream--when I wonder at the desk under my hand, at my body itself--when\nI ask myself if there is a street before my house, and if all this\ngeographical and topographical phantasmagoria is indeed real. Time and\nspace become then mere specks; I become a sharer in a purely spiritual\nexistence; I see myself _sub specie oeternitatis_.\n\nIs not mind simply that which enables us to merge finite reality in the\ninfinite possibility around it? Or, to put it differently, is not mind\nthe universal virtuality, the universe latent? If so, its zero would\nbe the germ of the infinite, which is expressed mathematically by the\ndouble zero (00).\n\nDeduction: that the mind may experience the infinite in itself; that\nin the human individual there arises sometimes the divine spark which\nreveals to him the existence of the original, fundamental, principal\nBeing, within which all is contained like a series within its generating\nformula. The universe is but a radiation of mind; and the radiations of\nthe Divine mind are for us more than appearances; they have a\nreality parallel to our own. The radiations of our mind are imperfect\nreflections from the great show of fireworks set in motion by Brahma,\nand great art is great only because of its conformities with the Divine\norder--with that which is.\n\nIdeal conceptions are the mind\u2019s anticipation of such an order. The\nmind is capable of them because it is mind, and, as such, perceives\nthe Eternal. The real, on the contrary, is fragmentary and passing. Law\nalone is eternal. The ideal is then the imperishable hope of something\nbetter--the mind\u2019s involuntary protest against the present, the leaven\nof the future working in it. It is the supernatural in us, or rather\nthe super-animal, and the ground of human progress. He who has no ideal\ncontents himself with what is; he has no quarrel with facts, which for\nhim are identical with the just, the good, and the beautiful.\n\nBut why is the divine radiation imperfect? Because it is still going\non. Our planet, for example, is in the mid-course of its experience. Its\nflora and fauna are still changing. The evolution of humanity is nearer\nits origin than its close. The complete spiritualization of the animal\nelement in nature seems to be singularly difficult, and it is the task\nof our species. Its performance is hindered by error, evil, selfishness,\nand death, without counting telluric catastrophes. The edifice of a\ncommon happiness, a common science of morality and justice, is sketched,\nbut only sketched. A thousand retarding and perturbing causes hinder\nthis giant\u2019s task, in which nations, races, and continents take part. At\nthe present moment humanity is not yet constituted as a physical unity,\nand its general education is not yet begun. All our attempts at order\nas yet have been local crystallizations. Now, indeed, the different\npossibilities are beginning to combine (union of posts and telegraphs,\nuniversal exhibitions, voyages round the globes, international\ncongresses, etc.). Science and common interest are binding together\nthe great fractions of humanity, which religion and language have kept\napart. A year in which there has been talk of a network of African\nrailways, running from the coast to the center and bringing the\nAtlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean into communication\nwith each other--such a year is enough to mark a new epoch. The\nfantastic has become the conceivable, the possible tends to become the\nreal; the earth becomes the garden of man. Man\u2019s chief problem is how to\nmake the cohabitation of the individuals of his species possible; how,\nthat is to say, to secure for each successive epoch the law, the order,\nthe equilibrium which befits it. Division of labor allows him to explore\nin every direction at once; industry, science, art, law, education,\nmorals, religion, politics, and economical relations--all are in process\nof birth.\n\nThus everything may be brought back to zero by the mind, but it is a\nfruitful zero--a zero which contains the universe and, in particular,\nhumanity. The mind has no more difficulty in tracking the real within\nthe innumerable than in apprehending infinite possibility. 00 may issue\nfrom 0, or may return to it.\n\nJanuary 19, 1879.--Charity--goodness--places a voluntary curb on\nacuteness of perception; it screens and softens the rays of a too vivid\ninsight; it refuses to see too clearly the ugliness and misery of\nthe great intellectual hospital around it. True goodness is loth\nto recognize any privilege in itself; it prefers to be humble and\ncharitable; it tries not to see what stares it in the face--that is to\nsay, the imperfections, infirmities, and errors of humankind; its pity\nputs on airs of approval and encouragement. It triumphs over its own\nrepulsions that it may help and raise.\n\nIt has often been remarked that Vinet praised weak things. If so, it\nwas not from any failure in his own critical sense; it was from charity.\n\u201cQuench not the smoking flax,\u201d--to which I add, \u201cNever give unnecessary\npain.\u201d The cricket is not the nightingale; why tell him so? Throw\nyourself into the mind of the cricket--the process is newer and more\ningenious; and it is what charity commands.\n\nIntellect is aristocratic, charity is democratic. In a democracy the\ngeneral equality of pretensions, combined with the inequality of merits,\ncreates considerable practical difficulty; some get out of it by making\ntheir prudence a muzzle on their frankness; others, by using kindness\nas a corrective of perspicacity. On the whole, kindness is safer than\nreserve; it inflicts no wound, and kills nothing.\n\nCharity is generous; it runs a risk willingly, and in spite of a hundred\nsuccessive experiences, it thinks no evil at the hundred-and-first.\nWe cannot be at the same time kind and wary, nor can we serve two\nmasters--love and selfishness. We must be knowingly rash, that we may\nnot be like the clever ones of the world, who never forget their own\ninterests. We must be able to submit to being deceived; it is the\nsacrifice which interest and self-love owe to conscience. The claims of\nthe soul must be satisfied first if we are to be the children of God.\n\nWas it not Bossuet who said, \u201cIt is only the great souls who know all\nthe grandeur there is in charity?\u201d\n\nJanuary 21, 1879.--At first religion holds the place of science and\nphilosophy; afterward she has to learn to confine herself to her own\ndomain--which is in the inmost depths of conscience, in the secret\nrecesses of the soul, where life communes with the Divine will and the\nuniversal order. Piety is the daily renewing of the ideal, the steadying\nof our inner being, agitated, troubled, and embittered by the common\naccidents of existence. Prayer is the spiritual balm, the precious\ncordial which restores to us peace and courage. It reminds us of\npardon and of duty. It says to us, \u201cThou art loved--love; thou hast\nreceived--give; thou must die--labor while thou canst; overcome anger\nby kindness; overcome evil with good. What does the blindness of opinion\nmatter, or misunderstanding, or ingratitude? Thou art neither bound to\nfollow the common example nor to succeed. _Fais ce que dois, advienne\nque pourra_. Thou hast a witness in thy conscience; and thy conscience\nis God speaking to thee!\u201d\n\nMarch 3, 1879.--The sensible politician is governed by considerations\nof social utility, the public good, the greatest attainable good;\nthe political windbag starts from the idea of the rights of the\nindividual--abstract rights, of which the extent is affirmed, not\ndemonstrated, for the political right of the individual is precisely\nwhat is in question. The revolutionary school always forgets that right\napart from duty is a compass with one leg. The notion of right inflates\nthe individual fills him with thoughts of self and of what others owe\nhim, while it ignores the other side of the question, and extinguishes\nhis capacity for devoting himself to a common cause. The state becomes\na shop with self-interest for a principle--or rather an arena, in which\nevery combatant fights for his own hand only. In either case self is the\nmotive power.\n\nChurch and state ought to provide two opposite careers for the\nindividual; in the state he should be called on to give proof of\nmerit--that is to say, he should earn his rights by services rendered;\nin the church his task should be to do good while suppressing his own\nmerits, by a voluntary act of humility.\n\nExtreme individualism dissipates the moral substance of the individual.\nIt leads him to subordinate everything to himself, and to think the\nworld; society, the state, made for him. I am chilled by its lack of\ngratitude, of the spirit of deference, of the instinct of solidarity. It\nis an ideal without beauty and without grandeur.\n\nBut, as a consolation, the modern zeal for equality makes a counterpoise\nfor Darwinism, just as one wolf holds another wolf in check. Neither,\nindeed, acknowledges the claim of duty. The fanatic for equality affirms\nhis right not to be eaten by his neighbor; the Darwinian states the fact\nthat the big devour the little, and adds--so much the better. Neither\nthe one nor the other has a word to say of love, of eternity, of\nkindness, of piety, of voluntary submission, of self-surrender.\n\nAll forces and all principles are brought into action at once in this\nworld. The result is, on the whole, good. But the struggle itself is\nhateful because it dislocates truth and shows us nothing but error\npitted against error, party against party; that is to say, mere halves\nand fragments of being--monsters against monsters. A nature in love with\nbeauty cannot reconcile itself to the sight; it longs for harmony, for\nsomething else than perpetual dissonance. The common condition of human\nsociety must indeed be accepted; tumult, hatred, fraud, crime, the\nferocity of self-interest, the tenacity of prejudice, are perennial; but\nthe philosopher sighs over it; his heart is not in it; his ambition is\nto see human history from a height; his ear is set to catch the music of\nthe eternal spheres.\n\nMarch 15, 1879.--I have been turning over \u201cLes histories de mon Parrain\u201d\n by Stahl, and a few chapters of \u201cNos Fils et nos Filles\u201d by Legouv\u00e9.\nThese writers press wit, grace, gayety, and charm into the service of\ngoodness; their desire is to show that virtue is not so dull nor common\nsense so tiresome as people believe. They are persuasive moralists,\ncaptivating story-tellers; they rouse the appetite for good. This pretty\nmanner of theirs, however, has its dangers. A moral wrapped up in sugar\ngoes down certainly, but it may be feared that it only goes down because\nof its sugar. The Sybarites of to-day will tolerate a sermon which is\ndelicate enough to flatter their literary sensuality; but it is their\ntaste which is charmed, not their conscience which is awakened; their\nprinciple of conduct escapes untouched.\n\nAmusement, instruction, morals, are distinct _genres_. They may no doubt\nbe mingled and combined, but if we wish to obtain direct and simple\neffects, we shall do best to keep them apart. The well-disposed child,\nbesides, does not like mixtures which have something of artifice and\ndeception in them. Duty claims obedience; study requires application;\nfor amusement, nothing is wanted but good temper. To convert obedience\nand application into means of amusement is to weaken the will and the\nintelligence. These efforts to make virtue the fashion are praiseworthy\nenough, but if they do honor to the writers, on the other hand they\nprove the moral anaemia of society. When the digestion is unspoiled, so\nmuch persuading is not necessary to give it a taste for bread.\n\nMay 22,1879. (Ascension Day).--Wonderful and delicious weather. Soft,\ncaressing sunlight--the air a limpid blue--twitterings of birds; even\nthe distant voices of the city have something young and springlike in\nthem. It is indeed a new birth. The ascension of the Saviour of men is\nsymbolized by this expansion, this heavenward yearning of nature.... I\nfeel myself born again; all the windows of the soul are clear. Forms,\nlines, tints, reflections, sounds, contrasts, and harmonies, the general\nplay and interchange of things--it is all enchanting! The atmosphere is\nsteeped in joy. May is in full beauty.\n\nIn my courtyard the ivy is green again, the chestnut tree is full of\nleaf, the Persian lilac beside the little fountain is flushed with red,\nand just about to flower; through the wide openings to the right and\nleft of the old College of Calvin I see the Sal\u00e8ve above the trees\nof St. Antoine, the Voiron above the hill of Cologny; while the three\nflights of steps which, from landing to landing, lead between two high\nwalls from the Rue Verdaine to the terrace of the Tranch\u00e9es, recall to\none\u2019s imagination some old city of the south, a glimpse of Perugia or of\nMalaga.\n\nAll the bells are ringing. It is the hour of worship. A historical and\nreligious impression mingles with the picturesque, the musical, the\npoetical impressions of the scene. All the peoples of Christendom--all\nthe churches scattered over the globe--are celebrating at this moment\nthe glory of the Crucified.\n\nAnd what are those many nations doing who have other prophets, and honor\nthe Divinity in other ways?--the Jews, the Mussulmans, the Buddhists,\nthe Vishnuists, the Guebers? They have other sacred days, other rites,\nother solemnities, other beliefs. But all have some religion, some ideal\nend for life--all aim at raising man above the sorrows and smallnesses\nof the present, and of the individual existence. All have faith in\nsomething greater than themselves, all pray, all bow, all adore; all see\nbeyond nature, Spirit, and beyond evil, Good. All bear witness to the\nInvisible. Here we have the link which binds all peoples together. All\nmen are equally creatures of sorrow and desire, of hope and fear. All\nlong to recover some lost harmony with the great order of things, and to\nfeel themselves approved and blessed by the Author of the universe. All\nknow what suffering is, and yearn for happiness. All know what sin is,\nand feel the need of pardon.\n\nChristianity reduced to its original simplicity is the reconciliation of\nthe sinner with God, by means of the certainty that God loves in spite\nof everything, and that he chastises because he loves. Christianity\nfurnished a new motive and a new strength for the achievement of moral\nperfection. It made holiness attractive by giving to it the air of\nfilial gratitude.\n\nJune 28, 1879.--Last lecture of the term and of the academic year. I\nfinished the exposition of modern philosophy, and wound up my course\nwith the precision I wished. The circle has returned upon itself. In\norder to do this I have divided my hour into minutes, calculated my\nmaterial, and counted every stitch and point. This, however, is but\na very small part of the professorial science, It is a more difficult\nmatter to divide one\u2019s whole material into a given number of lectures,\nto determine the right proportions of the different parts, and the\nnormal speed of delivery to be attained. The ordinary lecturer may\nachieve a series of complete _s\u00e9ances_--the unity being the _s\u00e9ance_.\nBut a scientific course ought to aim at something more--at a general\nunity of subject and of exposition.\n\nHas this concise, substantial, closely-reasoned kind of work been useful\nto my class? I cannot tell. Have my students liked me this year? I\nam not sure, but I hope so. It seems to me they have. Only, if I have\npleased them, it cannot have been in any case more than a _succ\u00e8s\nd\u2019estime_; I have never aimed at any oratorical success. My only object\nis to light up for them a complicated and difficult subject. I respect\nmyself too much, and I respect my class too much, to attempt rhetoric.\nMy r\u00f4le is to help them to understand. Scientific lecturing ought to be,\nabove all things, clear, instructive, well put together, and convincing.\nA lecturer has nothing to do with paying court to the scholars, or\nwith showing off the master; his business is one of serious study and\nimpersonal exposition. To yield anything on this point would seem to\nme a piece of mean utilitarianism. I hate everything that savors of\ncajoling and coaxing. All such ways are mere attempts to throw dust in\nmen\u2019s eyes, mere forms of coquetry and stratagem. A professor is the\npriest of his subject; he should do the honors of it gravely and with\ndignity.\n\nSeptember 9, 1879.--\u201cNon-being is perfect. Being, imperfect:\u201d this\nhorrible sophism becomes beautiful only in the Platonic system, because\nthere Non-being is replaced by the Idea, which is, and which is divine.\n\nThe ideal, the chimerical, the vacant, should not be allowed to claim\nso great a superiority to the Real, which, on its side, has the\nincomparable advantage of existing. The Ideal kills enjoyment and\ncontent by disparaging the present and actual. It is the voice which\nsays No, like Mephistopheles. No, you have not succeeded; no, your work\nis not good; no, you are not happy; no, you shall not find rest--all\nthat you see and all that you do is insufficient, insignificant,\noverdone, badly done, imperfect. The thirst for the ideal is like\nthe goad of Siva, which only quickens life to hasten death. Incurable\nlonging that it is, it lies at the root both of individual suffering\nand of the progress of the race. It destroys happiness in the name of\ndignity.\n\nThe only positive good is order, the return therefore to order and to\na state of equilibrium. Thought without action is an evil, and so is\naction without thought. The ideal is a poison unless it be fused with\nthe real, and the real becomes corrupt without the perfume of the\nideal. Nothing is good singly without its complement and its contrary.\nSelf-examination is dangerous if it encroaches upon self-devotion;\nreverie is hurtful when it stupefies the will; gentleness is an evil\nwhen it lessens strength; contemplation is fatal when it destroys\ncharacter. \u201cToo much\u201d and \u201ctoo little\u201d sin equally against wisdom.\nExcess is one evil, apathy another. Duty may be defined as energy\ntempered by moderation; happiness, as inclination calmed and tempered by\nself-control.\n\nJust as life is only lent us for a few years, but is not inherent in us,\nso the good which is in us is not our own. It is not difficult to\nthink of one\u2019s self in this detached spirit. It only needs a little\nself-knowledge, a little intuitive preception of the ideal, a little\nreligion. There is even much sweetness in this conception that we are\nnothing of ourselves, and that yet it is granted to us to summon each\nother to life, joy, poetry and holiness.\n\nAnother application of the law of irony: Zeno, a fatalist by theory,\nmakes his disciples heroes; Epicurus, the upholder of liberty, makes\nhis disciples languid and effeminate. The ideal pursued is the decisive\npoint; the stoical ideal is duty, whereas the Epicureans make an ideal\nout of an interest. Two tendencies, two systems of morals, two worlds.\nIn the same way the Jansenists, and before them the great reformers, are\nfor predestination, the Jesuits for free-will--and yet the first founded\nliberty, the second slavery of conscience. What matters then is not the\ntheoretical principle; it is the secret tendency, the aspiration, the\naim, which is the essential thing.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt every epoch there lies, beyond the domain of what man knows, the\ndomain of the unknown, in which faith has its dwelling. Faith has no\nproofs, but only itself, to offer. It is born spontaneously in certain\ncommanding souls; it spreads its empire among the rest by imitation and\ncontagion. A great faith is but a great hope which becomes certitude as\nwe move farther and farther from the founder of it; time and distance\nstrengthen it, until at last the passion for knowledge seizes upon it,\nquestions, and examines it. Then all which had once made its strength\nbecomes its weakness; the impossibility of verification, exaltation of\nfeeling, distance.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt what age is our view clearest, our eye truest? Surely in old age,\nbefore the infirmities come which weaken or embitter. The ancients\nwere right. The old man who is at once sympathetic and disinterested,\nnecessarily develops the spirit of contemplation, and it is given to\nthe spirit of contemplation to see things most truly, because it alone\nperceives them in their relative and proportional value.\n\nJanuary 2, 1880.--A sense of rest, of deep quiet even. Silence within\nand without. A quietly-burning fire. A sense of comfort. The portrait\nof my mother seems to smile upon me. I am not dazed or stupid, but only\nhappy in this peaceful morning. Whatever may be the charm of emotion,\nI do not know whether it equals the sweetness of those hours of\nsilent meditation, in which we have a glimpse and foretaste of the\ncontemplative joys of paradise. Desire and fear, sadness and care, are\ndone away. Existence is reduced to the simplest form, the most ethereal\nmode of being, that is, to pure self-consciousness. It is a state of\nharmony, without tension and without disturbance, the dominical state\nof the soul, perhaps the state which awaits it beyond the grave. It\nis happiness as the orientals understand it, the happiness of the\nanchorite, who neither struggles nor wishes any more, but simply adores\nand enjoys. It is difficult to find words in which to express this\nmoral situation, for our languages can only render the particular and\nlocalized vibrations of life; they are incapable of expressing this\nmotionless concentration, this divine quietude, this state of the\nresting ocean, which reflects the sky, and is master of its own\nprofundities. Things are then re-absorbed into their principles;\nmemories are swallowed up in memory; the soul is only soul, and is no\nlonger conscious of itself in its individuality and separateness. It is\nsomething which feels the universal life, a sensible atom of the Divine,\nof God. It no longer appropriates anything to itself, it is conscious of\nno void. Only the Yogis and Soufis perhaps have known in its profundity\nthis humble and yet voluptuous state, which combines the joys of being\nand of non-being, which is neither reflection nor will, which is above\nboth the moral existence and the intellectual existence, which is\nthe return to unity, to the pleroma, the vision of Plotinus and of\nProclus--Nirvana in its most attractive form.\n\nIt is clear that the western nations in general, and especially the\nAmericans, know very little of this state of feeling. For them life is\ndevouring and incessant activity. They are eager for gold, for power,\nfor dominion; their aim is to crush men and to enslave nature. They show\nan obstinate interest in means, and have not a thought for the end. They\nconfound being with individual being, and the expansion of the self with\nhappiness--that is to say, they do not live by the soul; they ignore the\nunchangeable and the eternal; they live at the periphery of their being,\nbecause they are unable to penetrate to its axis. They are excited,\nardent, positive, because they are superficial. Why so much effort,\nnoise, struggle, and greed?--it is all a mere stunning and deafening of\nthe self. When death comes they recognize that it is so--why not then\nadmit it sooner? Activity is only beautiful when it is holy--that is to\nsay, when it is spent in the service of that which passeth not away.\n\nFebruary 6, 1880.--A feeling article by Edmond Scherer on the death of\nBersot, the director of the \u201cEcole Normale,\u201d a philosopher who bore\nlike a stoic a terrible disease, and who labored to the last without\na complaint.... I have just read the four orations delivered over his\ngrave. They have brought the tears to my eyes. In the last days of this\nbrave man everything was manly, noble, moral, and spiritual. Each of the\nspeakers paid homage to the character, the devotion, the constancy, and\nthe intellectual elevation of the dead. \u201cLet us learn from him how to\nlive and how to die.\u201d The whole funeral ceremony had an antique dignity.\n\nFebruary 7, 1880.--Hoar-frost and fog, but the general aspect is bright\nand fairylike, and has nothing in common with the gloom in Paris and\nLondon, of which the newspapers tell us.\n\nThis silvery landscape has a dreamy grace, a fanciful charm, which are\nunknown both to the countries of the sun and to those of coal-smoke. The\ntrees seem to belong to another creation, in which white has taken the\nplace of green. As one gazes at these alleys, these clumps, these groves\nand arcades, these lace-like garlands and festoons, one feels no wish\nfor anything else; their beauty is original and self-sufficing, all the\nmore because the ground powdered with snow, the sky dimmed with mist,\nand the smooth soft distances, combine to form a general scale of color,\nand a harmonious whole, which charms the eye. No harshness anywhere--all\nis velvet. My enchantment beguiled me out both before and after dinner.\nThe impression is that of a _f\u00eate_, and the subdued tints are, or seem\nto be, a mere coquetry of winter which has set itself to paint something\nwithout sunshine, and yet to charm the spectator.\n\nFebruary 9, 1880,--Life rushes on--so much the worse for the weak and\nthe stragglers. As soon as a man\u2019s _tendo Achillis_ gives way he finds\nhimself trampled under foot by the young, the eager, the voracious.\n\u201c_Vae victis, vae debilibus!_\u201d yells the crowd, which in its turn is\nstorming the goods of this world. Every man is always in some other\nman\u2019s way, since, however small he may make himself, he still occupies\nsome space, and however little he may envy or possess, he is still\nsure to be envied and his goods coveted by some one else. Mean\nworld!--peopled by a mean race! To console ourselves we must think of\nthe exceptions--of the noble and generous souls. There are such. What\ndo the rest matter! The traveler crossing the desert feels himself\nsurrounded by creatures thirsting for his blood; by day vultures fly\nabout his head; by night scorpions creep into his tent, jackals prowl\naround his camp-fire, mosquitoes prick and torture him with their greedy\nsting; everywhere menace, enmity, ferocity. But far beyond the horizon,\nand the barren sands peopled by these hostile hordes, the wayfarer\npictures to himself a few loved faces and kind looks, a few true hearts\nwhich follow him in their dreams--and smiles. When all is said, indeed,\nwe defend ourselves a greater or lesser number of years, but we are\nalways conquered and devoured in the end; there is no escaping the grave\nand its worm. Destruction is our destiny, and oblivion our portion....\n\nHow near is the great gulf! My skiff is thin as a nutshell, or even more\nfragile still. Let the leak but widen a little and all is over for the\nnavigator. A mere nothing separates me from idiocy, from madness,\nfrom death. The slightest breach is enough to endanger all this frail,\ningenious edifice, which calls itself my being and my life.\n\nNot even the dragonfly symbol is enough to express its frailty; the\nsoap-bubble is the best poetical translation of all this illusory\nmagnificence, this fugitive apparition of the tiny self, which is we,\nand we it.\n\n... A miserable night enough. Awakened three or four times by my\nbronchitis. Sadness--restlessness. One of these winter nights, possibly,\nsuffocation will come. I realize that it would be well to keep myself\nready, to put everything in order.... To begin with, let me wipe out\nall personal grievances and bitternesses; forgive all, judge no one;\nin enmity and ill-will, see only misunderstanding. \u201cAs much as lieth in\nyou, be at peace with all men.\u201d On the bed of death the soul should have\nno eyes but for eternal things. All the littlenesses of life disappear.\nThe fight is over. There should be nothing left now but remembrance of\npast blessings--adoration of the ways of God. Our natural instinct\nleads us back to Christian humility and pity. \u201cFather, forgive us our\ntrespasses, as we forgive them who trespass against us.\u201d\n\nPrepare thyself as though the coming Easter were thy last, for thy days\nhenceforward shall be few and evil.\n\nFebruary 11, 1880.--Victor de Laprade [Footnote: Victor de Laprade, born\n1812, first a disciple and imitator of Edgar Quinet, then the friend of\nLamartine, Lamennais, George Sand, Victor Hugo; admitted to the\nAcademy in 1857 in succession to Alfred de Musset. He wrote \u201cParfums de\nMadeleine,\u201d 1839; \u201cOdes et Po\u00e8mes,\u201d 1843; \u201cPo\u00e8mes Evang\u00e9liques,\u201d 1852;\n\u201cIdylles H\u00e9roiques,\u201d 1858, etc. etc.] has elevation, grandeur, nobility,\nand harmony. What is it, then, that he lacks? Ease, and perhaps\nhumor. Hence the monotonous solemnity, the excess of emphasis, the\nover-intensity, the inspired air, the statue-like gait, which annoy\none in him. His is a muse which never lays aside the _cothurnus_, and a\nroyalty which never puts off its crown, even in sleep. The total absence\nin him of playfulness, simplicity, familiarity, is a great defect.\nDe Laprade is to the ancients as the French tragedy is to that of\nEuripides, or as the wig of Louis XIV. to the locks of Apollo. His\nmajestic airs are wearisome and factitious. If there is not exactly\naffectation in them, there is at least a kind of theatrical and\nsacerdotal posing, a sort of professional attitudinizing. Truth is not\nas fine as this, but it is more living, more pathetic, more varied.\nMarble images are cold. Was it not Musset who said, \u201cIf De Laprade is a\npoet, then I am not one?\u201d\n\nFebruary 27, 1880.--I have finished translating twelve or fourteen\nlittle poems by Pet\u00f6fi. They have a strange kind of savor. There is\nsomething of the Steppe, of the East, of Mazeppa, of madness, in these\nsongs, which seem to go to the beat of a riding-whip. What force and\npassion, what savage brilliancy, what wild and grandiose images, there\nare in them! One feels that the Magyar is a kind of Centaur, and that he\nis only Christian and European by accident. The Hun in him tends toward\nthe Arab.\n\nMarch 20, 1880.--I have been reading \u201cLa Banni\u00e8re Bleue\u201d--a history of\nthe world at the time of Genghis Khan, under the form of memoirs. It is\na Turk, Ou\u00efgour, who tells the story. He shows us civilization from\nthe wrong side, or the other side, and the Asiatic nomads appear as the\nscavengers of its corruptions.\n\nGenghis proclaimed himself the scourge of God, and he did in fact\nrealize the vastest empire known to history, stretching from the Blue\nSea to the Baltic, and from the vast plains of Siberia to the banks\nof the sacred Ganges. The most solid empires of the ancient world were\noverthrown by the tramp of his horsemen and the shafts of his archers.\nFrom the tumult into which he threw the western continent there issued\ncertain vast results: the fall of the Byzantine empire, involving the\nRenaissance, the voyages of discovery in Asia, undertaken from both\nsides of the globe--that is to say, Gama and Columbus; the formation\nof the Turkish empire; and the preparation of the Russian empire. This\ntremendous hurricane, starting from the high Asiatic tablelands, felled\nthe decaying oaks and worm-eaten buildings of the whole ancient\nworld. The descent of the yellow, flat-nosed Mongols upon Europe is a\nhistorical cyclone which devastated and purified our thirteenth century,\nand broke, at the two ends of the known world, through two great Chinese\nwalls--that which protected the ancient empire of the Center, and that\nwhich made a barrier of ignorance and superstition round the little\nworld of Christendom. Attila, Genghis, Tamerlane, ought to range in the\nmemory of men with Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon. They roused\nwhole peoples into action, and stirred the depths of human life, they\npowerfully affected ethnography, they let loose rivers of blood, and\nrenewed the face of things. The Quakers will not see that there is a law\nof tempests in history as in nature. The revilers of war are like the\nrevilers of thunder, storms, and volcanoes; they know not what they do.\nCivilization tends to corrupt men, as large towns tend to vitiate the\nair.\n\n\u201cNos patimur longae pacis mala.\u201d\n\nCatastrophes bring about a violent restoration of equilibrium; they put\nthe world brutally to rights. Evil chastises itself, and the tendency to\nruin in human things supplies the place of the regulator who has not yet\nbeen discovered. No civilization can bear more than a certain proportion\nof abuses, injustice, corruption, shame, and crime. When this proportion\nhas been reached, the boiler bursts, the palace falls, the scaffolding\nbreaks down; institutions, cities, states, empires, sink into ruin. The\nevil contained in an organism is a virus which preys upon it, and if\nit is not eliminated ends by destroying it. And as nothing is perfect,\nnothing can escape death.\n\nMay 19, 1880.--_Inadaptibility_, due either to mysticism or\nstiffness, delicacy or disdain, is the misfortune or at all events\nthe characteristic of my life. I have not been able to fit myself to\nanything, to content myself with anything. I have never had the quantum\nof illusion necessary for risking the irreparable. I have made use of\nthe ideal itself to keep me from any kind of bondage. It was thus with\nmarriage: only perfection would have satisfied me; and, on the\nother hand, I was not worthy of perfection.... So that, finding no\nsatisfaction in things, I tried to extirpate desire, by which things\nenslave us. Independence has been my refuge; detachment my stronghold.\nI have lived the impersonal life--in the world, yet not in it, thinking\nmuch, desiring nothing. It is a state of mind which corresponds with\nwhat in women is called a broken heart; and it is in fact like it, since\nthe characteristic common to both is despair. When one knows that\none will never possess what one could have loved, and that one can be\ncontent with nothing less, one has, so to speak, left the world, one has\ncut the golden hair, parted with all that makes human life--that is to\nsay, illusion--the incessant effort toward an apparently attainable end.\nMay 31, 1880.--Let us not be over-ingenious. There is no help to be got\nout of subtleties. Besides, one must live. It is best and simplest\nnot to quarrel with any illusion, and to accept the inevitable\ngood-temperedly. Plunged as we are in human existence, we must take it\nas it comes, not too bitterly, nor too tragically, without horror\nand without sarcasm, without misplaced petulance or a too exacting\nexpectation; cheerfulness, serenity, and patience, these are best--let\nus aim at these. Our business is to treat life as the grandfather treats\nhis granddaughter, or the grandmother her grandson; to enter into the\npretenses of childhood and the fictions of youth, even when we ourselves\nhave long passed beyond them. It is probable that God himself looks\nkindly upon the illusions of the human race, so long as they are\ninnocent. There is nothing evil but sin--that is, egotism and revolt.\nAnd as for error, man changes his errors frequently, but error of some\nsort is always with him. Travel as one may, one is always somewhere, and\none\u2019s mind rests on some point of truth, as one\u2019s feet rest upon some\npoint of the globe.\n\nSociety alone represents a more or less complete unity. The individual\nmust content himself with being a stone in the building, a wheel in the\nimmense machine, a word in the poem. He is a part of the family, of\nthe state, of humanity, of all the special fragments formed by human\ninterests, beliefs, aspirations, and labors. The loftiest souls are\nthose who are conscious of the universal symphony, and who give their\nfull and willing collaboration to this vast and complicated concert\nwhich we call civilization.\n\nIn principle the mind is capable of suppressing all the limits which it\ndiscovers in itself, limits of language, nationality, religion, race, or\nepoch. But it must be admitted that the more the mind spiritualizes and\ngeneralizes itself, the less hold it has on other minds, which no longer\nunderstand it or know what to do with it. Influence belongs to men\nof action, and for purposes of action nothing is more useful than\nnarrowness of thought combined with energy of will.\n\nThe forms of dreamland are gigantic, those of action are small and\ndwarfed. To the minds imprisoned in things, belong success, fame,\nprofit; a great deal no doubt; but they know nothing of the pleasures of\nliberty or the joy of penetrating the infinite. However, I do not mean\nto put one class before another; for every man is happy according to\nhis nature. History is made by combatants and specialists; only it is\nperhaps not a bad thing that in the midst of the devouring activities of\nthe western world, there should be a few Brahmanizing souls.\n\n... This soliloquy means--what? That reverie turns upon itself as\ndreams do; that impressions added together do not always produce a\nfair judgment; that a private journal is like a good king, and permits\nrepetitions, outpourings, complaint.... These unseen effusions are the\nconversation of thought with itself the arpeggios involuntary but not\nunconscious, of that aeolian harp we bear within us. Its vibrations\ncompose no piece, exhaust no theme, achieve no melody, carry out no\nprogramme, but they express the innermost life of man.\n\nJune 1, 1880.--Stendhal\u2019s \u201cLa Chartreuse de Parme.\u201d A remarkable book.\nIt is even typical, the first of a class. Stendhal opens the series of\nnaturalist novels, which suppress the intervention of the moral sense,\nand scoff at the claim of free-will. Individuals are irresponsible; they\nare governed by their passions, and the play of human passions is the\nobserver\u2019s joy, the artist\u2019s material. Stendhal is a novelist after\nTaine\u2019s heart, a faithful painter who is neither touched nor angry, and\nwhom everything amuses--the knave and the adventuress as well as honest\nmen and women, but who has neither faith, nor preference, nor ideal.\nIn him literature is subordinated to natural history, to science. It no\nlonger forms part of the humanities, it no longer gives man the honor\nof a separate rank. It classes him with the ant, the beaver, and\nthe monkey. And this moral indifference to morality leads direct to\nimmorality.\n\nThe vice of the whole school is cynicism, contempt for man, whom they\ndegrade to the level of the brute; it is the worship of strength,\ndisregard of the soul, a want of generosity, of reverence, of nobility,\nwhich shows itself in spite of all protestations to the contrary; in a\nword, it is _inhumanity_. No man can be a naturalist with impunity:\nhe will be coarse even with the most refined culture. A free mind is\na great thing no doubt, but loftiness of heart, belief in goodness,\ncapacity for enthusiasm and devotion, the thirst after perfection and\nholiness, are greater things still.\n\nJune 7, 1880.--I am reading Madame Necker de Saussure [Footnote:\nMadame Necker de Saussure was the daughter of the famous geologist,\nDe Saussure; she married a nephew of Jacques Necker, and was therefore\ncousin by marriage of Madame de Sta\u00ebl. She is often supposed to be the\noriginal of Madame de Cerlebe in \u201cDelphine,\u201d and the _Notice sur\nle Caract\u00e8re et les \u00c9crits de Mdme. de Sta\u00ebl_, prefixed to the\nauthoritative edition of Madame de Sta\u00ebl\u2019s collected works, is by her.\nPhilanthropy and education were her two main interests, but she had also\na very large amount of general literary cultivation, as was proved by\nher translation of Schlegel\u2019s \u201cLectures on Dramatic Literature.\u201d] again.\n\u201cL\u2019Education progressive\u201d is an admirable book. What moderation and\nfairness of view, what reasonableness and dignity of manner! Everything\nin it is of high quality--observation, thought, and style. The\nreconciliation of science with the ideal, of philosophy with religion,\nof psychology with morals, which the book attempts, is sound and\nbeneficent. It is a fine book--a classic--and Geneva may be proud of\na piece of work which shows such high cultivation and so much solid\nwisdom. Here we have the true Genevese literature, the central tradition\nof the country.\n\n_Later_.--I have finished the third volume of Madame Necker. The\nelevation and delicacy, the sense and seriousness, the beauty\nand perfection of the whole are astonishing. A few harshnesses or\ninaccuracies of language do not matter. I feel for the author a respect\nmingled with emotion. How rare it is to find a book in which everything\nis sincere and everything is true!\n\nJune 26, 1880.--Democracy exists; it is mere loss of time to dwell upon\nits absurdities and defects. Every _r\u00e9gime_ has its weaknesses, and\nthis _r\u00e9gime_ is a lesser evil than others. On things its effect is\nunfavorable, but on the other hand men profit by it, for it develops\nthe individual by obliging every one to take interest in a multitude\nof questions. It makes bad work, but it produces citizens. This is\nits excuse, and a more than tolerable one; in the eyes of the\nphilanthropist, indeed, it is a serious title to respect, for, after\nall, social institutions are made for man, and not _vice vers\u00e2_.\n\nJune 27, 1880.--I paid a visit to my friends--, and we resumed the\nconversation of yesterday. We talked of the ills which threaten\ndemocracy and which are derived from the legal fiction at the root of\nit. Surely the remedy consists in insisting everywhere upon the\ntruth which democracy systematically forgets, and which is its proper\nmakeweight--on the inequalities of talent, of virtue, and merit, and\non the respect due to age, to capacity, to services rendered. Juvenile\narrogance and jealous ingratitude must be resisted all the more\nstrenuously because social forms are in their favor; and when the\ninstitutions of a country lay stress only on the rights of the\nindividual, it is the business of the citizen to lay all the more stress\non duty. There must be a constant effort to correct the prevailing\ntendency of things. All this, it is true, is nothing but palliative, but\nin human society one cannot hope for more.\n\n_Later_.--Alfred de Vigny is a sympathetic writer, with a meditative\nturn of thought, a strong and supple talent. He possesses elevation,\nindependence, seriousness, originality, boldness and grace; he has\nsomething of everything. He paints, describes, and judges well; he\nthinks, and has the courage of his opinions. His defect lies in an\nexcess of self-respect, in a British pride and reserve which give him a\nhorror of familiarity and a terror of letting himself go. This tendency\nhas naturally injured his popularity as a writer with a public whom he\nholds at arm\u2019s length as one might a troublesome crowd. The French race\nhas never cared much about the inviolability of personal conscience;\nit does not like stoics shut up in their own dignity as in a tower, and\nrecognizing no master but God, duty or faith. Such strictness annoys and\nirritates it; it is merely piqued and made impatient by anything solemn.\nIt repudiated Protestantism for this very reason, and in all crises\nit has crushed those who have not yielded to the passionate current of\nopinion.\n\nJuly 1, 1880. (_Three o\u2019clock_).--The temperature is oppressive; I ought\nto be looking over my notes, and thinking of to-morrow\u2019s examinations.\nInward distaste--emptiness--discontent. Is it trouble of conscience, or\nsorrow of heart? or the soul preying upon itself? or merely a sense of\nstrength decaying and time running to waste? Is sadness--or regret--or\nfear--at the root of it? I do not know; but this dull sense of misery\nhas danger in it; it leads to rash efforts and mad decisions. Oh, for\nescape from self, for something to stifle the importunate voice of want\nand yearning! Discontent is the father of temptation. How can we gorge\nthe invisible serpent hidden at the bottom of our well--gorge it so that\nit may sleep?\n\nAt the heart of all this rage and vain rebellion there lies--what?\nAspiration, yearning! We are athirst for the infinite--for love--for I\nknow not what. It is the instinct of happiness, which, like some\nwild animal, is restless for its prey. It is God calling-God avenging\nhimself.\n\nJuly 4, 1880. (_Sunday, half-past eight in the morning_).--The sun has\ncome out after heavy rain. May one take it as an omen on this solemn\nday? The great voice of Cl\u00e9mence has just been sounding in our ears. The\nbell\u2019s deep vibrations went to my heart. For a quarter of an hour\nthe pathetic appeal went on--\u201cGeneva, Geneva, remember! I am called\n_Cl\u00e9mence_--I am the voice of church and of country. People of Geneva,\nserve God and be at peace together.\u201d [Footnote: A law to bring about\nseparation between Church and State, adopted by the Great Council,\nwas on this day submitted to the vote of the Genevese people. It was\nrejected by a large majority (9,306 against 4,044).--[S.]]\n\n_Seven o\u2019clock in the evening_.--_Cl\u00e9mence_ has been ringing again,\nduring the last half-hour of the _scrutin_. Now that she has stopped,\nthe silence has a terrible seriousness, like that which weighs upon a\ncrowd when it is waiting for the return of the judge and the delivery of\nthe death sentence. The fate of the Genevese church and country is now\nin the voting box.\n\n_Eleven o\u2019clock in the evening_.--Victory along the whole line. The\nAyes have carried little more than two-sevenths of the vote. At my\nfriend----\u2018s house I found them all full of excitement, gratitude, and\njoy.\n\nJuly 5, 1880.--There are some words which have still a magical virtue\nwith the mass of the people: those of State, Republic, Country, Nation,\nFlag, and even, I think, Church. Our skeptical and mocking culture knows\nnothing of the emotion, the exaltation, the delirium, which these words\nawaken in simple people. The blas\u00e9s of the world have no idea how the\npopular mind vibrates to these appeals, by which they themselves are\nuntouched. It is their punishment; it is also their infirmity.\nTheir temper is satirical and separatist; they live in isolation and\nsterility.\n\nI feel again what I felt at the time of the Rousseau centenary; my\nfeeling and imagination are chilled and repelled by those Pharisaical\npeople who think themselves too good to associate with the crowd.\n\nAt the same time, I suffer from an inward contradiction, from a\ntwo-fold, instinctive repugnance--an aesthetic repugnance toward\nvulgarity of every kind, a moral repugnance toward barrenness and\ncoldness of heart.\n\nSo that personally I am only attracted by the individuals of cultivation\nand eminence, while on the other hand nothing is sweeter to me than to\nfeel myself vibrating in sympathy with the national spirit, with the\nfeeling of the masses. I only care for the two extremes, and it is this\nwhich separates me from each of them.\n\nOur everyday life, split up as it is into clashing parties and opposed\nopinions, and harassed by perpetual disorder and discussion, is painful\nand almost hateful to me. A thousand things irritate and provoke me. But\nperhaps it would be the same elsewhere. Very likely it is the inevitable\nway of the world which displeases me--the sight of what succeeds, of\nwhat men approve or blame, of what they excuse or accuse. I need to\nadmire, to feel myself in sympathy and in harmony with my neighbor, with\nthe march of things, and the tendencies of those around me, and almost\nalways I have had to give up the hope of it. I take refuge in retreat,\nto avoid discord. But solitude is only a _pis-aller_.\n\nJuly 6, 1880.--Magnificent weather. The college prize-day. [Footnote:\nThe prize-giving at the College of Geneva is made the occasion of a\nnational festival.] Toward evening I went with our three ladies to the\nplain of Plainpalais. There was an immense crowd, and I was struck with\nthe bright look of the faces. The festival wound up with the traditional\nfireworks, under a calm and starry sky. Here we have the republic\nindeed, I thought as I came in. For a whole week this people has been\nout-of-doors, camping, like the Athenians on the Agora. Since Wednesday\nlectures and public meetings have followed one another without\nintermission; at home there are pamphlets and the newspapers to be\nread; while speech-making goes on at the clubs. On Sunday, _plebiscite_;\nMonday, public procession, service at St. Pierre, speeches on the\nMolard, festival for the adults. Tuesday, the college f\u00eate-day.\nWednesday, the f\u00eate-day of the primary schools.\n\nGeneva is a caldron always at boiling-point, a furnace of which the\nfires are never extinguished. Vulcan had more than one forge, and Geneva\nis certainly one of those world-anvils on which the greatest number of\nprojects have been hammered out. When one thinks that the martyrs of all\ncauses have been at work here, the mystery is explained a little;\nbut the truest explanation is that Geneva--republican, protestant,\ndemocratic, learned, and enterprising Geneva--has for centuries depended\non herself alone for the solution of her own difficulties. Since the\nReformation she has been always on the alert, marching with a lantern\nin her left hand and a sword in her right. It pleases me to see that\nshe has not yet become a mere copy of anything, and that she is still\ncapable of deciding for herself. Those who say to her, \u201cDo as they do at\nNew York, at Paris, at Rome, at Berlin,\u201d are still in the minority. The\n_doctrinaires_ who would split her up and destroy her unity waste their\nbreath upon her. She divines the snare laid for her and turns away.\nI like this proof of vitality. Only that which is original has a\nsufficient reason for existence. A country in which the word of command\ncomes from elsewhere is nothing more than a province. This is what our\nJacobins and our Ultramontanes never will recognize. Neither of them\nunderstand the meaning of self-government, and neither of them have any\nidea of the dignity of a historical state and an independent people.\n\nOur small nationalities are ruined by the hollow cosmopolitan formulae\nwhich have an equally disastrous effect upon art and letters. The modern\n_isms_ are so many acids which dissolve everything living and concrete.\nNo one achieves a masterpiece, nor even a decent piece of work, by the\nhelp of realism, liberalism, or romanticism. Separatism has even less\nvirtue than any of the other _isms_, for it is the abstraction of a\nnegation, the shadow of a shadow. The various _isms_ of the present are\nnot fruitful principles: they are hardly even explanatory formulae. They\nare rather names of disease, for they express some element in excess,\nsome dangerous and abusive exaggeration. Examples: empiricism, idealism,\nradicalism. What is best among things and most perfect among beings\nslips through these categories. The man who is perfectly well is neither\nsanguineous--[to use the old medical term]--nor bilious nor nervous.\nA normal republic contains opposing parties and points of view, but it\ncontains them, as it were, in a state of chemical combination. All the\ncolors are contained in a ray of light, while red alone does not contain\na sixth part of the perfect ray.\n\nJuly 8, 1880.--It is thirty years since I read Waagen\u2019s book on\n\u201cMuseums,\u201d which my friend ---- is now reading. It was in 1842 that I\nwas wild for pictures; in 1845 that I was studying Krause\u2019s philosophy;\nin 1850 that I became professor of aesthetics. ---- may be the same\nage as I am; it is none the less true that when a particular stage\nhas become to me a matter of history, he is just arriving at it. This\nimpression of distance and remoteness is a strange one. I begin to\nrealize that my memory is a great catacomb, and that below my actual\nstanding-ground there is layer after layer of historical ashes.\n\nIs the life of mind something like that of great trees of immemorial\ngrowth? Is the living layer of consciousness super-imposed upon hundreds\nof dead layers? _Dead?_ No doubt this is too much to say, but still,\nwhen memory is slack the past becomes almost as though it had never\nbeen. To remember that we did know once is not a sign of possession but\na sign of loss; it is like the number of an engraving which is no longer\non its nail, the title of a volume no longer to be found on its shelf.\nMy mind is the empty frame of a thousand vanished images. Sharpened\nby incessant training, it is all culture, but it has retained hardly\nanything in its meshes. It is without matter, and is only form. It\nno longer has knowledge; it has become method. It is etherealized,\nalgebraicized. Life has treated it as death treats other minds; it\nhas already prepared it for a further metamorphosis. Since the age of\nsixteen onward I have been able to look at things with the eyes of a\nblind man recently operated upon--that is to say, I have been able to\nsuppress in myself the results of the long education of sight, and to\nabolish distances; and now I find myself regarding existence as though\nfrom beyond the tomb, from another world; all is strange to me; I am, as\nit were, outside my own body and individuality; I am _depersonalized_,\ndetached, cut adrift. Is this madness? No. Madness means the\nimpossibility of recovering one\u2019s normal balance after the mind has\nthus played truant among alien forms of being, and followed Dante\nto invisible worlds. Madness means incapacity for self-judgment and\nself-control. Whereas it seems to me that my mental transformations\nare but philosophical experiences. I am tied to none. I am but making\npsychological investigations. At the same time I do not hide from myself\nthat such experiences weaken the hold of common sense, because they act\nas solvents of all personal interests and prejudices. I can only defend\nmyself against them by returning to the common life of men, and by\nbracing and fortifying the will.\n\nJuly 14, 1880.--What is the book which, of all Genevese literature, I\nwould soonest have written? Perhaps that of Madame Necker de Saussure,\nor Madame de Sta\u00ebl\u2019s \u201cL\u2019Allemagne.\u201d To a Genevese, moral philosophy\nis still the most congenial and remunerative of studies. Intellectual\nseriousness is what suits us least ill. History, politics, economical\nscience, education, practical philosophy--these are our subjects.\nWe have everything to lose in the attempt to make ourselves mere\nFrenchified copies of the Parisians: by so doing we are merely carrying\nwater to the Seine. Independent criticism is perhaps easier at Geneva\nthan at Paris, and Geneva ought to remain faithful to her own special\nline, which, as compared with that of France, is one of greater freedom\nfrom the tyranny of taste and fashion on the one hand, and the tyranny\nof ruling opinion on the other--of Catholicism or Jacobinism. Geneva\nshould be to _La Grande Nation_ what Diogenes was to Alexander; her role\nis to represent the independent thought and the free speech which is not\ndazzled by prestige, and does not blink the truth. It is true that\nthe r\u00f4le is an ungrateful one, that it lends itself to sarcasm and\nmisrepresentation--but what matter?\n\nJuly 28, 1880.--This afternoon I have had a walk in the sunshine, and\nhave just come back rejoicing in a renewed communion with nature. The\nwaters of the Rhone and the Arve, the murmur of the river, the austerity\nof its banks, the brilliancy of the foliage, the play of the leaves,\nthe splendor of the July sunlight, the rich fertility of the fields, the\nlucidity of the distant mountains, the whiteness of the glaciers under\nthe azure serenity of the sky, the sparkle and foam of the mingling\nrivers, the leafy masses of the La B\u00e2tie woods--all and everything\ndelighted me. It seemed to me as though the years of strength had come\nback to me. I was overwhelmed with sensations. I was surprised and\ngrateful. The universal life carried me on its breast; the summer\u2019s\ncaress went to my heart. Once more my eyes beheld the vast horizons,\nthe soaring peaks, the blue lakes, the winding valleys, and all the free\noutlets of old days. And yet there was no painful sense of longing. The\nscene left upon me an indefinable impression, which was neither hope,\nnor desire, nor regret, but rather a sense of emotion, of passionate\nimpulse, mingled with admiration and anxiety. I am conscious at once\nof joy and of want; beyond what I possess I see the impossible and the\nunattainable; I gauge my own wealth and poverty; in a word, I am and\nI am not--my inner state is one of contradiction, because it is one of\ntransition. The ambiguity of it is characteristic of human nature, which\nis ambiguous, because it is flesh becoming spirit, space changing into\nthought, the Finite looking dimly out upon the Infinite, intelligence\nworking its way through love and pain.\n\nMan is the _sensorium commune_ of nature, the point at which all values\nare interchanged. Mind is the plastic medium, the principle, and the\nresult of all; at once material and laboratory, product and formula,\nsensation, expression, and law; that which is, that which does, that\nwhich knows. All is not mind, but mind is in all, and contains all.\nIt is the consciousness of being--that is, Being raised to the second\npower. If the universe subsists, it is because the Eternal mind loves to\nperceive its own content, in all its wealth and expansion--especially in\nits stages of preparation. Not that God is an egotist. He allows myriads\nupon myriads of suns to disport themselves in his shadow; he grants\nlife and consciousness to innumerable multitudes of creatures who\nthus participate in being and in nature; and all these animated monads\nmultiply, so to speak, his divinity.\n\nAugust 4, 1880.--I have read a few numbers of the _Feuille Centrale de\nZofingen_. [Footnote: The journal of a students\u2019 society, drawn from the\ndifferent cantons of Switzerland, which meets every year in the little\ntown of Zofingen] It is one of those perpetual new beginnings of youth\nwhich thinks it is producing something fresh when it is only repeating\nthe old.\n\nNature is governed by continuity--the continuity of repetition; it is\nlike an oft-told tale, or the recurring burden of a song. The rose-trees\nare never tired of rose-bearing, the birds of nest-building, young\nhearts of loving, or young voices of singing the thoughts and feelings\nwhich have served their predecessors a hundred thousand times before.\nProfound monotony in universal movement--there is the simplest formula\nfurnished by the spectacle of the world. All circles are alike, and\nevery existence tends to trace its circle.\n\nHow, then, is _fastidium_ to be avoided? By shutting our eyes to the\ngeneral uniformity, by laying stress upon the small differences which\nexist, and then by learning to enjoy repetition. What to the intellect\nis old and worn-out is perennially young and fresh to the heart;\ncuriosity is insatiable, but love is never tired. The natural\npreservative against satiety, too, is work. What we do may weary others,\nbut the personal effort is at least useful to its author. Where every\none works, the general life is sure to possess charm and savor, even\nthough it repeat forever the same song, the same aspirations, the same\nprejudices, and the same sighs. \u201cTo every man his turn,\u201d is the motto\nof mortal beings. If what they do is old, they themselves are new; when\nthey imitate, they think they are inventing. They have received, and\nthey transmit. _E sempre bene!_\n\nAugust 24, 1880.--As years go on I love the beautiful more than the\nsublime, the smooth more than the rough, the calm nobility of Plato\nmore than the fierce holiness of the world\u2019s Jeremiahs. The vehement\nbarbarian is to me the inferior of the mild and playful Socrates. My\ntaste is for the well-balanced soul and the well-trained heart--for\na liberty which is not harsh and insolent, like that of the newly\nenfranchised slave, but lovable. The temperament which charms me is\nthat in which one virtue leads naturally to another. All exclusive and\nsharply-marked qualities are but so many signs of imperfection.\n\nAugust 29, 1880.--To-day I am conscious of improvement. I am taking\nadvantage of it to go back to my neglected work and my interrupted\nhabits; but in a week I have grown several months older--that is easy to\nsee. The affection of those around me makes them pretend not to see it;\nbut the looking-glass tells the truth. The fact does not take away from\nthe pleasure of convalescence; but still one hears in it the shuttle of\ndestiny, and death seems to be nearing rapidly, in spite of the halts\nand truces which are granted one. The most beautiful existence, it seems\nto me, would be that of a river which should get through all its rapids\nand waterfalls not far from its rising, and should then in its widening\ncourse form a succession of rich valleys, and in each of them a lake\nequally but diversely beautiful, to end, after the plains of age were\npast, in the ocean where all that is weary and heavy-laden comes to seek\nfor rest. How few there are of these full, fruitful, gentle lives! What\nis the use of wishing for or regretting them? It is Wiser and harder to\nsee in one\u2019s own lot the best one could have had, and to say to one\u2019s\nself that after all the cleverest tailor cannot make us a coat to fit us\nmore closely than our skin.\n\n  \u201cLe vrai nom du bonheur est le contentement.\u201d\n\n... The essential thing, for every one is to accept his destiny. Fate\nhas deceived you; you have sometimes grumbled at your lot; well, no more\nmutual reproaches; go to sleep in peace.\n\nAugust 30, 1880. (_Two o\u2019clock_).--Rumblings of a grave and distant\nthunder. The sky is gray but rainless; the sharp little cries of the\nbirds show agitation and fear; one might imagine it the prelude to a\nsymphony or a catastrophe.\n\n  \u201cQuel \u00e9clair te traverse, \u00f4 mon coeur soucieux?\u201d\n\nStrange--all the business of the immediate neighborhood is going on;\nthere is even more movement than usual; and yet all these noises are,\nas it were, held suspended in the silence--in a soft, positive silence,\nwhich they cannot disguise--silence akin to that which, in every town,\non one day of the week, replaces the vague murmur of the laboring\nhive. Such silence at such an hour is extraordinary. There is something\nexpectant, contemplative, almost anxious in it. Are there days on which\n\u201cthe little breath\u201d of Job produces more effect than tempest? on which a\ndull rumbling on the distant horizon is enough to suspend the concert of\nvoices, like the roaring of a desert lion at the fall of night?\n\nSeptember 9, 1880.--It seems to me that with the decline of my\nactive force I am becoming more purely spirit; everything is growing\ntransparent to me. I see the types, the foundation of beings, the sense\nof things.\n\nAll personal events, all particular experiences, are to me texts for\nmeditation, facts to be generalized into laws, realities to be reduced\nto ideas. Life is only a document to be interpreted, matter to be\nspiritualized. Such is the life of the thinker. Every day he strips\nhimself more and more of personality. If he consents to act and to feel,\nit is that he may the better understand; if he wills, it is that he may\nknow what will is. Although it is sweet to him to be loved, and he knows\nnothing else so sweet, yet there also he seems to himself to be the\noccasion of the phenomenon rather than its end. He contemplates the\nspectacle of love, and love for him remains a spectacle. He does not\neven believe his body his own; he feels the vital whirlwind passing\nthrough him--lent to him, as it were, for a moment, in order that he\nmay perceive the cosmic vibrations. He is a mere thinking subject; he\nretains only the form of things; he attributes to himself the material\npossession of nothing whatsoever; he asks nothing from life but wisdom.\nThis temper of mind makes him incomprehensible to all that loves\nenjoyment, dominion, possession. He is fluid as a phantom that we see\nbut cannot grasp; he resembles a man, as the _manes_ of Achilles or the\nshade of Creusa resembled the living. Without having died, I am a ghost.\nOther men are dreams to me, and I am a dream to them.\n\n_Later_--Consciousness in me takes no account of the category of time,\nand therefore all the partitions which tend to make of life a palace\nwith a thousand rooms, do not exist in my case; I am still in the\nprimitive unicellular state. I possess myself only as Monad and as Ego,\nand I feel my faculties themselves reabsorbed into the substance which\nthey have individualized. All the endowment of animality is, so to\nspeak, repudiated; all the produce of study and of cultivation is in the\nsame way annulled; the whole crystallization is redissolved into fluid;\nthe whole rainbow is withdrawn within the dewdrop; consequences return\nto the principle, effects to the cause, the bird to the egg, the\norganism to its germ.\n\nThis psychological reinvolution is an anticipation of death; it\nrepresents the life beyond the grave, the return to school, the soul\nfading into the world of ghosts, or descending into the region of _Die\nM\u00fctter_; it implies the simplification of the individual who, allowing\nall the accidents of personality to evaporate, exists henceforward\nonly in the indivisible state, the state of point, of potentiality, of\npregnant nothingness. Is not this the true definition of mind? Is not\nmind, dissociated from space and time, just this? Its development,\npast or future, is contained in it just as a curve is contained in its\nalgebraical formula. This nothing is an all. This _punctum_ without\ndimensions is a _punctum saliens_. What is the acorn but the oak which\nhas lost its branches, its leaves, its trunk, and its roots--that is\nto say, all its apparatus, its forms, its particularities--but which is\nstill present in concentration, in essence, in a force which contains\nthe possibility of complete revival?\n\nThis impoverishment, then, is only superficially a loss, a reduction. To\nbe reduced to those elements in one which are eternal, is indeed to die\nbut not to be annihilated: it is simply to become virtual again.\n\nOctober 9, 1880. (_Clarens_).--A walk. Deep feeling and admiration.\nNature was so beautiful, so caressing, so poetical, so maternal. The\nsunlight, the leaves, the sky, the bells, all said to me--\u201cBe of good\nstrength and courage, poor bruised one. This is nature\u2019s kindly season;\nhere is forgetfulness, calm, and rest. Faults and troubles, anxieties\nand regrets, cares and wrongs, are but one and the same burden. We make\nno distinctions; we comfort all sorrows, we bring peace, and with us\nis consolation. Salvation to the weary, salvation to the afflicted,\nsalvation to the sick, to sinners, to all that suffer in heart, in\nconscience, and in body. We are the fountain of blessing; drink and\nlive! God maketh his sun to rise upon the just and upon the unjust.\nThere is nothing grudging in his munificence; he does not weigh his\ngifts like a moneychanger, or number them like a cashier. Come--there is\nenough for all!\u201d\n\nOctober 29, 1880. (_Geneva_).--The ideal which a man professes may\nitself be only a matter of appearance--a device for misleading his\nneighbor, or deluding himself. The individual is always ready to claim\nfor himself the merits of the badge under which he fights; whereas,\ngenerally speaking, it is the contrary which happens. The nobler the\nbadge, the less estimable is the wearer of it. Such at least is the\npresumption. It is extremely dangerous to pride one\u2019s self on any moral\nor religious specialty whatever. Tell me what you pique yourself upon,\nand I will tell you what you are not.\n\nBut how are we to know what an individual is? First of all by his\nacts; but by something else too--something which is only perceived by\nintuition. Soul judges soul by elective affinity, reaching through and\nbeyond both words and silence, looks and actions.\n\nThe criterion is subjective, I allow, and liable to error; but in the\nfirst place there is no safer one, and in the next, the accuracy of the\njudgment is in proportion to the moral culture of the judge. Courage is\nan authority on courage, goodness on goodness, nobleness on nobleness,\nloyalty on uprightness. We only truly know what we have, or what we have\nlost and regret, as, for example, childish innocence, virginal purity,\nor stainless honor. The truest and best judge, then, is Infinite\nGoodness, and next to it, the regenerated sinner or the saint, the man\ntried by experience or the sage. Naturally, the touchstone in us becomes\nfiner and truer the better we are.\n\nNovember 3, 1880.--What impression has the story I have just read\nmade upon me? A mixed one. The imagination gets no pleasure out of it,\nalthough the intellect is amused. Why? Because the author\u2019s mood is one\nof incessant irony and _persiflage_. The Voltairean tradition has been\nhis guide--a great deal of wit and satire, very little feeling, no\nsimplicity. It is a combination of qualities which serves eminently\nwell for satire, for journalism, and for paper warfare of all kinds, but\nwhich is much less suitable to the novel or short story, for cleverness\nis not poetry, and the novel is still within the domain of poetry,\nalthough on the frontier. The vague discomfort aroused in one by these\nepigrammatic productions is due probably to a confusion of kinds.\nAmbiguity of style keeps one in a perpetual state of tension and\nself-defense; we ought not to be left in doubt whether the speaker is\njesting or serious, mocking or tender. Moreover, banter is not humor,\nand never will be. I think, indeed, that the professional wit finds a\ndifficulty in being genuinely comic, for want of depth and disinterested\nfeeling. To laugh at things and people is not really a joy; it is at\nbest but a cold pleasure. Buffoonery is wholesomer, because it is a\nlittle more kindly. The reason why continuous sarcasm repels us is that\nit lacks two things--humanity and seriousness. Sarcasm implies pride,\nsince it means putting one\u2019s self above others--and levity, because\nconscience is allowed no voice in controlling it. In short, we read\nsatirical books, but we only love and cling to the books in which there\nis _heart_.\n\nNovember 22, 1880.--How is ill-nature to be met and overcome? First, by\nhumility: when a man knows his own weaknesses, why should he be angry\nwith others for pointing them out? No doubt it is not very amiable\nof them to do so, but still, truth is on their side. Secondly, by\nreflection: after all we are what we are, and if we have been thinking\ntoo much of ourselves, it is only an opinion to be modified; the\nincivility of our neighbor leaves us what we were before. Above all, by\npardon: there is only one way of not hating those who do us wrong, and\nthat is by doing them good; anger is best conquered by kindness. Such\na victory over feeling may not indeed affect those who have wronged us,\nbut it is a valuable piece of self-discipline. It is vulgar to be\nangry on one\u2019s own account; we ought only to be angry for great causes.\nBesides, the poisoned dart can only be extracted from the wound by the\nbalm of a silent and thoughtful charity. Why do we let human malignity\nembitter us? why should ingratitude, jealousy--perfidy even--enrage\nus? There is no end to recriminations, complaints, or reprisals. The\nsimplest plan is to blot everything out. Anger, rancor, bitterness,\ntrouble the soul. Every man is a dispenser of justice; but there is one\nwrong that he is not bound to punish--that of which he himself is the\nvictim. Such a wrong is to be healed, not avenged. Fire purifies all.\n\n  \u201cMon \u00e2me est comme un feu qui d\u00e9vore et parfume\n  Ce qu\u2019on jette pour le ternir.\u201d\n\nDecember 27, 1880--In an article I have just read, Biedermann\nreproaches Strauss with being too negative, and with having broken with\nChristianity. The object to be pursued, according to him, should be the\nfreeing of religion from the mythological element, and the substitution\nof another point of view for the antiquated dualism of orthodoxy--this\nother point of view to be the victory over the world, produced by the\nsense of divine sonship.\n\nIt is true that another question arises: has not a religion which has\nseparated itself from special miracle, from local interventions of the\nsupernatural, and from mystery, lost its savor and its efficacy? For\nthe sake of satisfying a thinking and instructed public, is it wise to\nsacrifice the influence of religion over the multitude? Answer. A pious\nfiction is still a fiction. Truth has the highest claim. It is for the\nworld to accommodate itself to truth, and not _vice vers\u00e2_. Copernicus\nupset the astronomy of the Middle Ages--so much the worse for it! The\nEternal Gospel revolutionizes modern churches--what matter! When symbols\nbecome transparent, they have no further binding force. We see in them\na poem, an allegory, a metaphor; but we believe in them no longer.\nYes, but still a certain esotericism is inevitable, since critical,\nscientific, and philosophical culture is only attainable by a minority.\nThe new faith must have its symbols too. At present the effect it\nproduces on pious souls is a more or less profane one; it has a\ndisrespectful, incredulous, frivolous look, and it seems to free a man\nfrom traditional dogma at the cost of seriousness of conscience. How are\nsensitiveness of feeling, the sense of sin, the desire for pardon, the\nthirst for holiness, to be preserved among us, when the errors which\nhave served them so long for support and food have been eliminated? Is\nnot illusion indispensable? is it not the divine process of education?\n\nPerhaps the best way is to draw a deep distinction between opinion and\nbelief, and between belief and science. The mind which discerns these\ndifferent degrees may allow itself imagination and faith, and still\nremain within the lines of progress.\n\nDecember 28, 1880.--There are two modes of classing the people we know:\nthe first is utilitarian--it starts from ourselves, divides our friends\nfrom our enemies, and distinguishes those who are antipathetic to us,\nthose who are indifferent, those who can serve or harm us; the second is\ndisinterested--it classes men according to their intrinsic value, their\nown qualities and defects, apart from the feelings which they have for\nus, or we for them.\n\nMy tendency is to the second kind of classification. I appreciate\nmen less by the special affection which they show to me than by their\npersonal excellence, and I cannot confuse gratitude with esteem. It is a\nhappy thing for us when the two feelings can be combined; and nothing is\nmore painful than to owe gratitude where yet we can feel neither respect\nnor confidence.\n\nI am not very willing to believe in the permanence of accidental states.\nThe generosity of a miser, the good nature of an egotist, the gentleness\nof a passionate temperament, the tenderness of a barren nature, the\npiety of a dull heart, the humility of an excitable self-love, interest\nme as phenomena--nay, even touch me if I am the object of them, but they\ninspire me with very little confidence. I foresee the end of them too\nclearly. Every exception tends to disappear and to return to the rule.\nAll privilege is temporary, and besides, I am less flattered than\nanxious when I find myself the object of a privilege.\n\nA man\u2019s primitive character may be covered over by alluvial deposits of\nculture and acquisition--none the less is it sure to come to the surface\nwhen years have worn away all that is accessory and adventitious. I\nadmit indeed the possibility of great moral crises which sometimes\nrevolutionize the soul, but I dare not reckon on them. It is a\npossibility--not a probability. In choosing one\u2019s friends we must\nchoose those whose qualities are inborn, and their virtues virtues of\ntemperament. To lay the foundations of friendship on borrowed or added\nvirtues is to build on an artificial soil; we run too many risks by it.\n\nExceptions are snares, and we ought above all to distrust them when they\ncharm our vanity. To catch and fix a fickle heart is a task which\ntempts all women; and a man finds something intoxicating in the tears of\ntenderness and joy which he alone has had the power to draw from a proud\nwoman. But attractions of this kind are deceptive. Affinity of nature\nfounded on worship of the same ideal, and perfect in proportion to\nperfectness of soul, is the only affinity which is worth anything. True\nlove is that which ennobles the personality, fortifies the heart, and\nsanctifies the existence. And the being we love must not be mysterious\nand sphinx-like, but clear and limpid as a diamond; so that admiration\nand attachment may grow with knowledge.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nJealousy is a terrible thing. It resembles love, only it is precisely\nlove\u2019s contrary. Instead of wishing for the welfare of the object\nloved, it desires the dependence of that object upon itself, and its\nown triumph. Love is the forgetfulness of self; jealousy is the most\npassionate form of egotism, the glorification of a despotic, exacting,\nand vain _ego_, which can neither forget nor subordinate itself. The\ncontrast is perfect.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAusterity in women is sometimes the accompaniment of a rare power of\nloving. And when it is so their attachment is strong as death; their\nfidelity as resisting as the diamond; they are hungry for devotion\nand athirst for sacrifice. Their love is a piety, their tenderness\na religion, and they triple the energy of love by giving to it the\nsanctity of duty.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo the spectator over fifty, the world certainly presents a good deal\nthat is new, but a great deal more which is only the old furbished\nup--mere plagiarism and modification, rather than amelioration. Almost\neverything is a copy of a copy, a reflection of a reflection, and the\nperfect being is as rare now as he ever was. Let us not complain of it;\nit is the reason why the world lasts. Humanity improves but slowly; that\nis why history goes on.\n\nIs not progress the goad of Siva? It excites the torch to burn itself\naway; it hastens the approach of death. Societies which change rapidly\nonly reach their final catastrophe the sooner. Children who are too\nprecocious never reach maturity. Progress should be the aroma of life,\nnot its substance.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMan is a passion which brings a will into play, which works an\nintelligence--and thus the organs which seem to be in the service of\nintelligence, are in reality only the agents of passion. For all the\ncommoner sorts of being, determinism is true: inward liberty exists only\nas an exception and as the result of self-conquest. And even he who has\ntasted liberty is only free intermittently and by moments. True\nliberty, then, is not a continuous state; it is not an indefeasible\nand invariable quality. We are free only so far as we are not dupes of\nourselves, our pretexts, our instincts, our temperament. We are freed by\nenergy and the critical spirit--that is to say, by detachment of soul,\nby self-government. So that we are enslaved, but susceptible of freedom;\nwe are bound, but capable of shaking off our bonds. The soul is caged,\nbut it has power to flutter within its cage.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMaterial results are but the tardy sign of invisible activities. The\nbullet has started long before the noise of the report has reached us.\nThe decisive events of the world take place in the intellect.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSorrow is the most tremendous of all realities in the sensible world,\nbut the transfiguration of sorrow after the manner of Christ is a more\nbeautiful solution of the problem than the extirpation of sorrow, after\nthe method of \u00c7akyamouni.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLife should be a giving birth to the soul, the development of a higher\nmode of reality. The animal must be humanized; flesh must be made\nspirit; physiological activity must be transmuted into intellect and\nconscience, into reason, justice, and generosity, as the torch is\ntransmuted into life and warmth. The blind, greedy, selfish nature of\nman must put on beauty and nobleness. This heavenly alchemy is what\njustifies our presence on the earth: it is our mission and our glory.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo renounce happiness and think only of duty, to put conscience in the\nplace of feeling--this voluntary martyrdom has its nobility. The natural\nman in us flinches, but the better self submits. To hope for justice in\nthe world is a sign of sickly sensibility; we must be able to do without\nit. True manliness consists in such independence. Let the world think\nwhat it will of us, it is its own affair. If it will not give us the\nplace which is lawfully ours until after our death, or perhaps not at\nall, it is but acting within its right. It is our business to behave as\nthough our country were grateful, as though the world were equitable, as\nthough opinion were clear-sighted, as though life were just, as though\nmen were good.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDeath itself may become matter of consent, and therefore a moral act.\nThe animal expires; man surrenders his soul to the author of the soul.\n\n[With the year 1881, beginning with the month of January, we enter upon\nthe last period of Amiel\u2019s illness. Although he continued to attend to\nhis professional duties, and never spoke of his forebodings, he felt\nhimself mortally ill, as we shall see by the following extracts from the\nJournal. Amiel wrote up to the end, doing little else, however, toward\nthe last than record the progress of his disease, and the proofs of\ninterest and kindliness which he received. After weeks of suffering and\npain a state of extreme weakness gradually gained upon him. His last\nlines are dated the 29th of April; it was on the 11th of May that he\nsuccumbed, without a struggle, to the complicated disease from which he\nsuffered.--S.]\n\nJanuary 5, 1881.--I think I fear shame more than death. Tacitus said:\n_Omnia serviliter pro dominatione_. My tendency is just the contrary.\nEven when it is voluntary, dependence is a burden to me. I should blush\nto find myself determined by interest, submitting to constraint, or\nbecoming the slave of any will whatever. To me vanity is slavery,\nself-love degrading, and utilitarianism meanness. I detest the ambition\nwhich makes you the liege man of something or some-one--I desire to be\nsimply my own master.\n\nIf I had health I should be the freest man I know. Although perhaps\na little hardness of heart would be desirable to make me still more\nindependent.\n\nLet me exaggerate nothing. My liberty is only negative. Nobody has any\nhold over me, but many things have become impossible to me, and if I\nwere so foolish as to wish for them, the limits of my liberty would soon\nbecome apparent. Therefore I take care not to wish for them, and not to\nlet my thoughts dwell on them. I only desire what I am able for, and in\nthis way I run my head against no wall, I cease even to be conscious\nof the boundaries which enclose me. I take care to wish for rather less\nthan is in my power, that I may not even be reminded of the obstacles in\nmy way. Renunciation is the safeguard of dignity. Let us strip ourselves\nif we would not be stripped. He who has freely given up his life may\nlook death in the face: what more can it take away from him? Do away\nwith desire and practice charity--there you have the whole method of\nBuddha, the whole secret of the great Deliverance....\n\nIt is snowing, and my chest is troublesome. So that I depend on nature\nand on God. But I do not depend on human caprice; this is the point to\nbe insisted on. It is true that my chemist may make a blunder and poison\nme, my banker may reduce me to pauperism, just as an earthquake may\ndestroy my house without hope of redress. Absolute independence,\ntherefore, is a pure chimera. But I do possess relative\nindependence--that of the stoic who withdraws into the fortress of his\nwill, and shuts the gates behind him.\n\n  \u201cJurons, except\u00e9 Dieu, de n\u2019avoir point de ma\u00eetre.\u201d\n\nThis oath of old Geneva remains my motto still.\n\nJanuary 10, 1881.--To let one\u2019s self be troubled by the ill-will, the\ningratitude, the indifference, of others, is a weakness to which I am\nvery much inclined. It is painful to me to be misunderstood, ill-judged.\nI am wanting in manly hardihood, and the heart in me is more vulnerable\nthan it ought to be. It seems to me, however, that I have grown tougher\nin this respect than I used to be. The malignity of the world troubles\nme less than it did. Is it the result of philosophy, or an effect of\nage, or simply caused by the many proofs of respect and attachment that\nI have received? These proofs were just what were wanting to inspire me\nwith some self-respect. Otherwise I should have so easily believed in\nmy own nullity and in the insignificance of all my efforts. Success is\nnecessary for the timid, praise is a moral stimulus, and admiration a\nstrengthening elixir. We think we know ourselves, but as long as we are\nignorant of our comparative value, our place in the social assessment,\nwe do not know ourselves well enough. If we are to act with effect, we\nmust count for something with our fellow-men; we must feel ourselves\npossessed of some weight and credit with them, so that our effort may be\nrightly proportioned to the resistance which has to be overcome. As\nlong as we despise opinion we are without a standard by which to measure\nourselves; we do not know our relative power. I have despised opinion\ntoo much, while yet I have been too sensitive to injustice. These two\nfaults have cost me dear. I longed for kindness, sympathy, and equity,\nbut my pride forbade me to ask for them, or to employ any address\nor calculation to obtain them.... I do not think I have been wrong\naltogether, for all through I have been in harmony with my best self,\nbut my want of adaptability has worn me out, to no purpose. Now, indeed,\nI am at peace within, but my career is over, my strength is running out,\nand my life is near its end.\n\n  \u201cIl n\u2019est plus temps pour rien except\u00e9 pour mourir.\u201d\n\nThis is why I can look at it all historically.\n\nJanuary 23, 1881.--A tolerable night, but this morning the cough has\nbeen frightful. Beautiful weather, the windows ablaze with sunshine.\nWith my feet on the fender I have just finished the newspaper.\n\nAt this moment I feel well, and it seems strange to me that my doom\nshould be so near. Life has no sense of kinship with death. This is why,\nno doubt, a sort of mechanical instinctive hope is forever springing up\nafresh in us, troubling our reason, and casting doubt on the verdict of\nscience. All life is tenacious and persistent. It is like the parrot in\nthe fable, who, at the very moment when its neck is being wrung, still\nrepeats with its last breath:\n\n  \u201cCela, cela, ne sera rien.\u201d\n\nThe intellect puts the matter at its worst, but the animal protests.\nIt will not believe in the evil till it comes. Ought one to regret it?\nProbably not. It is nature\u2019s will that life should defend itself against\ndeath; hope is only the love of life; it is an organic impulse which\nreligion has taken under its protection. Who knows? God may save us,\nmay work a miracle. Besides, are we ever sure that there is no remedy?\nUncertainty is the refuge of hope. We reckon the doubtful among the\nchances in our favor. Mortal frailty clings to every support. How be\nangry with it for so doing? Even with all possible aids it hardly ever\nescapes desolation and distress. The supreme solution is, and always\nwill be, to see in necessity the fatherly will of God, and so to submit\nourselves and bear our cross bravely, as an offering to the Arbiter\nof human destiny. The soldier does not dispute the order given him: he\nobeys and dies without murmuring. If he waited to understand the use of\nhis sacrifice, where would his submission be?\n\nIt occurred to me this morning how little we know of each other\u2019s\nphysical troubles; even those nearest and dearest to us know nothing\nof our conversations with the King of Terrors. There are thoughts\nwhich brook no confidant: there are griefs which cannot be shared.\nConsideration for others even bids us conceal them. We dream alone, we\nsuffer alone, we die alone, we inhabit the last resting-place alone. But\nthere is nothing to prevent us from opening our solitude to God. And\nso what was an austere monologue becomes dialogue, reluctance becomes\ndocility, renunciation passes into peace, and the sense of painful\ndefeat is lost in the sense of recovered liberty.\n\n  \u201cVouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science\n  Qui nous met en repos.\u201d\n\nNone of us can escape the play of contrary impulse; but as soon as\nthe soul has once recognized the order of things and submitted itself\nthereto, then all is well.\n\n  \u201cComme un sage mourant puissions nous dire en paix:\n  J\u2019ai trop longtemps err\u00e9, cherch\u00e9; je me trompais:\n  Tout est bien, mon Dieu m\u2019enveloppe.\u201d\n\nJanuary 28, 1881.--A terrible night. For three or four hours I struggled\nagainst suffocation and looked death in the face.... It is clear that\nwhat awaits me is suffocation--asphyxia. I shall die by choking.\n\nI should not have chosen such a death; but when there is no option, one\nmust simply resign one\u2019s self, and at once.... Spinoza expired in the\npresence of the doctor whom he had sent for. I must familiarize myself\nwith the idea of dying unexpectedly, some fine night, strangled by\nlaryngitis. The last sigh of a patriarch surrounded by his kneeling\nfamily is more beautiful: my fate indeed lacks beauty, grandeur, poetry;\nbut stoicism consists in renunciation. _Abstine et sustine_.\n\nI must remember besides that I have faithful friends; it is better not\nto torment them. The last journey is only made more painful by scenes\nand lamentations: one word is worth all others--\u201cThy will, not mine, be\ndone!\u201d Leibnitz was accompanied to the grave by his servant only.\nThe loneliness of the deathbed and the tomb is not an evil. The great\nmystery cannot be shared. The dialogue between the soul and the King of\nTerrors needs no witnesses. It is the living who cling to the thought\nof last greetings. And, after all, no one knows exactly what is reserved\nfor him. What will be will be. We have but to say, \u201cAmen.\u201d\n\nFebruary 4, 1881.--It is a strange sensation that of laying one\u2019s\nself down to rest with the thought that perhaps one will never see the\nmorrow. Yesterday I felt it strongly, and yet here I am. Humility\nis made easy by the sense of excessive frailty, but it cuts away all\nambition.\n\n  \u201cQuittez le long espoir et les vastes pens\u00e9es.\u201d\n\nA long piece of work seems absurd--one lives but from day to day.\n\nWhen a man can no longer look forward in imagination to five years,\na year, a month, of free activity--when he is reduced to counting\nthe hours, and to seeing in the coming night the threat of an unknown\nfate--it is plain that he must give up art, science, and politics,\nand that he must be content to hold converse with himself, the one\npossibility which is his till the end. Inward soliloquy is the only\nresource of the condemned man whose execution is delayed. He withdraws\nupon the fastnesses of conscience. His spiritual force no longer\nradiates outwardly; it is consumed in self-study. Action is cut\noff--only contemplation remains. He still writes to those who have\nclaims upon him, but he bids farewell to the public, and retreats into\nhimself. Like the hare, he comes back to die in his form, and this form\nis his consciousness, his intellect--the journal, too, which has been\nthe companion of his inner life. As long as he can hold a pen, as long\nas he has a moment of solitude, this echo of himself still claims his\nmeditation, still represents to him his converse with his God.\n\nIn all this, however, there is nothing akin to self-examination: it is\nnot an act of contrition, or a cry for help. It is simply an Amen of\nsubmission--\u201cMy child, give me thy heart!\u201d\n\nRenunciation and acquiescence are less difficult to me than to others,\nfor I desire nothing. I could only wish not to suffer, but Jesus on\nGethesemane allowed himself to make the same prayer; let us add to\nit the words that he did: \u201cNevertheless, not my will, but thine, be\ndone,\u201d--and wait.\n\n... For many years past the immanent God has been more real to me than\nthe transcendent God, and the religion of Jacob has been more alien to\nme than that of Kant, or even Spinoza. The whole Semitic dramaturgy has\ncome to seem to me a work of the imagination. The apostolic documents\nhave changed in value and meaning to my eyes. Belief and truth have\nbecome distinct to me with a growing distinctness. Religious psychology\nhas become a simple phenomenon, and has lost its fixed and absolute\nvalue. The apologetics of Pascal, of Leibnitz, of Secr\u00e9tan, are to me no\nmore convincing than those of the Middle Ages, for they presuppose what\nis really in question--a revealed doctrine, a definite and unchangeable\nChristianity. It seems to me that what remains to me from all my studies\nis a new phenomenology of mind, an intuition of universal metamorphosis.\nAll particular convictions, all definite principles, all clear-cut\nformulas and fixed ideas, are but prejudices, useful in practice, but\nstill narrownesses of the mind. The absolute in detail is absurd and\ncontradictory. All political, religious, aesthetic, or literary\nparties are protuberances, misgrowths of thought. Every special belief\nrepresents a stiffening and thickening of thought; a stiffening,\nhowever, which is necessary in its time and place. Our monad, in its\nthinking capacity, overleaps the boundaries of time and space and of\nits own historical surroundings; but in its individual capacity, and\nfor purposes of action, it adapts itself to current illusions, and\nputs before itself a definite end. It is lawful to be _man_, but it\nis needful also to be _a_ man, to be an individual. Our r\u00f4le is thus a\ndouble one. Only, the philosopher is specially authorized to develop the\nfirst r\u00f4le, which the vast majority of humankind neglects.\n\nFebruary 7, 1881.--Beautiful sunshine to-day. But I have scarcely spring\nenough left in me to notice it. Admiration, joy, presuppose a little\nrelief from pain. Whereas my neck is tired with the weight of my\nhead, and my heart is wearied with the weight of life; this is not the\naesthetic state.\n\nI have been thinking over different things which I might have written.\nBut generally speaking we let what is most original and best in us be\nwasted. We reserve ourselves for a future which never comes. _Omnis\nmortar_.\n\nFebruary 14, 1881.--Supposing that my weeks are numbered, what duties\nstill remain to me to fulfill, that I may leave all in order? I must\ngive every one his due; justice, prudence, kindness must be satisfied;\nthe last memories must be sweet ones. Try to forget nothing useful,\nnor anybody who has a claim upon thee! February 15, 1881.--I have, very\nreluctantly, given up my lecture at the university, and sent for my\ndoctor. On my chimney-piece are the flowers which ---- has sent me.\nLetters from London, Paris, Lausanne, Neuchatel ... They seem to me like\nwreaths thrown into a grave.\n\nMentally I say farewell to all the distant friends whom I shall never\nsee again.\n\nFebruary 18, 1881.--Misty weather. A fairly good night. Still, the\nemaciation goes on. That is to say, the vulture allows me some respite,\nbut he still hovers over his prey. The possibility of resuming my\nofficial work seems like a dream to me.\n\nAlthough just now the sense of ghostly remoteness from life which I\nso often have is absent, I feel myself a prisoner for good, a hopeless\ninvalid. This vague intermediate state, which is neither death nor life,\nhas its sweetness, because if it implies renunciation, still it allows\nof thought. It is a reverie without pain, peaceful and meditative.\nSurrounded with affection and with books, I float down the stream of\ntime, as once I glided over the Dutch canals, smoothly and noiselessly.\nIt is as though I were once more on board the _Treckschute_. Scarcely\ncan one hear even the soft ripple of the water furrowed by the barge,\nor the hoof of the towing horse trotting along the sandy path. A journey\nunder these conditions has something fantastic in it. One is not\nsure whether one still exists, still belongs to earth. It is like the\n_manes_, the shadows, flitting through the twilight of the _inania\nregna_. Existence has become fluid. From the standpoint of complete\npersonal renunciation I watch the passage of my impressions, my dreams,\nthoughts, and memories.... It is a mood of fixed contemplation akin to\nthat which we attribute to the seraphim. It takes no interest in the\nindividual self, but only in the specimen monad, the sample of\nthe general history of mind. Everything is in everything, and the\nconsciousness examines what it has before it. Nothing is either great or\nsmall. The mind adopts all modes, and everything is acceptable to it. In\nthis state its relations with the body, with the outer world, and with\nother individuals, fade out of sight. _Selbst-bewusstsein_ becomes once\nmore impersonal _Bewusstsein_, and before personality can be reacquired,\npain, duty, and will must be brought into action.\n\nAre these oscillations between the personal and the impersonal, between\npantheism and theism, between Spinoza and Leibnitz, to be regretted? No,\nfor it is the one state which makes us conscious of the other. And\nas man is capable of ranging the two domains, why should he mutilate\nhimself?\n\nFebruary 22, 1881.--The march of mind finds its typical expression in\nastronomy--no pause, but no hurry; orbits, cycles, energy, but at the\nsame time harmony; movement and yet order; everything has its own weight\nand its relative weight, receives and gives forth light. Cannot this\ncosmic and divine become oars? Is the war of all against all, the\npreying of man upon man, a higher type of balanced action? I shrink form\nbelieving it. Some theorists imagine that the phase of selfish brutality\nis the last phase of all. They must be wrong. Justice will prevail, and\njustice is not selfishness. Independence of intellect, combined with\ngoodness of heart, will be the agents of a result, which will be the\ncompromise required.\n\nMarch 1, 1881.--I have just been glancing over the affairs of the world\nin the newspaper. What a Babel it is! But it is very pleasant to be able\nto make the tour of the planet and review the human race in an hour. It\ngives one a sense of ubiquity. A newspaper in the twentieth century\nwill be composed of eight or ten daily bulletins--political, religious,\nscientific, literary, artistic, commercial, meteorological, military,\neconomical, social, legal, and financial; and will be divided into two\nparts only--_Urbs_ and _Orbis_. The need of totalizing, of simplifying,\nwill bring about the general use of such graphic methods as permit of\nseries and comparisons. We shall end by feeling the pulse of the race\nand the globe as easily as that of a sick man, and we shall count the\npalpitations of the universal life, just as we shall hear the grass\ngrowing, or the sunspots clashing, and catch the first stirrings of\nvolcanic disturbances. Activity will become consciousness; the earth\nwill see herself. Then will be the time for her to blush for her\ndisorders, her hideousness, her misery, her crime and to throw herself\nat last with energy and perseverance into the pursuit of justice. When\nhumanity has cut its wisdom-teeth, then perhaps it will have the grace\nto reform itself, and the will to attempt a systematic reduction of the\nshare of the evil in the world. The _Weltgeist_ will pass from the state\nof instinct to the moral state. War, hatred, selfishness, fraud, the\nright of the stronger, will be held to be old-world barbarisms, mere\ndiseases of growth. The pretenses of modern civilization will be\nreplaced by real virtues. Men will be brothers, peoples will be friends,\nraces will sympathize one with another, and mankind will draw from love\na principle of emulation, of invention, and of zeal, as powerful as any\nfurnished by the vulgar stimulant of interest. This millennium--will it\never be? It is at least an act of piety to believe in it.\n\nMarch 14, 1881.--I have finished M\u00e9rim\u00e9e\u2019s letters to Panizzi. M\u00e9rim\u00e9e\ndied of the disease which torments me--\u201c_Je tousse, et j\u2019\u00e9touffe_.\u201d\n Bronchitis and asthma, whence defective assimilation, and finally\nexhaustion. He, too, tried arsenic, wintering at Cannes, compressed air.\nAll was useless. Suffocation and inanition carried off the author of\n\u201cColomba.\u201d _Hic tua res agitur_. The gray, heavy sky is of the same\ncolor as my thoughts. And yet the irrevocable has its own sweetness and\nserenity. The fluctuations of illusion, the uncertainties of desire, the\nleaps and bounds of hope, give place to tranquil resignation. One feels\nas though one were already beyond the grave. It is this very week,\ntoo, I remember, that my corner of ground in the Oasis is to be bought.\nEverything draws toward the end. _Festinat ad eventum_.\n\nMarch 15, 1881.--The \u201cJournal\u201d is full of details of the horrible affair\nat Petersburg. How clear it is that such catastrophes as this, in\nwhich the innocent suffer, are the product of a long accumulation of\niniquities. Historical justice is, generally speaking, tardy--so tardy\nthat it becomes unjust. The Providential theory is really based on human\nsolidarity. Louis XVI. pays for Louis XV., Alexander II. for Nicholas.\nWe expiate the sins of our fathers, and our grandchildren will be\npunished for ours. A double injustice! cries the individual. And he is\nright if the individualist principle is true. But is it true? That is\nthe point. It seems as though the individual part of each man\u2019s destiny\nwere but one section of that destiny. Morally we are responsible\nfor what we ourselves have willed, but socially, our happiness\nand unhappiness depend on causes outside our will. Religion\nanswers--\u201cMystery, obscurity, submission, faith. Do your duty; leave the\nrest to God.\u201d\n\nMarch 16, 1881.--A wretched night. A melancholy morning.... The two\nstand-bys of the doctor, digitalis and bromide, seem to have lost their\npower over me. Wearily and painfully I watch the tedious progress of\nmy own decay. What efforts to keep one\u2019s self from dying! I am worn out\nwith the struggle.\n\nUseless and incessant struggle is a humiliation to one\u2019s manhood. The\nlion finds the gnat the most intolerable of his foes. The natural\nman feels the same. But the spiritual man must learn the lesson of\ngentleness and long-suffering. The inevitable is the will of God. We\nmight have preferred something else, but it is our business to accept\nthe lot assigned us.... One thing only is necessary--\n\n  \u201cGarde en mon coeur la foi dans ta volont\u00e9 sainte,\n  Et de moi fais, \u00f4 Dieu, tout ce que tu voudras.\u201d\n\n_Later_.--One of my students has just brought me a sympathetic message\nfrom my class. My sister sends me a pot of azaleas, rich in flowers and\nbuds;----sends roses and violets: every one spoils me, which proves that\nI am ill.\n\nMarch 19, 1881.--Distaste--discouragement. My heart is growing cold.\nAnd yet what affectionate care, what tenderness, surrounds me!... But\nwithout health, what can one do with all the rest? What is the good\nof it all to me? What was the good of Job\u2019s trials? They ripened his\npatience; they exercised his submission.\n\nCome, let me forget myself, let me shake off this melancholy, this\nweariness. Let me think, not of all that is lost, but of all that I\nmight still lose. I will reckon up my privileges; I will try to be\nworthy of my blessings.\n\nMarch 21, 1881.--This invalid life is too Epicurean. For five or six\nweeks now I have done nothing else but wait, nurse myself, and amuse\nmyself, and how weary one gets of it! What I want is work. It is work\nwhich gives flavor to life. Mere existence without object and without\neffort is a poor thing. Idleness leads to languor, and languor to\ndisgust. Besides, here is the spring again, the season of vague desires,\nof dull discomforts, of dim aspirations, of sighs without a cause. We\ndream wide-awake. We search darkly for we know not what; invoking the\nwhile something which has no name, unless it be happiness or death.\n\nMarch 28, 1881.--I cannot work; I find it difficult to exist. One may\nbe glad to let one\u2019s friends spoil one for a few months; it is an\nexperience which is good for us all; but afterward? How much better to\nmake room for the living, the active, the productive.\n\n  \u201cTircis, voici le temps de prendre sa retraite.\u201d\n\nIs it that I care so much to go on living? I think not. It is health\nthat I long for--freedom from suffering.\n\nAnd this desire being vain, I can find no savor in anything else.\nSatiety. Lassitude. Renunciation. Abdication. \u201cIn your patience possess\nye your souls.\u201d\n\nApril 10, 1881. (_Sunday_).--Visit to ----. She read over to me letters\nof 1844 to 1845--letters of mine. So much promise to end in so meager\na result! What creatures we are! I shall end like the Rhine, lost among\nthe sands, and the hour is close by when my thread of water will have\ndisappeared.\n\nAfterward I had a little walk in the sunset. There was an effect of\nscattered rays and stormy clouds; a green haze envelops all the trees--\n\n  \u201cEt tout rena\u00eet, et d\u00e9j\u00e0 l\u2019aub\u00e9pine\n  A vu l\u2019abeille accourir \u00e0 ses fleurs,\u201d\n --but to me it all seems strange already.\n\n_Later_.--What dupes we are of our own desires!... Destiny has two ways\nof crushing us--by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them. But he\nwho only wills what God wills escapes both catastrophes. \u201cAll things\nwork together for his good.\u201d\n\nApril 14, 1881.--Frightful night; the fourteenth running, in which I\nhave been consumed by sleeplessness....\n\nApril 15, 1881.--To-morrow is Good Friday, the festival of pain. I know\nwhat it is to spend days of anguish and nights of agony. Let me bear my\ncross humbly.... I have no more future. My duty is to satisfy the claims\nof the present, and to leave everything in order. Let me try to end\nwell, seeing that to undertake and even to continue, are closed to me.\n\nApril 19, 1881.--A terrible sense of oppression. My flesh and my heart\nfail me.\n\n  \u201cQue vivre est difficile, \u00f4 mon coeur fatigu\u00e9!\u201d","title":"Amiel's Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Amiel","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":153280}