Henri Frédéric Amiel’s diary, 1876

After dinner I went two steps off, to Marc Monnier’s, to hear the “Luthier de Crémone,” a one-act comedy in verse, read by the author, François Coppée. It was a…

This evening we talked of the infinitely great and the infinitely small. The great things of the universe are for——so much easier to understand than the small,…

This morning I corrected the proofs of the “Etrangères.” Here at least is one thing off my hands. The piece of prose theorizing which ends the volume pleased and…

Trouble on trouble. My cough has been worse than ever. I cannot see that the fine weather or the holidays have made any change for the better in my state of health.…

A private journal is a friend to idleness. It frees us from the necessity of looking all round a subject, it puts up with every kind of repetition, it accompanies…

What is your own particular absurdity? Why, simply that you exhaust yourself in trying to understand wisdom without practicing it, that you are always making…

My reading to-day has been Doudan’s “Lettres et Mélanges.” A fascinating book! Wit, grace, subtlety, imagination, thought—these letters possess them all. How much I…

To be witty is to satisfy another’s wits by the bestowal on him of two pleasures, that of understanding one thing and that of guessing another, and so achieving a…

I have been reading “L’Avenir Religieux des Peuples Civilisés,” by Emile de Laveleye. The theory of this writer is that the gospel, in its pure form, is capable of…

I have just finished a novel of Cherbuliez, “Le fiancé de Mademoiselle de St. Maur.” It is a jeweled mosaic of precious stones, sparkling with a thousand lights.…

I have been thinking a great deal of Victor Cherbuliez. Perhaps his novels make up the most disputable part of his work—they are so much wanting in simplicity,…