0 THE JOURNAL INTIME OF HENRI-FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD WITH A PORTRAIT VOL. II. NEW YORK MACMILLAN AND COMPANY AND LONDON 1893 All rights reserved MARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY MRS. CATHARINE ADAMS ELKIN COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY MACMILLAN AND CO. First Edition (2 Vols. Globe 8vo) 1885 AMIEL'S JOURNAL. VOL. II. [Where no other name is mentioned, Geneva is to be understood as the author's place of residence.] I think of stayThe sounds of the my open window, 11th April 1868 (Mornex sur Salève).I left town in a great storm of wind, which was raising clouds of dust along the suburban roads, and two hours later I found myself safely installed among the mountains, just like last year. ing a week here. . . . village are wafted to barkings of distant dogs, voices of women at the fountain, the songs of birds in the lower orchards. The green carpet of the plain is dappled by passing shadows thrown upon it by the clouds; the landscape has the charm of delicate tint and a sort of languid grace. Already I am full of a sense of wellbeing, I am tasting the joys of that contemplative state in which the soul, issuing from itself, becomes as it were the I soul of a country or a landscape, and feels living within it a multitude of lives. Here is no more resistance, negation, blame; everything is affirmative; I feel myself in harmony with nature and with surroundings, of which I seem to myself the expression. The heart opens to the immensity of things. This is what I love! Nam mihi res, non me rebus submittere conor. 12th April 1868 (Easter Day), Mornex, Eight A.M. - The day has opened solemnly and religiously. There is a tinkling of bells from the valley: even the fields seem to be breathing forth a canticle of praise. Humanity must have a worship, and, all things considered, is not the Christian worship the best amongst those which have existed on a large scale ? The religion of sin, of repentance, and reconciliation-the religion of the new birth and of eternal life is not a religion to be ashamed of. In spite of all the aberrations of fanaticism, all the superstitions of formalism, all the ugly superstructures of hypocrisy, all the fantastic puerilities of theology, the Gospel has modified the world and consoled mankind. Christian humanity is not much better than Pagan humanity, but it would 'be much worse without a religion, and without this religion. Every religion proposes an ideal and a model; the Christian ideal is sublime, and its model of a divine beauty. We may hold aloof from the churches, and yet bow ourselves before Jesus. We may be suspicious of the clergy, and refuse to have anything to do with catechisms, and yet love the Holy and the Just, who came to save and not to curse. Jesus will always supply us with the best criticism of Christianity, and when Christianity has passed away the religion of Jesus will in all probability survive. After Jesus as God we shall come back to faith in the God of Jesus. Five o'clock P.M.-I have been for a long walk through Cézargues, Eseri, and the Yves woods, returning by the Pont du Loup. The weather was cold and gray. A great popular merrymaking of some sort, with its multitude of blouses, and its drums and fifes, has been going on riotously for an hour under my window. The crowd has sung a number of songs, drinking songs, ballads, romances, but all more or less heavy and ugly. The muse has never touched our country people, and the Swiss |