AMIEL'S JOURNAL THE JOURNAL INTIME OF HENRI-FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD London MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1887 PREFACE. THIS translation of Amiel's Journal Intime is primarily addressed to those whose knowledge of French, while it may be sufficient to carry them with more or less complete understanding through a novel or a newspaper, is yet not enough to allow them to understand and appreciate a book containing subtle and complicated forms of expression. I believe there are many such to be found among the reading public, and among those who would naturally take a strong interest in such a life and mind as Amiel's, were it not for the barrier of language. It is, at any rate, in the hope that a certain number of additional readers may be thereby attracted to the Journal Intime that this translation of it has been undertaken. The difficulties of the translation have been sometimes considerable, owing, first of all, to those elliptical modes of speech which a man naturally |