August 6.

Illusion being the only point of contact through which matter could touch the soul, God created it. First, to bring it about, he made an extremely subtle matter, imperceptible to all the senses and yet penetrating them.

We have no invincible disposition to believe the truths the senses can teach us. It was not for them that inner sense was given to us.

July …0.

Music, perspective, architecture, etc. They embroider time, embroider space.

From July 23 to 24.

...Perhaps indeed it amounts to the faculty of representing to ourselves another life, another world, an eternity of existences, punishments and rewards of which heaven gives us an idea in order to distract us through this illusion from real ills. But even in this case, not to believe is to resist nature, disobey its eternal decrees, deprive oneself of the relief he wished to be ours.

August 1.

God. Some desire his presence because of their love, and others aspire to know him and contemplate his wisdom because of their curiosity, which is a gift he has placed within them.

Modest clothes make those who wear them modest.

August 2.

Idea and thought. The one is clarity, the other solidity. Through thought one arranges; through the idea one conceives, one creates. The one is a combination of parts already known; the other is a glimpse, a discovery, and a bringing to light of natures or qualities that were not manifest. The fruit of thought is a production; that of the idea is a creation.

As long as the sun shines, it must light work. Workers who go home at six in summer. Loss of morals, loss of time, loss of work, — scandal.

August 4.

That one is fitted to reproduce the illusions one receives; the persuaded persuade, the indulgent disarm.

August 6.

To make an exact and detailed plan in advance is to deprive one’s mind of all the pleasures of encounter and novelty in carrying out the work. It is to make that execution insipid to oneself, and consequently impossible in works that depend on enthusiasm and imagination. Such a plan is itself half a work. One must leave it imperfect if one wishes to take pleasure. One must tell oneself that it ought not to be finished. Indeed, it ought not to be, for a very good reason: that is impossible. One can nevertheless make such plans for works whose execution and completion are a mechanical thing depending chiefly on the hand. This suits painters and sculptors, and is even very useful to them. Their senses, at each stroke of brush or chisel they make, will find that novelty which would not exist for the mind. Forms and colors, which the imagination cannot represent to us as perfectly as the eye, will offer the artist a host of those encounters that genius needs in order to take pleasure in working. But the orator, the poet, and the philosopher will not find the same encouragement in writing what they have already thought. Everything is one for them. Because the words they use have beauty only for the mind, and, having said in their heads what they will say on paper, the mind has nothing left to learn in what one wishes to make manifest. Yet a plan is needed, but a plan glimpsed and not fixed. Above all, one must glimpse in advance the beginning, the end, and the middle of one’s work. That is, choose its pitch, its rest or pause, and its goal. The first word must give the color, the exordium set the tone; the middle governs the measure, the time, the space, the proportions.

August 10 (Near the star).

Berquin and Florian. Berquin for children, Florian for the young.

It is important to temper and rightly direct in the latter the great power of loving that overflows their being. Their hearts must be diverted and amused by being occupied, etc. Keep their souls in the country. Make friendships of their loves. Preserve them in innocence with all their passions, and even amid their waywardness, and you will then have done everything for all the happiness of their lives.

Let us use pastorals for this purpose.

August …5.

...This spark that fell unexpectedly upon my childhood burned up all my youth.