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July […]ᵉʳ.
Of the veil of appreciation. If the eye has not had all its tunics.
An indefinable something eternally adolescent.
Monday, July 5.
“There is (says Mme de Staël) a law of progression.” But there is also a law of retrogression, through which the human mind is forced at certain times to go backward in order to reenter the beautiful and the good.
“The natural gait of the human mind is (she says) to go forward.” No, but to turn in a circle, fortunate if it does not leave the circle!
The anecdote told by Mme de Vintimille. The bishop of Rennes, the parish priest, the farmer. “But, my lord, why do you thank me? I have taken nothing from what I need.”
July 9.
Between purely natural qualities and those that are both natural and considered, there is the difference that exists between speech and writing. Now writing has something more fixed, more solid, and more irrevocable than speech.
July 10.
Rousseau observes very well, concerning Mr. de Luxembourg, that wishing to conceal the infirmities of age from oneself is “an act of pusillanimity.”
July 14.
Yesterday: Choice of pleasing and noble words, makes the sustained elegance of style; created words give it its strength.
Same day, 13: Wool is the silk of our fields.
F[aith]. Is far more than a light, it is a virtue, having respect for parents as its cause, so that piety toward the gods comes from piety toward fathers.
To err through another’s error is better than to err through one’s own. Now in such matters error, or at least a mistake, is inevitable.
To imagine is good, provided one does not believe one actually sees what one merely imagines.
July 15.
—and whether it is not one of philosophy’s most important functions to recommend to humankind the doctrines that are good for it?
Without the ideas of debts and duties, there can be no morality. Importance of these great words.