April 20.

Of taste. That the soul does not always possess her own. Illnesses take it from her. Often she also has appetites that disturb it. All those who thirst or hunger excessively have little taste.

In everything, what is best, and that alone. That is what art must confine itself to. Nature acts otherwise. She needs everything, and excess, for existence. But art has no need of them for spectacle.

April 21.

In this first edition by A. Auger there is a joy and a freedom of mind that has disappeared in the second, where everything is withered and saddened by constraint. His unfortunate corrections seem to have been written with a chained pen. Someone was plainly holding his hand when he retranslated Demosthenes.

There are writings and kinds of style in which the words are placed to be counted. There are others in which words must be taken only by the heap, by weight, and, so to speak, in sacks. Such is A. Auger’s excellent translation (I speak of the first).

April 22.

... will have lit the candles. Indeed, each person carries within himself (like so many torches) ideas that light his way. A flame sought from another. Others often light these candles — sometimes they light themselves. What is certain is that we receive no light except from them alone; when they are lacking, striking fire steels is in vain.

Each person (then) can see only by his own lamp; but he can walk or act by another’s light.

April 23.

Romans. Their attention was ceaselessly struck, and their memory was filled with words and oratorical turns. The Greeks aspired to grace, the Romans to eloquence.

Justus Lipsius called Petronius’s book “purity of impurity.” In Parni’s there is a mannered impiety, filth with a fine varnish, slightly polished blasphemies, masked impurities.

April 25.

One who in all things always called a cat “a cat” would be a frank man and might be an honorable man, but not a good writer. For to write well, the apt and sufficient word does not suffice. It is not enough to be clear and understood: one must please, one must enchant, one must seduce and put illusions into all eyes. I mean illusions that illuminate, not illusions that deceive by distorting objects.

People of wit often handle affairs as the ignorant handle books: they understand nothing of them.

Parny. Honeyed blasphemies and varnished filth (—or, — blasphemy flows sweetly from his pen, like poisoned honey). He has put the sacred vessels in the latrines and perfumed the filth of brothels with incense. Finally, he has defiled heaven, soiled the temples, and put porcelain and musk on the altars. His heart and soul are eunuchs. He appears insinuating only because he is enervated. His impotence has some grace. Finally, Justus Lipsius’s purity of impurity is made for him. A true eunuch.

— nourished by these grave maxims, their moral sense was formed earlier.

Their literary judgment, to be sure, was more timid and more tardy. They admired everything that made them at once both happier and more modest. They could not judge an air, a building, or a painting well; but they knew what one must do. Today one speaks of the arts; then one spoke of mores.

April 26.

Strength is natural; but there is habit in grace. This charming quality needs to be practiced, in a way, to become continual.