August 1.

These men of letters who, not content to be approved and applauded, want us to harness ourselves to their chariot and pull them — in place of the journalists.

August 4. (At Issy.)

There are writers, it is said, who have no ear. There are also those who have no eye. Nothing groups itself, drapes itself, or draws itself in their minds. Their books offer a flat surface over which words roll.

What is called harmony in style perhaps depends more on the shape of words than on their sound. Words paint themselves for the ear.

July 4.

... or he spits green bile. A suppurating ulcer. Courage in making faces (there is none): there is only an inability to restrain oneself, without the boldness to show oneself. Everything there is cross-eyed from one end to the other, and everywhere one sees a half-turned face, one eye directed to one side, the other eye to the other. Nothing face-on and full-bodied. A constrained and concentrated tone; more ill humor than hatred and character. In short, this article is made askew, traversa mentibus nircls.

If one counted the efforts, one would find that he has made as many as others; but he always makes them faster.

The malcontent in impotence. — Acidity.

August 6.

Mʳ de Bonnald casts a net over minds, and this net has colors. But it is so tightly meshed that one can see nothing through it once inside.

August 10.

... like a man missing his match.

August 11.

Glazes... And it has been observed that Raphael drew less purely in the paintings in which he sought color.

Ideas in images. In the others, images are images; here, images are ideas.

Art, which is his support, is only a constraint for the other.

— A natural disposition resembling Art.

August 12.

Patience and penetration do indeed make up the whole of genius. But ease and promptness should be added to them. In its final operation, which consists in execution, Voltaire had these latter qualities and did not have the other two. N. possesses the first, but lacks the last two. The first, moreover, are the most important. With them one has at least genius for oneself, if one does not have it for everyone, whereas with the last two one has a kind of genius for others, but none at all for oneself, for one enjoys neither one’s sentiments nor one’s ideas.

It is enough that religion be religion. It need not be truth. There are things that are good only when they are true. There are others that, to be good, need only be thought.

September 1.

When the last word is always the first to offer itself, the work becomes difficult.