“Experience... (says M. de Luc)... that is to say history.” Each man indeed deduces his experience from his own trials, or from his own history.

Looking for a painting or portraits on a white wall is what one does when looking in most of our historians for the history of the times or the men they speak of.

There is a man one can call “a wax that is not soft”

If much air (or a great volume of air) is necessary to music.

To judge a building well, one must be placed at a distance equal to its height (if it is taller than it is wide), and at a distance equal to its width if it is wider than it is long [tall]. There lie the points or vertices where the beautiful angles and the true angles meet.

February 8.

— to maxims, because what is isolated is better seen.

There is thus a writer of whom one could say that he writes in little folds.

Indeed, goodness doubtless makes us better than morality does.

February 10.

Fashionable bearing is not good form, and good form is not always good taste.

February 11.

Words of summary and Words of exposition. It is easy to go wrong here. But one must not mistake them and use one kind in place of the other if one wishes to write purely.

“Scriptural style” (as M. de Bausset rightly says). “Academic style” has been remarked upon, fit to serve as a model for those who find no better one in their imagination or their memory.

February 15.

To excel in the practice or knowledge of the arts, one needs much penetration and much composure. Now he gives proof of composure who has had the patience to study and thoroughly learn the procedures and language of the craft. If he joins to this quality a just idea of the aim or object of art, he is a scholar and a critic of the first order in that field.

February 16.

In its origin, the miter is a double hood, as the scepter is a staff.