So that in this manner of expressing oneself there is something mathematical and singularly doctrinal. — Of a doctrinal style, or one suited to teaching high truths.

June 23.

The faults that make a man ridiculous scarcely make him odious, or hated.

So that, then — one escapes the odious through the ridiculous.

Old age. Some carry it with head raised and body upright.

It is not what is most beautiful, but what brings forth in us the most beautiful ideas, that we love best.

If peoples have their old age, let that old age at least be grave and holy, and not frivolous and unruly. Now, everything without a rule is unruly, and what rules do we acknowledge, I ask you?

June 30.

To have harmony in the soul and to have music in it. Whoever has harmony there, has a just and wise soul; and whoever has music there has a poetic soul.

And — that one can be eloquent only when speaking to men [of the people] or half-ignorant men. Those alone are full enough and [empty] enough of feelings and ideas to inspire the desire and make it [easy] to act upon them.

Feelings and ideas. That the beautiful feelings and the beautiful ideas [that] we wish to display successfully in our writings be very [familiar] to us, so that their expression conveys the ease and [charm] of habit.

What they call “the metaphysics of the heart” is a kind [of] anatomy that can be understood only by minds of the trade.

(See above.) With men of such a mind, one can reasonably aspire [and] lay claim only to elegance. Elegance is therefore the [only] kind of eloquence permitted and possible with very learned [men]. They nevertheless tolerate, and even sometimes love, a certain gloomy pathos whose apparent depth [holds] their attention.

One must yield to heaven and resist men.