February 27.

Of weakness “that proceeds from strength” (as St. Francis de Sales says, volume I, Part II, chap. 31, p. 296). “From strength of affection,” it says in the cited passage. But there is also a weakness of the body that proceeds from the strength of the mind, and a weakness of the mind that comes from the strength of the body.

February 28.

Note these words of St. Francis de Sales: “which separates the soul from the body, and sometimes the spirit from the soul. (volume 1, Part 2, chap. 34, page 310). — Doctrines and methods that “separate the spirit from the soul.” The habit of abstract reasoning has this terrible disadvantage. — To fear and avoid in every literary operation “what separates the spirit from the soul.”

[Fénelon.] And I dare say it boldly: “the simplicity of the serpent,” but of the serpent as it was in the first age of the world, when it had candor, happiness and innocence, and such, finally, that one could still suppose there was no treachery in the counsels and ideas of its insinuating language.

Bossuet. And because he spoke louder, they thought him more impetuous.

The folds, the folds within, and the dexterity he put into his discussions [penetrated] his conduct. And this multiplicity of explanations of every [kind], this active rapidity he employed either to defend himself aloud [or] to attack covertly. All these innocent ruses, and this vigilant [attention] to answering or forestalling, to seizing [opportunities]; — are they simplicity?

An always even tone of voice and a gentle bearing, always [grave] and always polite, have the appearance of simplicity, but are not simplicity.

Let us be simple, simplicity — are, in the sense they attach to them, terms of mystical quality. See the prayer of the abbé de Royère in [the] room of Mr. Eymery. — When, then, he said let us be simple, he [meant] a devout simplicity, and not that of [men]. He meant to say: Let us have a simple love for God; but not simple conduct in affairs.