Indeed, if we knew perfectly what happens in heaven, we would be freer for it. And if we knew perfectly everything that exists on earth, perhaps we would no longer be mortal.

Wednesday, May 8 (At Villeneuve.)

Academic style. In certain cases it is the best of all and the only one that suits a man of letters speaking to men of letters.

God. We cannot share in his happiness if we do not share in his goodness, in his nature, and, if I may speak so, in his virtues.

— There is nothing there that has rolled in a space larger than itself, nothing that one hears resound. — Some rays that heaven sends there.

Only those who have wished to paint can be reproached for lacking color.

N N sometimes deliberates for his friends, but he never decides except for himself.

Nothing that displeases the senses in spiritual things, as in comparisons, metaphors, etc. Nothing contrary to moral beauty in discussions, such as bitter laughter, coarse irony, etc.

May 12.

(Day of departure.) When water flows, it rolls.

May 13.

(During the journey.) Metaphysics. That is because the language has not been found that would make its truths evident, or at least give us an apprehension of them.

“The too beautiful (says Crouzaz) is contrary to the beautiful.”

Moreover, in history there must be a style of conviction.

... full of those faults that strike only the masters.

— fabric — that makes one hate the weaver.

To make merry over evil is to rejoice in it.

... contrary (if not to the rules, because they have not been made) at least to the principles of moral literature.

May 16.

(In Paris. Arrived on the 13th.)