Amiel's Journal by Amiel, Henri Frédéric, Ward, Humphry, Mrs., 1851-1920

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Mary A. Ward. Introduction

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November 26, 1876.--I have just finished a novel of Cherbuliez, "Le fiance de Mademoiselle de St. Maur." It is a jeweled mosaic of precious stones, sparkling with a thousand lights. But the heart gets little from it. The Mephistophelian type of novel leaves one sad. This subtle, refined world is strangely near to corruption; these artificial women have an air of the Lower Empire. There is not a character who is not witty, and neither is there one who has not bartered conscience for cleverness. The elegance of the whole is but a mask of immorality. These stories of feeling in which there is no feeling make a strange and painful impression upon me.

December 4, 1876.--I have been thinking a great deal of Victor Cherbuliez. Perhaps his novels make up the most disputable part of his work--they are so much wanting in simplicity, feeling, reality. And yet what knowledge, style, wit, and subtlety--how much thought everywhere, and what mastery of language! He astonishes one; I cannot but admire him.

Cherbuliez's mind is of immense range, clear-sighted, keen, full of resource; he is an Alexandrian exquisite, substituting for the feeling which makes men earnest the irony which leaves them free. Pascal would say of him--"He has never risen from the order of thought to the order of charity." But we must not be ungrateful. A Lucian is not worth an Augustine, but still he is Lucian. Those who enfranchise the mind render service to man as well as those who persuade the heart. After the leaders come the liberators, and the negative and critical minds have their place and function beside the men of affirmation, the convinced and inspired souls. The positive element in Victor Cherbuliez's work is beauty, not goodness, not moral or religious life. Aesthetically he is serious; what he respects is style. And therefore he has found his vocation; for he is first and foremost a writer--a consummate, exquisite, and model writer. He does not win our love, but he claims our homage.

In every union there is a mystery--a certain invisible bond which must not be disturbed. This vital bond in the filial relation is respect; in friendship, esteem; in marriage, confidence; in the collective life, patriotism; in the religious life, faith. Such points are best left untouched by speech, for to touch them is almost to profane them.

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Men of genius supply the substance of history, while the mass of men are but the critical filter, the limiting, slackening, passive force needed for the modification of the ideas supplied by genius. Stupidity is dynamically the necessary balance of intellect. To make an atmosphere which human life can breathe, oxygen must be combined with a great deal--with three-fourths--of azote. And so, to make history, there must be a great deal of resistance to conquer and of weight to drag.