MARCH 1ST, 1869.--From the point of view of the ideal, humanity is
_triste_ and ugly. But if we compare it with its probable origins, we
see that the human race has not altogether wasted its time. Hence there
are three possible views of history: the view of the pessimist, who
starts from the ideal; the view of the optimist, who compares the past
with the present; and the view of the hero-worshiper, who sees that all
progress whatever has cost oceans of blood and tears.

* * * * *

AUGUST 31ST, 1869.--I have finished Schopenhauer. My mind has been a
tumult of opposing systems,--Stoicism, Quietism, Buddhism, Christianity.
Shall I never be at peace with myself? If impersonality is a good, why
am I not consistent in the pursuit of it? and if it is a temptation, why
return to it, after having judged and conquered it?

Is happiness anything more than a conventional fiction? The deepest
reason for my state of doubt is that the supreme end and aim of life
seems to me a mere lure and deception. The individual is an eternal
dupe, who never obtains what he seeks, and who is forever deceived by
hope. My instinct is in harmony with the pessimism of Buddha and of
Schopenhauer. It is a doubt which never leaves me, even in my moments of
religious fervor. Nature is indeed for me a Maïa; and I look at her, as
it were, with the eyes of an artist. My intelligence remains skeptical.
What, then, do I believe in? I do not know. And what is it I hope for?
It would be difficult to say. Folly! I believe in goodness, and I hope
that good will prevail. Deep within this ironical and disappointed being
of mine there is a child hidden--a frank, sad, simple creature, who
believes in the ideal, in love, in holiness, and all heavenly
superstitions. A whole millennium of idyls sleeps in my heart; I am a