pseudo-skeptic, a pseudo-scoffer.

"Borne dans sa nature, infini dans ses voeux,
L'homme est un dieu tombé qui se souvient des cieux."

* * * * *

MARCH 17TH, 1870.--This morning the music of a brass band which had
stopped under my windows moved me almost to tears. It exercised an
indefinable, nostalgic power over me; it set me dreaming of another
world, of infinite passion and supreme happiness. Such impressions are
the echoes of Paradise in the soul; memories of ideal spheres whose sad
sweetness ravishes and intoxicates the heart. O Plato! O Pythagoras!
ages ago you heard these harmonies, surprised these moments of inward
ecstasy,--knew these divine transports! If music thus carries us to
heaven, it is because music is harmony, harmony is perfection,
perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.

* * * * *

APRIL 1ST, 1870.--I am inclined to believe that for a woman love is the
supreme authority,--that which judges the rest and decides what is good
or evil. For a man, love is subordinate to right. It is a great passion,
but it is not the source of order, the synonym of reason, the criterion
of excellence. It would seem, then, that a woman places her ideal in the
perfection of love, and a man in the perfection of justice.

* * * * *

JUNE 5TH, 1870.--The efficacy of religion lies precisely in that which