everything appearance is preferred to reality, the outside to the
inside, the fashion to the material, that which shines to that which
profits, opinion to conscience. That is to say, the Frenchman's centre
of gravity is always outside him,--he is always thinking of others,
playing to the gallery. To him individuals are so many zeros: the unit
which turns them into a number must be added from outside; it may be
royalty, the writer of the day, the favorite newspaper, or any other
temporary master of fashion.--All this is probably the result of an
exaggerated sociability, which weakens the soul's forces of resistance,
destroys its capacity for investigation and personal conviction, and
kills in it the worship of the ideal.

* * * * *

DECEMBER 9TH, 1877.--The modern haunters of Parnassus carve urns of
agate and of onyx; but inside the urns what is there?--Ashes. Their work
lacks feeling, seriousness, sincerity, and pathos--in a word, soul and
moral life. I cannot bring myself to sympathize with such a way of
understanding poetry. The talent shown is astonishing, but stuff and
matter are wanting. It is an effort of the imagination to stand
alone--substitute for everything else. We find metaphors, rhymes, music,
color, but not man, not humanity. Poetry of this factitious kind may
beguile one at twenty, but what can one make of it at fifty? It reminds
me of Pergamos, of Alexandria, of all the epochs of decadence when
beauty of form hid poverty of thought and exhaustion of feeling. I
strongly share the repugnance which this poetical school arouses in
simple people. It is as though it only cared to please the world-worn,
the over-subtle, the corrupted, while it ignores all normal healthy
life, virtuous habits, pure affections, steady labor, honesty, and duty.
It is an affectation, and because it is an affectation the school is