Henri Frédéric Amiel’s diary, 1868

We have had a philosophical meeting at the house of Edouard Claparède. The question on the order of the day was the nature of sensation. Claparède pronounced for…

It is when the outer man begins to decay that it becomes vitally important to us to believe in immortality, and to feel with the apostle that the inner man is…

Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of heaven into the midst of our rough earthliness. These eighty thousand daily births, of which statistics tell…

I have been finishing About’s “Mainfroy (Les Mariages de Province).” What subtlety, what cleverness, what verve, what aplomb! About is a master of epithet, of…

Madame——kept me to have tea with three young friends of hers—three sisters, I think. The two youngest are extremely pretty, the dark one as pretty as the blonde.…

Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good, or well bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are…

What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking,…

I have been spending three hours over Lotze’s big volume (“Geschichte der Aesthetikin Deutschland”). It begins attractively, but the attraction wanes, and by the…

I left town in a great storm of wind, which was raising clouds of dust along the suburban roads, and two hours later I found myself safely installed among the…

A gloomy morning. On all sides a depressing outlook, and within, disgust with self. Ten P.M.—Visits and a walk. I have spent the evening alone. Many things to-day…

After all the storms of feeling within and the organic disturbances without, which during these latter months have pinned me so closely to my own individual…

To-day I took up the “Penseroso” again. I have often violated its maxims and forgotten its lessons. Still, this volume is a true son of my soul, and breathes the…

A lovely autumn effect. Everything was veiled in gloom this morning, and a gray mist of rain floated between us and the whole circle of mountains. Now the strip of…

I am reading part of two books by Charles Secrétan “Recherches sur la Méthode,” 1857; “Précis élémentaire de Philosophie,” 1868. The philosophy of Secrétan is the…

I am in the most painful state of anxiety as to my poor kind friend, Charles Heim.... Since the 30th of November I have had no letter from the dear invalid, who…

My dear friend died this morning at Hyères. A beautiful soul has returned to heaven. So he has ceased to suffer! Is he happy now?