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 Cornell University Library 
 PQ 2270.G32Z6 1891 
 
 Journal of Maurice de Guerin / 
 
 094 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027284094 
 
JOURNAL 
 
 OF 
 
 MAURICE DE GUERIN 
 
Journal 
 
 OF 
 
 Maurice De Guerin 
 
 EDITED 
 
 By G. S. TREBUTIEN 
 
 with a biographical and literary memoir 
 By SAINTE-BEUVE 
 
 SCrartsIateB from tJje StotnttttJ) iFremft lEBtttmt 
 
 BY 
 
 JESSIE P. FROTHINGHAM 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DODD, MEAD, AND COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
Copyright, 1891, 
 By Dodd, Mead, and Company. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 I^3i7]f^ 
 
 Saitibersita Press: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 A N EW translation of the Journal of Maurice 
 ■^~*- de Guirin needs no other justification than 
 the deepening interest in Nature and the rare 
 quality of a writer of whom Matthew Arnold 
 wrote that he had "a sense of what there is 
 adorable and secret in the life of Nature." The 
 earlier American translation has been out of 
 print for a number of years ; and a new and 
 wider constituency of those born to understand 
 and value De Guirin awaits his Journal. The 
 present translation is put forth with the hope 
 that it may bring to the knowledge of these 
 lovers of Nature a work which has appealed to 
 the best minds, and taken its place among the 
 classics of that kind of observation and medita- 
 tion which find their inspiration in Nature, and 
 their end in the fuller fellowship of the soul with 
 its ancient companion and teacher. 
 
 March, 1891. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Memoir ' 
 
 Journal 57 
 
MEMOIR 
 By SAINTE-BEUVE 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 (~\^ the 15th of May, 1840, the Revue des 
 ^-^ Deux Mondes published an article by 
 George Sand on a young poet whose name had 
 been until then entirely unknown, — Georges- 
 Maurice de Gu6rin, who had died during the 
 previous year, on the 19th of July, 1859, at the 
 age of twenty-nine. His title to the posthumous 
 honour of being thus unexpectedly ranked as a 
 star among the " poets of France " was a mag- 
 nificent and singular composition, Le Centaure, 
 in which all the primitive powers of Nature were 
 felt, expressed, and personified energetically, 
 yet with taste and sobriety, and in which a 
 master was all at once made manifest, — the 
 " Andr6 Ch^nier of pantheism," as a friend had 
 already named him. Some fragments of letters, 
 outpourings that revealed a tender and beauti- 
 ful soul, formed, around this colossal piece of 
 antique marble, a charming choir of half-veiled 
 semi-confidences ; and this glimpse caught in 
 
2 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 passing made one long eagerly for the rest. 
 From that time forward there existed among the 
 youth a chosen school, a generation sprinkled 
 with admirers for whom the name of Guerin 
 became a watchword, who rallied around this 
 youthful memory, honoured it with secret fer- 
 vour, and looked forward to the moment when 
 the full work should be given to them, when 
 the whole soul should be unveiled before their 
 eyes. Twenty years have elapsed since then ; 
 and difficulties, scruples, a many-sided delicacy 
 of a nature to be respected, have delayed the 
 accomplishment of the wish formed by friendship 
 in the name of art. Sufficient time had already 
 elapsed for Guerin to be imitated by other poets, 
 who through this imitation had the appearance 
 of being quite original, while he himself had not 
 yet been published or made known. But in the 
 mean while, five years ago, there had appeared, 
 still under the reserve of semi-publicity, the 
 Reliquiae of a sister of the poet, Eugenie de 
 Gu6rin, his equal if not his superior in talent 
 and in soul.^ The desire to know and to pos- 
 sess at last the complete works of the brother 
 
 1 The title of this volume is : " Eugenie de Guerin, 
 ReliquIjE . , . Caen, imprimerie de Ilardel, 1855," ™''^ 
 this note : " Ce volume, tire a petit nombre, ne se vend 
 pas." 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 3 
 
 was thus increased and quickened. We take 
 pleasure in announcing that they are to appear. 
 Faithful friends have sorted and prepared the 
 material ; and the editing has been done by the 
 scholarly and poetic antiquarian, M. Trebutien, 
 who has devoted to it work as careful as that 
 which a fervent monk of the Middle Ages would 
 have given to the writing and illumination of a 
 holy missal, the treasure of his abbey. 
 
 There was no exaggeration in the first impres- 
 sion received in 1840 ; to-day it is entirely jus- 
 tified and confirmed : the modern school counts 
 among its number another poet, another land- 
 scapist. But in the first place, I must needs 
 carry him back to his true starting-point, to his 
 very beginnings. It was in 1835 that Maurice 
 de Gudrin, who was then only in his twenty- 
 third year, began to develop and expand within 
 his familiar circle that first flower of sentiment, 
 which only to-day is revealed to us, and which is 
 to yield us all its perfume. Born on the 5th of 
 August, 1810, he belonged to that second gener- 
 ation of the century which was no longer " two " 
 or " three years" old, but fully ten or eleven, 
 when it brought forth that new brood of the 
 Mussets, the Montalemberts, the Gu^rins : it 
 is intentionally that I associate these names. 
 Born under the beautiful sky of the South, of 
 
4 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 an ancient family, noble and poor, Maurice de 
 Gu6rin was a dreamer from his infancy; and, his 
 ideas being easily turned toward religion, he 
 was led quite naturally to the thought of joining 
 the Church. He was not twelve years old 
 when, early in January, 1822, he set out for the 
 first time, poor exiled bird, from his turrets of 
 Cayla, and arrived at Toulouse to pursue his 
 studies, — I believe at the Petit S^minaire. He 
 came to Paris to complete them, at the College 
 Stanislas. On leaving there, after having hesi- 
 tated some time, after having returned to his 
 family and again seen his sisters and his sisters' 
 friends, ithen it was that, troubled, sensitive, and 
 even, we may conjecture, secretly wounded, he 
 went to La Chfinaie far more to seek rest and 
 forgetfulness than led by a religious vocation, — 
 one already much followed and very uncertain. 
 
 He had loved, he had wept and sung his 
 sorrows during a season passed in his beautiful 
 South, the last before his departure for La 
 Chfinaie. Witness these verses, dated from La 
 Roche d'Onelle, which relate to the autumn 
 of 1832 : — 
 
 " Les siecles ont creuse dans la roche vieillie 
 Des creux ou vont dormir des gouttes d'eau de pluie ; 
 Et I'oiseau voyageur, qui s'y pose le soir, 
 Plonge son bee avide en ce pur.reservoir. 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 5 
 
 Ici je viens pleurer sur la roche d'Onelle 
 
 De mon premier amour I'illusion cruelle ; 
 
 Ici mon coeur souffrant en pleurs vient s'epancher . . . 
 
 Mes pleurs vont s'amasser dans le creux du rocher . . . 
 
 Si vous passez ici, colombes passageres, 
 
 Gardez-vous de ces eaux : les larmes sont am^res." 
 
 No young Greek, disciple of Theocritus or of 
 Moschus, could have spoken better than this 
 young Levite who seemed in search of an 
 apostle. 
 
 Gu^rin arrived at La Chfinaie at the beginning 
 of winter ; he was there on Christmas, 1832. 
 He had found his haven of rest. La Chfinaie, 
 " that sort of oasis in the midst of the steppes 
 of Brittany," where, in front of the chateau, 
 stretches a vast garden divided by a terrace 
 planted with linden-trees, with a very small 
 chapel at the farther end, — this was the place 
 of retreat of M. de Lamennais (M. Fdli, as he 
 was familiarly called) ; and he usually had with 
 him four or five young men who, in this country 
 life, pursued their studies with zeal, in a spirit of 
 piety, of meditation, and of true liberty. The 
 moment when Gu^rin arrived there was one of 
 the most memorable, one of the most decisive for 
 the master ; this can be affirmed with certainty 
 and precision now that we are able to read the 
 private correspondence of Lamennais during that 
 
6 Maurice de Cuerin. 
 
 period. This great and vertiement mind', which 
 could not rest except in final solutions, after 
 having attempted the open union of Catholicism 
 and Democracy, and having preached it in his 
 journal with the voice of a prophet, had seen 
 himself forced to suspend the publication of 
 L'Avenir. He ha'd gone to Rome to con- 
 sult the supreme authority ; he had returned, 
 having been treated personally with respect, 
 but with evident disapproval, and he had ap- 
 peared to submit ; perhaps he even thought 
 himself sincerely submissive, while he was al- 
 ready meditating and devolving thoughts of ven- 
 geance and retaliation. M. de Lamennais, who 
 was wholly one thing of wholly another, without 
 any gradations, showed the strangest contrast 
 in his double nature. Oftentimes he had what 
 Buffon, in" speaking of animals of prey, called a 
 " soul of wrath ; " at times, and no less often, he 
 had a sweetness, a tenderness, that would delight 
 little children, a soul thoroughly charming ; and 
 he would pass from one to the other in the 
 twinkling of an eye. The veil which has since 
 then been rent, bringing to view the stormy and 
 shifting background of his doctrines, was then 
 scarcely lifted. It seems to me that none of 
 those who have known and loved M. de Lamen- 
 nais during these years of crisis and of sorrow- 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 7 
 
 ful passion, need, from whatever point of view, 
 either blush or repent. He had attempted a re- 
 conciliation, impossible, I admit, but most lofty 
 in aim and well suited to satisfy noble hearts and 
 generous and religious imaginations. Warned 
 that he was mistaken and that his views were 
 not sanctioned, he paused before the obstacle, 
 bowed before the sentence rendered, suffered, 
 was silent, and prayed. To examine him closely 
 at times, one would have said that he was in 
 danger of dying. One day (March 24, 1835), 
 being seated behind the chapel under the two 
 Scotch fir-trees which stood there, he had taken 
 his cane and outlined a grave on the turf, say- 
 ing to one of his disciples who was near him, 
 " It is here I wish to lie ; but no tombstone, 
 only a simple grassy mound. Oh, how good to 
 be there 1 " Had he died, in fact, at that hour 
 or during the months that followed, had he 
 been crushed by his internal struggle, what a 
 beautiful and unsullied memory he would have 
 left behind him ! What fame as a faithful one, a 
 hero, almost a martyr ! What a mysterious sub- 
 ject for meditation and revery for those who 
 love to study great destinies suddenly cut off 1 
 
 But here he is not in question except with 
 reference to Maurice de Gu^rin, who, admirer 
 and proselyte as he then was, was to feel 
 
8 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 this influence of Lamennais only as a passing 
 phase ; a year or two later he was wholly freed 
 and released from it. If by degrees he became 
 emancipated from the faith, if he was soon 
 carried away by the spirit of the century, it was 
 not as a follower of the great deserter, but 
 under his own leadership, and he went astray 
 along paths of his own ; in 1 8 3 5 , he was no longer 
 the disciple of any man or of any system. After 
 three years of an independent and wholly Pari- 
 sian life, at the approach of death, his family 
 had the consolation of seeing him again become 
 a Christian. 
 
 But Gu6rin, though he was to emancipate him- 
 self from this world of La Chfinaie through his 
 intellect, belonged to it radically in feeling, in 
 the depth of his impressions, and by the first and 
 genuine evidences of his talent, — so much so 
 that in the literary perspective of the past he 
 takes his place there as a portrait in its frame 
 from which it still remains distinct ; he is and 
 will remain in the future its landscapist, its 
 painter, its true poet. By the side of the bril- 
 liant names of Montalembert, of Lacordaire, 
 which sounded like trumpets in the outer world, 
 there was (who would have thought it ?) in that 
 house of silence and of peace, a young man, ob- 
 scure, timid, whom Lamennais, absorbed in his 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 9 
 
 apocalyptic social visions, never distinguished 
 from the others, to whom he attributed only very 
 ordinary faculties, but who, at the very time that 
 the master was forging upon his anvil those 
 thunderbolts called Les Paroles d'un Croyant, 
 wrote private pages that were far more natural, 
 far fresher, — let us be frank, far more beauti- 
 ful, — and made to touch forever those souls 
 enamoured of that universal life which is ex- 
 haled and inhaled in the depths of the woods, 
 on the borders of the sea. 
 
 Gu^rin arrived at La Chfinaie in winter, in the 
 heart of the dead season, when all is bare, when 
 the forests are " rust-colour," beneath this sky 
 of Brittany always cloudy, " and so low that it 
 seems as though it would crush you ; " but when 
 the spring comes, " the sky lifts," the woods take 
 back their life, and all again becomes smiling. 
 Winter, however, is slow in its leave-taking ; 
 the young and loving observer notes in his 
 journal its tardy flight, its frequent returns : — 
 
 " March ^rd. — This day has enchanted me. 
 For the first time in many days the sun has 
 shown himself radiant in all his beauty. He 
 has opened the buds of leaves and flowers, and 
 has awakened in my breast a thousand sweet 
 thoughts. 
 
lo Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 "Again the clouds take on their light and 
 graceful forms, and outline charming fancies 
 against the azure of the sky. The woods have 
 not yet put forth their leaves, but they have as- 
 sumed such a gay and lively air that it gives 
 them quite a new aspect. Everything is pre- 
 paring for the great holiday of Nature." 
 
 This holiday, so much desired, and of which 
 he had had but a foretaste, delays its coming ; 
 many stormy days still intervene. All this is 
 noted, painted, and above all, felt ; this young 
 child of the South draws from I know not what 
 well of inherent sadness a peculiar instinct for 
 understanding and loving from the very first 
 day this Nature of the North on the borderland 
 of tempests. 
 
 " (March) 8th. — A day of snow. A south- 
 easterly wind whirls it into eddies, into great 
 columns of dazzling whiteness. It melts as it 
 falls. Here we are, carried back into the very 
 heart of winter, after a few smiles of spring. 
 The wind is quite cold ; the little singing-birds, 
 so newly come, shiver with the cold, as do the 
 flowers. The cracks in the partitions and in 
 the windows wail as in January, and I, in my 
 sorry covering, shrink as Nature does. 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. ii 
 
 " ')th. — More snow, showers, gusts of wind, 
 cold. Poor Brittany, thou indeed hast need 
 of a little verdure to gladden thy sombre coun- 
 tenance ! Oh, throw off quickly thy winter 
 cloak and don for me thy spring mantle woven 
 of leaves and flowers ! When shall I see the 
 folds of thy robe floating at the will of the 
 winds ? . . . 
 
 " wth. — It has snowed all night. When I 
 arose, I had a glimpse, through my badly closed 
 shutters, of that great white sheet which had 
 silently spread itself over the fields. The black 
 tree-trunks rise like columns of ebony from an 
 ivory court ; this hard and sharp contrast and 
 the dismal aspect of the woods are peculiarly 
 saddening. Nothing is to be heard, — not a 
 living thing except a few sparrows, which, twit- 
 tering as they fly, seek refuge among the fir- 
 trees that stretch out their long arms laden with 
 snow. The centre of these dense trees is im- 
 penetrable to frost ; it is a shelter prepared 
 by Providence, and full well the little birds 
 know it. 
 
 " I have taken a look at our primroses ; each 
 one bore its little burden of snow with head 
 bent under the weight. These pretty flowers, 
 so rich in colouring, produced a charming effect 
 under their white hoods. I saw whole clusters 
 
12 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 covered with a single mass of snow ; all these 
 laughing flowers, thus veiled and bending over 
 one another, looked like a group of young girls 
 surprised by a shower and taking refuge under 
 a white apron." 
 
 This reminds one of Bernardin de Saint- 
 Pierre. Guerin, without intention, by natural 
 selection, and through affinity of talent, belongs 
 to his school. At this very moment he had fin- 
 ished reading his Etudes de la Nature, and was 
 still enjoying its charm : "It is one of those 
 books which one wishes would never come to 
 an end. From it there is little to be gained for 
 science, but much for poetry, for the elevation 
 of the soul and to aid in the contemplation of 
 Nature. This book clears and enlightens a 
 sense which we all possess, but which is veiled, 
 vague, and almost devoid of activity, — that sense 
 which gathers in physical beauties and yields 
 them to the soul." And he insists upon this 
 second process of reflection, which spiritualizes, 
 which blends and " harmonizes " into a whole 
 and under one ruling sentiment the features of 
 Nature previously observed. This indeed is 
 to be his own manner ; in the faithful images 
 which he offers us of Nature, man, the soul, is 
 always present ; it is life reflected and given 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 13 
 
 back by life. His slightest sketches thus have 
 their meaning and their charm. 
 
 "(March) i()th. — A walk in the forest of 
 Coetquen. I came upon a spot quite remarkable 
 for its wildness : the road descends by a sudden 
 declivity into a narrow ravine where a little stream 
 flows over a bed of slate, which gives to the 
 waters a blackish tinge disagreeable at first sight, 
 but which ceases to be so when you notice 
 how it harmonizes with the black trunks of the 
 old oaks, with the sombre foliage of the ivy, 
 and how it contrasts with the smooth white 
 limbs of the birches. A high north wind swept 
 over the forest and made it utter deep roarings. 
 The trees writhed in the blasts of the wind like 
 madmen. Through the branches we could see 
 the clouds coursing rapidly past in strange, black 
 masses, and seeming to graze the tree-tops. 
 At times there would come in this great, sombre, 
 floating veil a rift through which a ray of sun- 
 shine darted and glided into the heart of the 
 forest like a lightning-flash. These sudden, 
 passing gleams of light gave to these depths, so 
 majestic in their gloom, something strange and 
 haggard, like a smile on the lips of death. 
 
 " 20th. — Winter takes leave of us smiling ; 
 he bids us farewell with a glorious sun resplen- 
 
14 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 dent in a sky as clear and pure as a Venetian 
 glass. Time has taken one more step toward 
 its goal. Oh, that it might, like the steeds of 
 the immortals, reach in four bounds the limits 
 of its course ! " 
 
 There is more than one way of seeing and of 
 painting Nature, and I admit them all, provided 
 they are truthful. But in reality it is such bits 
 of landscape as these that I prefer. They are 
 delicate; they are felt and "painted" at the 
 same time ; they are painted from near by, on 
 the spot, according to Nature, but without 
 crudeness. There is no trace of the palette. 
 The colours have all their original freshness 
 and truth, and also a certain tenderness. They 
 have passed into the mirror of the inner man, 
 and are seen by reflection. One finds in them, 
 above all, expression, and they breathe the very 
 soul of things. 
 
 ' ' (March) 28th. — Every time that we allow 
 ourselves to be penetrated by Nature, our soul 
 is opened to the most touching impressions. 
 Though Nature become pale, gray, cold, and 
 rainy, in autumn and in winter, there is some- 
 thing in her which moves not only the surface 
 of the soul, but even its inmost depths, and 
 awakens a thousand memories, which to all ap- 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 15 
 
 pearance have no connection with the outward 
 scene, but which doubtless hold communion 
 with the soul of Nature through sympathies un- 
 known to us. Lying in a grove of beeches, and 
 breathing the warm air of spring, I experienced 
 to-day this wonderful power. . . . 
 
 " April <jth. — A day as beautiful as one could 
 wish ; some clouds, but only enough to make a 
 landscape of the sky. More and more do they 
 assume their summer forms. Their different 
 groups hang beneath the sun, immovable, like 
 flocks of sheep in the pastures during the great 
 heat. I saw a swallow, and I heard the hum- 
 ming of the bees on the flowers. While seated 
 in the sunshine so as to be penetrated to the 
 very marrow by the divine spring, I experienced 
 some of the impressions of my childhood ; for a 
 moment I looked upon the sky with its clouds, 
 the earth with its woods, its songs, its hum- 
 mings, as I then did. This renewal of the first 
 aspect of things, of the physiognomy which our 
 first glances found in them, is, to me, one of 
 the sweetest reactions of childhood upon the 
 current of life." 
 
 But soon there came a struggle within him, 
 and he experienced scruples. Gu^rin at this 
 time is still, strictly speaking, a Christian. He 
 
1 6 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 takes his soul to task for feeling with so much 
 ardour the insinuating charm and the voluptu- 
 ousness of Nature, on a day of divine contri- 
 tion and mourning, — for this 5th of April was 
 a Good Friday. The religious retreat in which 
 he is confined during this Passion Week seems 
 to him tedious ; and he reproaches himself for 
 it. Within him discipline combats revery. He, 
 whose instinct is to go forth, to wander at will, 
 to pursue the infinite in the zephyrs, in the 
 murmurs of the winds and waters, in the odours 
 of spring, and in the perfumes ; he, who was to 
 say, while planning his travels, " Wandering is 
 full of charm ; while wandering, we feel that 
 we are carrying out the true condition of hu- 
 manity ; therein lies, I believe, the secret of the 
 charm," — endeavours at this moment of his life 
 to reconcile Christianity and the worship of 
 Nature. He seeks, if it were possible, a 
 mystic relation between the adoration of this 
 Nature which centres in the heart of man and 
 there sacrifices herself as on an altar, and the 
 eucharistic immolation in this same heart. Vain 
 effort ! He attempts the impossible and the irre- 
 concilable ; he will succeed only in delaying the 
 time, near at hand, when he will be irresistibly 
 carried away. For there is no middle course : 
 the Cross obstructs, more or less, the free view 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 17 
 
 of Nature ; the great Pan has nothing to do 
 with the Divine Crucified. The first condi- 
 tion which imposes itself upon the Christian 
 thinker is a certain distrustful and timorous so- 
 briety. But Gu6rin does not resist ; all natural 
 accidents as they pass, — an April shower, 
 a March squall, a soft and capricious IVIay 
 breeze, — all speak to him, all lay hold upon him, 
 take possession of him, and carry him away. It 
 is useless for him to stop at short intervals and 
 cry out, " Oh, my God, why should my rest be 
 troubled by what passes in the air, and the 
 peace of my soul be thus given over to the will 
 of the winds?" He continues to give himself 
 over to it, he abandons himself, he is intoxicated 
 with the life of things, and at times would wish to 
 be merged in it, to become universalized in it. 
 
 '^ (April) 2<,th. — It has just been raining. 
 Nature is fresh and radiant ; the earth seems 
 to taste with rapture the water which brings it 
 life. One would say that the throats of the 
 birds had also been refreshed by this rain ; their 
 song is purer, more vivacious, more brilliant, 
 and vibrates wonderfully in the air, which has 
 become most sonorous and resounding. The 
 nightingales, the bullfinches, the blackbirds, 
 the thrushes, the golden orioles, the finches, the 
 
1 8 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 wrens, — all these sing and rejoice. A goose, 
 shrieking like a trumpet, adds by contrast to the 
 charm. The motionless trees seem to listen to 
 all these sounds. Innumerable apple-trees in 
 full bloom look like balls of snow in the dis- 
 tance ; the cherry-trees, all white as well, rise 
 like pyramids or spread out like fans of flowers. 
 
 "The birds seem at times to aim at those 
 orchestral effects where all the instruments are 
 blended in a mass of harmony. 
 
 " Would that we could identify ourselves with 
 spring ; that we could go so far as to believe 
 that in ourselves breathe all the life, and all the 
 love that ferment in Nature ; that we could feel 
 ourselves to be, at the same time, verdure, bird, 
 song, freshness, elasticity, rapture, serenity ! 
 What then should I become ? There are mo- 
 ments when, by dint of concentrating ourselves 
 upon this idea and gazing fixedly on Nature, 
 we fancy that we experience something like 
 this." 
 
 A month has passed. The moment when the 
 spring, long brooded over and nourished, bursts 
 forth, no longer in flowers, but in leaves ; when 
 the foliage runs riot ; when two or three morn- 
 ings bring forth an almost instantaneous inunda- 
 tion of verdure, — all this is admirably rendered : 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 19 
 
 " (Ma/J jrd. — Joyous day, full of sunshine, 
 warm breeze, perfumes in the air, felicity in the 
 soul. The verdure visibly increases ; it has 
 sprung from the garden to the thicket ; it has 
 gained possession of the whole length of the 
 pond ; it bounds, so to speak, from tree to tree, 
 from thicket to thicket, in the fields and on the 
 hillsides, and I can see that it has already reached 
 the forest, and is beginning to spread over its 
 broad back. Soon it will extend as far as the 
 eye can reach ; and all these broad expanses, 
 bounded by the horizon, will sway and surge 
 like a vast sea, — a sea of emerald. Yet a few 
 more days, and we shall have all the pomp, all 
 the display, of the vegetable kingdom." 
 
 And the moment when all that at first was 
 only flowers without leaves now is nought but 
 germ and foliage, when the loves of the plants 
 have ceased, and when the nutrition of the fruits 
 has begun : — 
 
 " 22nd. — There are no more flowers on the 
 trees. Their mission of love accomplished, 
 they have died, like a mother who expires in 
 giving birth. The fruits have set ; they inhale 
 that vital and reproductive energy which is 
 to produce new individuals. An innumerable 
 generation is at this moment hanging from the 
 
20 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 branches of all the trees, from the fibres of the 
 humblest grasses, like children on the maternal 
 bosom. All these germs, incalculable in their 
 number and diversity, are swinging in their 
 cradle between heaven and earth, given over to 
 the care of the winds, whose charge it is to rock 
 these new-born creatures. Future forests sway 
 unseen on living forests. All Nature is full of 
 the cares of her immense maternity." 
 
 Although at heart devoted to Brittany, which 
 he calls " the good country," the child of the 
 South awakens at times in Gu6rin ; Mignon re- 
 members the blue sky and the country where 
 the olive-trees blossom. The guest of La 
 Chfinaie does not deceive himself as to this 
 magnificence, these beauties of the woods and 
 thickets, which are always so prone to become 
 dry and crabbed again ; La Ch6naie, all Brit- 
 tany, " gives me the idea," he says, " of an old 
 woman, all wrinkled and hoary, changed back 
 by a fairy's wand into a young and most grace- 
 ful girl of sixteen." But, beneath the graceful 
 young girl, the old woman reappears on certain 
 days. One morning in the very midst of June 
 the fine season has disappeared, no one knows 
 where ; the west wind has, like a shepherd of the 
 waters, invaded the whole sky, driving before 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 21 
 
 him his innumerable flocks of clouds. Except 
 for the foliage, it is winter, with this distressing 
 contrast in addition ; and even when it is bright, 
 the summer, on its very festal days, always has 
 about it, he feels, "something sad, veiled, and 
 limited. It is like a miser who on occasion 
 lavishes his money ; there is something niggardly 
 even in his magnificence. Long live our sky 
 of Languedoc, so liberal in light, so blue, so 
 broadly arched ! " Thus exclaims, on those 
 days, almost as an exile, he who dreams again 
 of his soft nest of Cayla and of La Roche 
 d'Onelle. It is on his excursions through the 
 country, and when he crosses the moors, it is 
 then indeed that he finds Nature barren and 
 melancholy, in the garb of a pauper and a beggar ; 
 but he does not on this account disdain her. 
 He has written on this theme some very subtile 
 verses, in which the ruggedness of the country 
 is most truthfully rendered ; he understands this 
 ruggedness so well, and comes so close to it, 
 that he triumphs over it. Like that Cybele of 
 the Homeric hymn who at first presented herself 
 to some young girls seated by the roadside under 
 the disguise of a barren old woman, and who 
 then of a sudden is changed back into the fruit- 
 ful and glorious goddess, — the Breton Nature 
 ends by yielding up to Gu^rin all that she pos- 
 
22 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 sesses. If for a moment he did not appreciate 
 her, he quickly repents, and she forgives him. 
 She ceases to appear barren in his eyes ; she 
 again becomes as beautiful as she can be ; the 
 very moor takes on life, and to him seems 
 clothed, in its smallest happenings, with a name- 
 less charm. 
 
 It is in verse that he says these last things, 
 and for this reason I do not quote them ; for 
 Gu6rin's verses, though natural, easy, and flow- 
 ing, are unfinished. He habitually and from 
 preference employs a metre that I know well, 
 from having tried in my time to introduce it and 
 make use of it, — the familiar Alexandrine, used 
 conversationally, lending itself to all the wind- 
 ings of a friendly talk. " Your poetry sings 
 too much," wrote he to his sister Eugenie, " it 
 cloes not talk enough." He guards against the 
 strophe, as breaking too easily into a gallop and 
 carrying away its rider ; he no less guards against 
 the Lamartinian stanza, as rocking too softly its 
 dreamer and its gondolier. He believes that 
 one can use to great advantage this Alexandrine 
 metre, which, when well managed, is not so 
 rigid as it appears to be, and is capable of many 
 niceties, and even of charming carelessness. 
 This whole theory appears to me just, and it is 
 also my own. It is only in the application that 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 23 
 
 Gu^rin is at fault, as I also may have been ; 
 but he is more, far more so, than he ought to 
 have been. Especially does he leave it too much 
 to chance ; and one can say of him what he says 
 of one of his friends, that it flows from him 
 " as water from a fountain." He has written 
 detached verses that are very happy and very 
 free ; but his phrase drags, lengthens out, and be- 
 comes prosaically intricate. He does not know 
 how to divide it, to regulate the metre, and, 
 after a certain number of uneven, irregular 
 verses, how to restore the full tone and mark 
 the cadence. The name of Brizeux, the Breton 
 poet, is naturally associated with that of Gu6rin, 
 the Breton landscapist. Gu^rin must have read 
 the Marie of Brizeux ; but I do not see that he 
 speaks of it. We must not exaggerate ; this 
 pretty Marie, in her first dress, was only a little 
 country girl according to the Parisian ideal. It 
 was not until later that Brizeux thought of be- 
 coming a Breton in earnest. In the poem by 
 him that bears the title, Les Bretons, he has been 
 successful in two or three broad and vigorous 
 pictures ; as a whole, it is wanting in interest, and 
 is entirely devoid of charm. I do not speak of the 
 various collections which followed, and v/hich, 
 with rare exceptions, are but the barren and more 
 and more uneven productions of a sterile and 
 
24 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 exhausted vein. Now, what Guerin possessed 
 above all was exuberance, ease, charm, breadth, 
 and power ; the author of Le Centaure is of a 
 different order from the discreet lover of Marie. 
 But Brizeux in verse is an artist ; and Gu6rin 
 is not sufficiently so. Brizeux possesses the 
 science of verse ; and if he allow his stream 
 to flow too slowly, if for good reasons he never 
 lets it loose, if he never has what the generous 
 poet Lucretius calls the magnum immissis certa- 
 men habenis, — the home-charge at full speed, — 
 at least he always gathers in the folds at his 
 girdle, and has dexterous and charming ways of 
 fastening it. 
 
 In 1835, Guerin, that Breton by adoption, 
 who at that time was far more of a Breton in 
 genius and in soul than Brizeux, was living to the 
 full that rural, restful, poetic, and Christian life 
 whose vitality rose up in floods into his talent 
 and flowed with freshness over his private pages. 
 He had his troubles, his internal failings, I 
 know ; we will return to this weak side of his 
 soul and his will, if only to point it out. Later, 
 his talent will be more virile, and at the same 
 time his conscience less troubled ; here, he is in 
 all the delicate flower of his adolescence. There 
 was a unique moment when all harmonies were 
 felt, when the different worships united and 
 
Memoir by Saink-Beuve. 25 
 
 mingled. Let one fancy to one's self — at 
 La Ch^naie, which was still called a religious 
 house — Easter day of this year, 1835, the 7th 
 of April, a radiant morning ; and the touching 
 things that happened during that morning for 
 the last time. He who was still the Abb6 de 
 Lamennais was celebrating in the chapel the 
 Easter Mass, — his last Mass, — and with his 
 own hand was administering the communion to 
 some young disciples who had remained faith- 
 ful, and who believed him to be faithful also. 
 They were Gu^rin, 6lie de Kertanguy, and 
 Francois du Breil de Marzan, a fervent young 
 poet, overjoyed at bringing to the Holy Table a 
 new recruit, a friend ten years his senior, — 
 Hippolyte de La Morvonnais, himself a poet. 
 At that time there were at La Chfinaie, or there 
 were to come, men whom to meet and to hold 
 converse with was a source of pure joy, — the 
 Abb6 Gerbet, a spirit gentle and of tender 
 amenity ; the Abbd de CazalSs, an affection- 
 ate heart, and experienced in the inner life ; 
 other names, some of whom have since made 
 their mark in various sciences, such as Eugene 
 Bor6, Fr^d^ric de La Provostaye. It was a 
 pious and learned group. Who would have 
 then said, to those who were still gathered 
 around the master, that he who had but now 
 
26 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 administered to them the communion with his 
 own hand would administer it again to no one ; 
 that he would himself refuse it forever ; and that 
 he was soon to have for a too real device an 
 oak broken by the storm, with this proud motto : 
 " / break, but do not bend ! " a Titanic device 
 in the spirit of Capanseus ? ' ' Ah, had this been 
 said to us what a shudder would have passed 
 through our veins ! " wrote one of them. But 
 for us who have to speak here only of literature, 
 it is impossible not to touch upon such a memo- 
 rable moment in the moral history of that time, 
 not to associate it with the talent of Gu6rin, not 
 to regret that the high and impetuous spirit that 
 was already brewing tempests did not then do 
 as did the obscure disciple hidden under his 
 wing, — that he did not open his heart and his 
 ear to some notes of the pastoral flute ; that in- 
 stead of letting loose his ideas upon society, and 
 of seeing in it nothing but hell, dungeons, caves, 
 sewers (images that are perpetually coming back 
 to him and besetting him), he did not oftener 
 look toward Nature, to be softened and calmed 
 by it. And yet this same M . de Lamennais wrote, 
 a few months later, to one of his pious friends 
 in Italy : " You are about to enter upon spring, 
 earlier in the country where you live than in 
 France ; 1 hope it will have a happy influence 
 
Memoir by Sainie-Beuve. 27 
 
 on your health. Abandon yourself to all there 
 is of sweetness in this season of rebirth ; make 
 yourself a flower with the flowers. We lose 
 through our own fault a part, and the greater 
 part, of the blessings of the Creator ; He sur- 
 rounds us with His gifts, and we refuse to enjoy 
 them through I know not what melancholy wil- 
 fulness in tormenting ourselves. In the midst 
 of the atmosphere of perfumes which emanates 
 from Him, we make one for ourselves composed 
 of all the mortal vapours which are exhaled from 
 our cares, our anxieties, and our sorrows, — 
 fatal diving-bell that isolates us in the heart of 
 the immense ocean." And who, then, more 
 than he had placed himself under this bell and 
 delighted in staying there > 
 
 I have still something to say on this sojourn 
 of Gu^rin at La Chgnaie and in Brittany, on 
 this "receptive" period of his talent. 
 
 Since I have spoken of Lamennais at this date 
 of 1835, and such as he still appeared in the 
 eyes of this faithful circle, how can I fail to call 
 attention to the portrait that Gu6rin has drawn 
 of him in a letter of May i6th to M. de Bayne 
 de Rayssac, one of his friends of the South > 
 It is indeed the most living, the most speaking 
 picture of this half of Lamennais, one in which 
 it is difficult to believe from merely reading him. 
 
28 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 — the half of a soul which seemed while talking 
 to open itself entirely, so gay and charming 
 was it, but which was so soon eclipsed, when 
 of a sudden his forehead became wrinkled and 
 his face darkened. Guerin shows him to us as 
 he saw him, in his best light and sometimes in 
 his proud moments, but without any of his dark 
 side. The letters of Gu6rin to his friends 
 served to complete the impressions noted in his 
 journal at this time ; and some of the pages of 
 this journal are themselves merely passages from 
 his letters which appeared to him worthy of 
 being transcribed before they took flight. He 
 was, in fact, trying his hand, like the artist, the 
 painter, who prepares his sketches at random. 
 One of his most longed-for holidays, which he 
 had promised himself as soon as he arrived in 
 Brittany, was a little journey to the shores of 
 the ocean. He had already once before, on 
 the 28th of March, when taking a longer walk 
 than usual with the Abb6 Gerbet and another 
 companion, caught a glimpse toward the north, 
 from the top of some height, of the Bay of Can- 
 cale and the distant shining waters which formed 
 on the horizon a line of light. But the real 
 journey, which made him able to exclaim, " At 
 last I have seen the ocean," did not take place 
 until the nth of April. On that day, the 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 29 
 
 Thursday after Easter, he started out on foot at 
 one o'clock in the afternoon with fine weather 
 and a fresh breeze, in the company of Edmond 
 de Cazal^s, who had not as yet taken orders. 
 They had no less than six or seven leagues to 
 walk ; but to be travelling toward a great goal, 
 and to go by a long road in the company of a 
 friend, is a double happiness. Gu^rin felt this, 
 and tells us of it : " It is a supreme delight to 
 journey toward the ocean with a travelling com- 
 panion such as he. Our conversation kept up 
 without intermission, so to speak, from La 
 Chenaie to Saint-Malo ; and when we had com- 
 pleted our six leagues, I would still have liked 
 to see before us a long line of road, for truly a 
 friendly talk is one of those sweet things which 
 one would always like to lengthen out." He 
 gives us an idea of these talks, which embraced 
 the world of the heart and that of Nature, and 
 touched upon poetry, tender memories, hopes, 
 and all the charming questions of youth. I 
 fancy that these sweet discourses resembled in 
 spirit what must have been the talks of Basil and 
 of Gregory on the seaside near Athens, and those 
 of Augustine and his friends along the shores of 
 Ostia. The picturesque descriptions, the sea- 
 views which follow, gain beauty from these lofty 
 conversations, which form their firmament. 
 
30 Maurice de Gmrin. 
 
 The last days which Gudrin spent at La 
 Chfinaie were sweet, but of a sweetness often 
 troubled ; he felt, in fact, that this life of seclu- 
 sion was about to cease, and that the coming 
 ■vacation would force him to take some decision. 
 All the more, when his imagination allowed it, 
 did he enjoy the deep and unruffled calm of 
 these last hours. 
 
 On the yth of September, at four o'clock 
 in the afternoon, he went up to the room of 
 M. F61i, and bade him farewell. After a stay of 
 nine months, " the doors of the paradise of La 
 Chfinaie were closed behind him." The am- 
 biguous and painful relations of M. de Lamen- 
 nais with the diocesan authority had latterly 
 grown worse ; and it became advisable for the 
 little school to disperse. Still Gu6rin did not 
 yet leave Brittany, but remained there until the 
 end of January, 1834, either at La Brousse, in 
 the family of M. de Marzan, or at Le Val 
 de I'Arguenon, in the hermitage of his friend 
 Hippolyte de La Morvonnais, or at Mordreux, 
 with the latter's father-in-law. This proved to 
 be a new and important period in his life. He 
 had carried to La Chgnaie a secret heart-ache ; 
 I do not say a passion, but a sentiment. This 
 sentiment would be awakened at the sight of 
 certain beech-trees which he saw from his 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 31 
 
 window, in the direction of the pond, and which 
 recalled dear and agitating memories. There 
 were nights when he dreamed ; let us listen to 
 one of his dreams : — 
 
 " (June) itfth. — Strange dream ! I dreamed 
 that I was alone in a vast cathedral. I was 
 there under the impression of the presence of 
 God, and in that condition of the soul when one 
 is conscious of nothing but of God and one's 
 self, when a voice arose, — a voice infinitely 
 sweet, a woman's voice, and yet it filled the 
 whole church like a great choir. I recognized 
 it at once ; it was the voice of Louise, silver- 
 sweet sounding.'" 
 
 Such dreams as these, which recall those of 
 the youthful Dante and of the Vita Nuova be- 
 longed only to the more exalted portion of his 
 mind, and there were means of curing him of 
 them. And, to say here all that we think, Gudrin 
 was not made for the great and violent passions 
 of love. One day, some years later, while 
 reading the Letters of Mile, de Lespinasse, and 
 discovering in them flames of passion to him 
 unknown, he was moved, and was astonished 
 at being thus moved: "Truly," said he, "I 
 did not know that I had so sensitive an imagina- 
 
32 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 tion, and one that could so agitate my heart. 
 Have I not taken the measure of my heart ? It 
 is not made for those passion's where one says, 
 to love you, to see you, or to live no more ! " 
 No circumstance of his life, not even the incli- 
 nation that determined his marriage, contra- 
 dicts this judgment that he passed on himself. 
 He never loved excepting on the surface, and, 
 so to speak, in front of the first curtain of his 
 soul ; the depths were shrouded in mystery 
 and reserve. I believe that he, the lover of 
 Nature, felt too deeply the universality of 
 things to love one being above all else. How- 
 ever that may be, he had at that time a secret 
 sorrow ; and on leaving the solitary ChSnaie, 
 and finding himself transported into the loving 
 intimacy of Hippolyte de La Morvonnais and 
 his young wife, this sorrow was cured. He 
 was one of those who are soothed instead of 
 excited by the sympathetic friendship of a 
 young woman. The pure friendship of the 
 chaste wife and the happiness of which he was 
 a witness, without effacing or doing away with 
 the other image, changed it into a light shadow. 
 Everything resumed its natural order ; and 
 Gudrin, on the eve of finding himself thrust into 
 the thick of the world's conflict, tasted a few 
 months of perfect harmony. 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 33 
 
 The pictures that he has drawn of these 
 autumn and winter days, passed on the borders 
 of the ocean in that hospitable home, — in that 
 Tkdbaide des Grtves, as La Morvonnais rather 
 ambitiously called it, — are beautiful pages which 
 naturally take their place by the side of the 
 best of their kind that we know. The strik- 
 ing contrast between the peace of the fireside 
 and the almost continual tempests of the ocean, 
 and at times that other contrast no less striking 
 between the peaceful sea, the slumber of the 
 fields, and the stormy heart of the looker-on, 
 give to the different pictures all their life and 
 variety : — 
 
 " And see how full of goodness is Providence 
 toward me ! Fearing lest the sudden change 
 from the soft and temperate atmosphere of a 
 religious and solitary life to the torrid zone of 
 the world should prove too great a trial for my 
 soul, it has led me, on leaving that sacred refuge, 
 to a house placed upon the borders of these two 
 regions, where, without being in solitude, one 
 is yet not in the world, — a house whose win- 
 dows open on one side upon the plain where 
 stirs the tumult of men, and on the other side 
 upon the wilderness where sing the servants of 
 God ; on one side upon the ocean, and on the 
 3 
 
34 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 other side upon the forests. And this metaphor 
 is a reality, for this house is built upon the bor- 
 ders of the sea. I wish to put on record here 
 an account of my sojourn in this place, for the 
 days spent here are full of happiness, and I know 
 that in the future I shall often turn back to read 
 again of these joys of the past. 
 
 " A pious man and a poet ; a woman whose 
 heart beats so in unison with his that they seem 
 like parts of but one soul ; a child whose name 
 is Marie, like her mother, the first rays of whose 
 love and intelligence shine like a star through 
 the white veil of childhood ; a simple life in an 
 old-fashioned house ; the ocean which, morning 
 and evening, brings us its harmonies ; finally, a 
 pilgrim who descends from Mount Carmel on 
 his way to Babylon, and who has left at the 
 door his staff and his sandals, to take a seat at 
 the hospitable board, — here is material for a 
 Biblical poem, could I describe things as well 
 as I can feel them." 
 
 I do not regret this Biblical poem ; he gives us 
 enough of it even while telling us that he cannot 
 v/rite it. We shall presently have its most beauti- 
 ful page ; but first let us gaze with him upon the 
 spectacle of an " agitated sea" and at the same 
 time of the human soul which contemplates it. 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 35 
 
 " Yesterday a west wind blew furiously. I 
 saw the ocean troubled, but this tumult, however 
 sublime it may be, is far from equalling, in my 
 eyes, the sight of the sea blue and serene. But 
 why assert that one is not equal to the other > 
 Who could measure these two sublimities and 
 say, ' The second is greater than the first ' } Let 
 us merely say, ' My soul takes more delight 
 in serenity than in storm ! ' Yesterday there 
 was a great battle on the watery plains. The 
 leaping waves seemed like the countless Tartar 
 cavalry galloping ceaselessly over the plains of 
 Asia. The entrance to the bay is defended, as it 
 were, by a chain of granite isles. It was a sight 
 to watch the billows rushing to the assault and 
 with frightful outcries throwing themselves madly 
 against these masses of rock ; it was a sight to 
 watch them take their start and try who should 
 best clear the black reef-heads. The most daring 
 or the nimblest leaped onto the other side with a 
 great cry ; the others, heavier or more awkward, 
 shattered themselves against the rock, tossing up 
 foam of dazzling whiteness, and then retreated 
 with dull and deep growlings, like house-dogs 
 thrust back by the traveller's staff. From the 
 top of a cliff where we could with diflficulty keep 
 our footing against the fury of the wind, we 
 witnessed these strange struggles. There we 
 
36 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 were, our bodies bent, our legs spread apart to 
 broaden our base and give us greater power of 
 resistance, and both hands clutching our hats to 
 keep them on our heads. The immeasurable 
 tumult of the sea, the noisy rushing of the waves, 
 the no less rapid but silent passing of the clouds, 
 the sea-birds that floated in the sky, balancing 
 their slender bodies between two arched wings 
 of redundant spread, — all this mass of wild and 
 sonorous harmonies converged toward the souls 
 of two beings, five feet high, planted on the crest 
 of a cliif, shaken like leaves by the force of the 
 wind, and in this immensity hardly more con- 
 spicuous than two birds perched upon a clod of 
 earth. Oh, how strange and beautiful is one of 
 these moments when sublime agitation and deep 
 revery meet together, when the soul and Nature 
 rise to their whole height face to face 1 
 
 " A few steps from us there was a group of 
 children shielded by a rock and watching their 
 flocks scattered over the steep sides of the 
 cliffs. 
 
 "Throw upon this ocean-scene a vessel in 
 peril, and all is changed ; nothing is seen but 
 the vessel. Happy is he who can contemplate 
 Nature solitary and deserted 1 Happy, he who 
 can watch her giving herself over to her ter- 
 rible sports without danger to any living being I 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 37 
 
 Happy, he who can see from the top of a moun- 
 tain a lion bounding and roaring on the plain 
 below, while neither traveller nor gazelle is 
 passing by 1 Hippolyte, yesterday we had this 
 joy ; we should thank Heaven for it." 
 
 Have the English fireside poets, Cowper and 
 Wordsworth, ever rendered the joys of a pure 
 home-life, of domestic felicity, that reminiscence 
 of Eden, more delightfully than the traveller 
 who, sitting for a moment beneath a roof thus 
 blessed, has said : — 
 
 " Never have I tasted so intimately and so 
 deeply the joys of family life. Never has that 
 perfume which encircles a pious and happy house- 
 hold enveloped me so completely. It is like a 
 cloud of invisible incense which I breathe un- 
 ceasingly. All these minute details of family 
 life, which as a whole make up the day, are to 
 me so many gradations of a continuous charm, 
 that gradually unfolds itself from one end of 
 the day to the other. The morning salutation, 
 which renews in a way the pleasure of the first 
 arrival, for the words of greeting are almost the 
 same, and then the nightly parting is a semblance 
 of longer separations, being, like them, full of 
 danger and uncertainty ; the breakfast, a repast 
 
38 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 by which we celebrate the joy of coming to- 
 gether again ; the walk which then follows, a 
 sort of salutation and adoration which we render 
 to Nature ; our return home and withdrawal into 
 an old wainscoted room, looking on the sea, 
 and beyond the reach of household noises, in 
 a word, a true sanctuary of work ; the dinner an- 
 nounced, not by the sound of a bell, which 
 recalls too vividly the school or a large establish- 
 ment, but by a gentle voice ; the mirth, the 
 lively pleasantries, the flowing talk, gliding on 
 unceasingly throughout the repast ; the crack- 
 ling fire of dry branches around which we draw 
 our chairs immediately after ; the pleasant things 
 said by the warmth of the flames which roar 
 while we talk ; and, if the sun be shining, the 
 walk on the borders of the ocean, which sees 
 approaching it a mother, her child in her arms, 
 the father of this child, and a stranger, these last 
 two with stick in hand ; the rosy lips of the little 
 girl, who talks to the sound of the waves, and 
 sometimes the tears she sheds and her cries of 
 childish grief by the borders of the sea ; our own 
 thoughts as we watch the mother and child smil- 
 ing upon each other, or the child weeping and 
 the mother seeking to soothe her with the sweet- 
 ness of her caresses and her voice ; the ocean 
 ever rolling in its train of billows and of sounds ; 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 39 
 
 the dead branches we cut while walking to and 
 fro in the copse, with which to light a quick, 
 bright fire on our return ; this little touch of 
 wood-cutter's work which brings us nearer to 
 Nature and recalls the singular passion which 
 M. F61i had for the same work; the hours of 
 study and of poetic effusion which bring us to 
 the supper hour ; this repast to which we are 
 called by the same gentle voice as at noon, and 
 which is passed amid the same though less 
 brilliant joys, for the evening softens all things, 
 tempers all things ; then the evening, which opens 
 with the bright light of a gladsome fire, and 
 from reading to reading, from talk to talk, expires 
 at last in sleep, — to all the charms of such a day 
 add I know not what angelic radiance, what 
 magic spell of peace, of freshness, and of inno- 
 cence, which emanates from the blond head, the 
 blue eyes, the silvery voice, the laughter, the lit- 
 tle airs full of intelligence, of a child who, I feel 
 sure, excites the envy of more than one angel, 
 who delights you, fascinates you, who by the 
 slightest movement of her lips awakens in you 
 the most passionate fondness, so great is the 
 power of weakness ; finally, to all this add the 
 dreams of the imagination, and you will still fall 
 far short of realizing the fulness of all these fam- 
 ily joys." 
 
40 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 Still, these family joys, too keenly felt by a 
 heart to whom it was not given to taste them 
 personally, affected him too deeply ; he tells us 
 that he had reached the point of weeping at 
 nothing, "as it is with little children, or old men." 
 This continuous calm, this sweet monotony of 
 family life, prolonging itself like a note soft but 
 always the same, had ended by enervating him, 
 by over-exciting him and throwing him outside 
 of himself, or by plunging him too deeply within 
 himself. This excess of peace was to him a new 
 kind of storm; his soul had become "a captive," 
 and there was danger on this side of his nature of 
 I know not what intoxication of languor, had he 
 not found a counterpoise, a powerful diversion 
 in the contemplation of Nature, even as at other 
 moments there had been danger lest the sover- 
 eign attraction, the powerful voice of this Na- 
 ture, would alone absorb and govern him. For 
 Gu6rin had a marvellous soul, most sensitive and 
 impressionable, but without guarantee against 
 itself, and without defence. This once, how- 
 ever, he was able to turn away in time and to 
 alternate the forms of his susceptibility : — 
 
 " I began to observe her [Nature] still more 
 attentively than usual, and by degrees the tu- 
 mult within me subsided ; for out of the fields, 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve, 41 
 
 the waters, and the woods came a sweet and 
 beneficent virtue which penetrated me and 
 changed all ray transports into melancholy 
 dreams. This mingling of the calm impres- 
 sions of Nature with the stormy reveries of the 
 heart produced a state of the soul which I 
 would long wish to retain, for it well befits a 
 restless dreamer like myself. It is like a tem- 
 perate and tranquil ecstasy which transports the 
 soul outside of itself without depriving it of the 
 consciousness of a permanent and somewhat 
 tumultuous sadness. The soul also becomes 
 insensibly filled with a languor which deadens all 
 the activity of the intellectual faculties, and lulls 
 it into a half-sleep, void of all thought, in which 
 it still feels the power to dream of the most beau- 
 tiful things. . . . Nothing can more faithfully 
 represent this state of the soul than the shades 
 of evening falling at this very moment. Gray 
 clouds just edged with silver cover the whole face 
 of the sky. The sun, which set but a few mo- 
 ments ago, has left behind light enough to temper 
 for a while the black shadows, and to soften in a 
 measure the fail of night. The winds are hushed, 
 and the peaceful ocean, as I come to listen on 
 the threshold of the door, sends me only a melo- 
 dious murmur which softly spreads over the 
 soul like a beautiful wave over the beach. The 
 
42 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 birds, the first to feel the influence of the night, 
 fly toward the woods, and their wings rustle 
 in the clouds. The coppice, which covers the 
 entire slope of the hill of Le Val, and resounds 
 all day long with the chirp of the wren, the 
 gay whistle of the wood-pecker, and the various 
 notes of a multitude of birds, has no more a 
 sound along its paths or within its thickets, un- 
 less it be the shrill call of the blackbirds as they 
 play together and chase one another, after the 
 other birds have hidden their heads under their 
 wings. The noise of men, always the last to be- 
 come silent, gradually dies away over the face of 
 the fields. The general uproar ceases, and not a 
 sound is heard except from the towns and ham- 
 lets, where, far into the night, the children cry, 
 and the dogs bark. Silence inwraps me ; all 
 things yearn for rest except my pen, which dis- 
 turbs, perchance, the slumber of some living 
 atom asleep in the folds of my notebook, for it 
 makes its little sound as it writes these idle 
 thoughts. Then let it cease ; for what I write, 
 have written, and shall write, will never be 
 worth the sleep of a single atom." 
 
 Truly, this is as beautiful as a beautiful poem. 
 We speak of the " Lakists" and their poetry; 
 and La Morvonnais at this very time was so 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 43 
 
 prepossessed with it that he went so far as to 
 visit Wordsworth at his residence at Rydal 
 Mount, near the Westmoreland lakes, and to 
 remain in correspondence with this great and 
 tranquil spirit, this patriarch of the lyric muse. 
 Gu6rin, without thinking so much about it, more 
 nearly resembled the Lake-poets, while not at- 
 tempting in the least to imitate them : they have 
 not produced a purer pastoral sonnet, there is 
 not in the poetic rambles of Cowper a more 
 transparent picture than the page just quoted, 
 so true in its delineation and at the same time so 
 tender, so distinct, and so moving. The humble 
 sentiment at the close, which takes account of 
 the smallest living atom, is enough to excite the 
 envy of a gentle poet of India. 
 
 But Gu6rin had to tear himself away from this 
 solitude, where he was about to forget himself, 
 and, if he did not take heed, to find too great 
 delight in the taste of the ' ' lotus " fruit. During 
 a last walk, on a smiling winter afternoon, along 
 those cliffs, through that path which so many 
 times had led him among the box-trees and 
 hazel-bushes, he breathes out his farewells and 
 carries away all that he can of the soul of things. 
 On the morrow he is at Caen ; a few days later, 
 at Paris. His timid nature, as trembling and 
 fearful as that of a frightened deer, experiences 
 
44 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 on arriving there a secret horror. He distrusts 
 himself ; he fears men. 
 
 " Pan's, Feb. i, 1834. — My God, close my 
 eyes ; keep me from seeing all this multitude, 
 the sight of which stirs up within me such 
 bitter, such discouraging thoughts 1 Grant that, 
 as I pass through it, I may be deaf to the noise, 
 insensible to those impressions which crush me 
 as I move among the crowd ; and, for this, 
 place before my eyes an image, a vision of 
 things I love, a field, a valley, a moor, Cayla, 
 Le Val, some object of Nature 1 I will walk 
 with my gaze fixed upon these sweet forms, and 
 shall thus pass on undisturbed." 
 
 Here we must enter a little into the secret of 
 Gu^rin's nature. He had within him a genuine 
 contradiction. Through one side he felt exter- 
 nal nature passionately, to distraction ; he was 
 capable of plunging into it with fearlessness, 
 with magnificent frenzy, of realizing by his im- 
 agination the fabulous existence of the ancient 
 demi-gods. Through quite a different side, he 
 withdrew within himself, analyzed, humbled, 
 and belittled himself at pleasure ; he effaced 
 himself with disheartening humility ; he was one 
 of those souls born Christian, so to speak, who 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 45 
 
 have need of accusing themselves, of repenting, 
 of finding outside of themselves a love full of 
 pity and " compassion," who have gone early to 
 confession, and will always need to confess. I 
 have known souls of this kind ; and I once hap- 
 pened to describe one in a romance which this 
 secret affinity made Gu6rin receive with indul- 
 gence. He also was of the race of Ren6, but 
 only partly so, to this extent, that he did not be- 
 lieve himself to be of a superior nature ; very 
 far from that, he believed that he felt himself 
 to be poor, infirm, " pitiable," and, even on 
 his best days, of a nature "apart rather than 
 superior." 
 
 " To be loved as I am," he murmured to him- 
 self, " I should need to meet a soul willing to 
 stoop to its inferior, a strong soul which would 
 bow the knee before the weaker, not to adore 
 it, but to serve, console, and watch over it as 
 one would over the sick, — in fine, a soul en- 
 dowed with a sensibility humble as well as pro- 
 found, which should so far divest itself of that 
 pride, so natural even to love, as to bury its 
 heart in an obscure affection of which the world 
 would understand nothing ; to consecrate itself 
 to a feeble, languishing, and wholly introspective 
 being ; to be willing to concentrate all its rays 
 
46 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 upon a flower without splendor, frail and trem- 
 bling, which would indeed yield it those per- 
 fumes whose sweetness charms and penetrates, 
 but never those which intoxicate and exalt to 
 the blissful folly of ecstasy." 
 
 His friends struggled as much as was in their 
 power against this disheartened disposition, 
 whose paroxysms and internal ebb and flow he 
 disclosed to them at times with exquisite deli- 
 cacy and with appalling lucidity ; they urged 
 him, at this entrance into practical life, to form 
 for himself a plan of studies, to have a connected 
 purpose, to apply and concentrate his intel- 
 lectual powers according to some method and 
 on definite subjects. They hoped at one time to 
 obtain for him a chair of comparative literature 
 which it was proposed to establish at the College 
 de Juilly, then under the direction of M. de 
 Scorbiac and M. de Salinis ; but this idea was not 
 carried out, and Gu6rin had to content himself 
 with a temporary class at the College Stanislas, 
 and with a few lessons which he gave here and 
 there. A cordial Breton friend, who was in 
 Paris (M. Paul Quemper), had taken it upon 
 himself to smooth away his first difficulties ; and 
 in this he succeeded. Having conceded this 
 much to material necessities, Guerin took refuge 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 47 
 
 all the more during his leisure hours in the life 
 of the heart and the fancy ; he revelled in his 
 own nature. Withdrawn as if in his " burrow," 
 into a small garden of the Rue d'Anjou, near the 
 Rue de la P6piniSre, he carried himself back in 
 thought to the sublime and charming sights 
 which he had brought away with him from the 
 land of the West. In his weariness he embraced 
 the trunk of his lilac-tree " as the sole being in 
 this world upon whom he could lean his faltering 
 nature, as the only one capable of enduring his 
 embrace." But soon the air of that Paris, through 
 which he had to pass every day, worked upon 
 this disconsolate spirit of twenty-four. The at- 
 traction of the world grew upon him little by 
 little ; new friendships were formed which, with- 
 out obliterating the old ones, threw them uncon- 
 sciously into the background. Any one who met 
 him two years later, worldly, elegant, " fashion- 
 able " even, a conversationalist who could hold 
 his own with the most brilliant talkers, never 
 would have said on seeing him that it was " in 
 spite of himself" that he was this man of action. 
 There is nothing equal to these reformed cow- 
 ards as soon as they feel the spur. And at the 
 same time this talent, which he always persisted 
 in doubting, was being developed, was becoming 
 eiyboldened ; he finally applied it to original 
 
48 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 compositions, to actual creations ; the artist 
 properly so called was manifesting himself 
 within hiifl. 
 
 And here may the piety of a sister who has 
 presided over this monument erected to a tender 
 genius allow us to make a reflection. In the 
 just tribute which is paid to the memory of the 
 beloved dead, nothing unjust toward the living 
 should creep in ; and omission may be an injus- 
 tice. The three or four years that Gu6rin spent 
 in Paris, where he lived that life of privations 
 and struggles, of study and of the world, of va- 
 ried relationships, are in no wise years to be de- 
 spised or concealed. This life is one that many 
 among us have known, and still live. He lost, 
 doubtless, on one side ; he gained on the other. 
 He was in part faithless to the freshness of his 
 youthful impressions ; but, like all the faithless 
 ones who are not led too far astray, he only blos- 
 somed forth the better. Talent is a stem which 
 willingly implants itself in virtue, but which also 
 often shoots beyond and leaves it behind. It is 
 even rare that at its most brilliant moment it be- 
 longs wholly to virtue ; it is only to the breath 
 of passion that it gives out all its perfumes. 
 
 Retaining all his refinement of heart, all his 
 impressions of rural nature and of the country, 
 which from time to time he renewed by rapid 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 49 
 
 Journeys, Gu6rin, divided, from this time on, be- 
 tween two worships, — " the god of the city- and 
 that of the wilderness," — was in the best way 
 prepared to enter the field of art, to plan and 
 to venture upon a work. He continued, it is 
 true, to write in his journal that he did not be- 
 lieve himself talented ; he tried his best to dem- 
 onstrate it to himself in subtile and charming 
 pages, which went to prove this very talent. 
 But when he ventured to say these things to his 
 friends, men of intellect, professional men, men 
 of enthusiasm and of brilliant wit, to D'Aurevilly, 
 Scudo, Am6d6e Ren^e,* and some others, he 
 was pitilessly laughed at and chided, and what 
 was better still, his distrust of himself was re- 
 moved. He unwittingly borrowed from them 
 some of their energy and self-reliance. And 
 thus it was that one day he entered upon his 
 full powers. The idea of Le Centaure came 
 to him after several visits he had made with 
 M. Trebutien to the Musie des Antiques. He 
 was then reading Pausanias, and was astonished 
 at the multitude of objects described by the 
 
 ^ In a collection of verse published by M- Amedee 
 Renee in 1841, under the title of Heures de Pohie, there 
 is a beautiful piece written " a la Memoire de Maurice de 
 Guerin." In it his poetical nature is well characterized; 
 he is called malade d'infini. 
 
 4 
 
so Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 Greek antiquarian: "Greece," said he, " was 
 like, a great museum." We are here shown the 
 two orders, the two trains of ideas which met 
 and were joined together in him in fruitful 
 alliance. 
 
 Le Centaure is in no wise an imitation of 
 Ballanche ; it is an original conception, and pe- 
 culiar to Guerin. We have seen how he loved 
 to diffuse and almost to ramify himself through 
 Nature ; he was, at moments, like those wander- 
 ing plants whose roots float upon the surface of 
 the water, at the pleasure of the waves. He has 
 spoken many times of this drifting, roving sensa- 
 tion; there were days when, in his love of peace, 
 he envied " the strong and silent life that reigns 
 beneath the bark of the oaks." He dreamed of I 
 know not what metamorphosis into a tree ; but 
 this old man's destiny, this end worthy of Phile- 
 mon and of Baucis, and at most suited to the 
 wisdom of a Laprade, clashed with the ardent, 
 impetuous life of a young heart. So Gu6rin 
 had up to that time sought for his form of ex- 
 pression, but had not found it ; all at once it 
 was revealed to him, personified under the type 
 of the Centaur. Those great primitive organi- 
 zations in which Lucretius did not believe, and in 
 which Gu6rin makes us almost believe, — where 
 the genius of man was united to the still uncon- 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 51 
 
 quered force of the animal, and formed one with 
 it; by which Nature, scarcely risen from the 
 watery deep, was overrun, taken possession of, 
 or at least enkindled in their lawless and un- 
 ceasing coursing to and fro, — seemed to him 
 worthy of a sculptor, and of a listener capable 
 of repeating its mystery. He imagined the 
 last of the Centaurs on the summit of a moun- 
 tain, at the entrance to his cave, being ques- 
 tioned, and relating in his melancholy old age 
 the pleasures of his youthful days to a curious 
 mortal, to this diminutive Centaur called man ; 
 for man, regarding him in this fabulous and gran- 
 diose perspective, would be but a debased Cen- 
 taur made to stand upright. Nothing can equal 
 in power this dream of a few pages; nothing 
 can be compared to it in finish and classical 
 execution. 
 
 Gu6rin dreamed of doing more ; this was but 
 a beginning. He also created a Bacchante which 
 never has been found, a preliminary fragment of 
 some unknown prose poem, the title of which 
 was to be Bacchus dans VInde ; he was med- 
 itating a Hermaphrodite. The Galirie des 
 Antiques thus offered him the moulds wherein 
 henceforth he would pour all his sensations 
 gathered from the moors and the strands, and 
 shape them in forms tender or severe. His 
 
52 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 talent was entering upon its first phase. But 
 the artist in presence of his ideal temple was 
 able to make only the statue on its threshold ; 
 he was to fall as he took his first steps. Happy 
 in his recent marriage with a young and pretty 
 Creole, sure henceforth of a home and of leisure, 
 he was attacked by a real malady which ex- 
 plained only too well the cause of his habitual 
 weaknesses. That persistent lament of so rich 
 a nature was then understood : the germs of ex- 
 tinction and of early death which were planted 
 at the very centre of his physical organization, 
 at the very roots of life, had often betrayed 
 themselves in his moral states by that inexpressi- 
 ble feeling of discouragement and weakness. 
 This noble youth, carried, dying, to the south of 
 France, passed away during the summer of 
 1839, at the moment when he once more beheld 
 his native sky, and where he felt anew all the 
 freshness of early love and piety. The guar- 
 dian angels of his family watched and prayed 
 by his bedside and brought consolation to his 
 last moments. He was but twenty-nine years 
 old. The two volumes which are to-day given 
 to the world will make him live ; and, as a just 
 compensation for a future so cruelly cut short, 
 that which was dispersed here and there, that 
 which was written and noted down for himself 
 
Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. 53 
 
 alone, which he did not have time to fashion 
 and transform by the rules of art, becomes his 
 brightest crown, — one which, if I mistake not, 
 will never fade. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, 
 of the Acadimie Frangaise. 
 
 Note by the Translator. — In many cases, the 
 quotations made by Sainte-Beuve from the Journal of 
 Maurice de Guerin differ from the text of the Journal as 
 published by M. Trebutien. The following are all the 
 variations in Sainte-Beuve's citations, with the exception of 
 a few words scattered here and there, such as : les furies 
 du ventf instead of les secousses du vent; qui n'itaient 
 guire plus apparents,vc\^t^2Aai pas plus apparents ; pour 
 oiler, instead of pour se rendre ; le bonheur, instead of les 
 fiUcitSs, — etc. 
 
 Page 9, line 24, under March 3, radieux is added by 
 Sainte-Beuve after Le soleil s'est montre. 
 
 Page 14, line 23, under March 28, the following words 
 are omitted : soit qu'elle rie et se pare dans les beaux jours. 
 These omitted words are necessary to the sense of what 
 follows. 
 
 Page 33, line l8, et solitaire are added after religieuse. 
 
 Pages 33, 34, the following words are added : d^un c6ti 
 sur I'Ocian, et de I' autre sur les hois ; et cette figure est une 
 rlalite, car elle est b&tie sur le bord de la mer. 
 
 Page 34, line S> 'ci is used instead of sous ce toil. 
 
 Pages 35, 36, four lines are added between les furies du 
 vent and Le tumulte immense de la mer. 
 
 Pages 36, 37, fotirteen lines are added, beginning with 
 the paragraph, A quelques pas de nous, and ending the 
 quotation. 
 
JOURNAL 
 
 MAURICE DE GUfiRIN. 
 
JOURNAL. 
 
 (July, i8} 2— October, 1835.) 
 
 Cayla, July 10, 1832. 
 TT is now almost three months and a half that I 
 •*■ have been in the country, under the parental 
 roof, at home (delicious English expression which 
 sums up all the che^ sot), in the centre of an hori- 
 zon dear to me. I have seen the springtime, — 
 the spring, exuberant, unfettered, free from all 
 restraint, scattering flowers and verdure with 
 wayward fancy, racing like a playful child over 
 our hills and dales, unfolding sublime concep- 
 tions and graceful fancies, merging similarities, 
 harmonizing contrasts, after the manner of great 
 artists, or rather as a type for them. I have re- 
 clined in the depths of the woods, by the side of 
 the brooks, on the brow of the hills ; again have 
 I trodden all those paths where as a child my 
 rapid footsteps flitted with all the carelessness of 
 youth. To-day I have trodden them with a 
 firmer step ; I have lingered upon the traces of 
 
58 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 my early footprints ; I have started anew on my 
 pilgrimage, with thoughtfulness and devotion, — 
 with the thoughtfulness inspired by old memo- 
 ries, and with the devotion aroused in the soul 
 by its first impressions of nature. 
 
 jo/ft. — There are books which never should 
 be read again. I have chosen Reni to re-read 
 on one of the most disenchanted days of my 
 life, when my heart seems dead within me, — a 
 day of days most profitless and waste, — to test 
 the whole power of this book upon the soul ; and 
 I have found that its power is great. This read- 
 ing has refreshed my spirit like a torrential rain. 
 
 I find a limitless charm in returning to my 
 early readings, — those passionate readings from 
 sixteen to nineteen. I love to draw tears from 
 the almost exhausted springs of my youth. 
 
 August 4th. — To-day I complete my twenty- 
 second year. Often have I seen in Paris little 
 children carried to their rest in their tiny coffins, 
 thus passing through the great crowd. Ah, 
 would that I had passed through the world as 
 they did, buried in the innocence of my coffin 
 and in the oblivion of the life of a day 1 Those 
 little angels know nothing of earth ; they are 
 born in heaven. My father has told me that in 
 my childhood he often saw my soul hovering on 
 my lips ready to take wing. God and parental 
 
Journal. 59 
 
 love called it back to the trials of life. Gratitude 
 and love to both ! But I cannot help regretting 
 that heaven where I might have been, and which 
 now I can reach only by the devious path of hu- 
 man experience. 
 
 i3</i. — I am weak, strangely weak 1 How 
 many times, even since grace has led me, have I 
 not fallen like a child without leading-strings ! 
 My soul is feeble beyond all that can be imag- 
 ined. It is the consciousness of my weakness 
 that makes me seek shelter, and gives me the 
 strength to break away from the world so as 
 more surely to be with God. Two days in the 
 great world, in Paris, would bring to nought all 
 my resolutions ! I must then hide them, bury 
 them, screen them in the shadow of seclusion. 
 Among all the places of refuge open to souls in 
 need of escape, none is better suited to me than 
 the house of M. de Lamennais, the abode of 
 learning and piety. 
 
 When I reflect upon it, I blush at my own life, 
 which I have so misused. I have sullied my 
 humanity. Happily there were two sides to my 
 soul ; only halfway did I plunge into wrong. 
 While one part of me grovelled on the earth, the 
 other part, above all stain, high and serene, 
 gathered in, drop by drop, that poetry which, if 
 God gives me the time, will one day flow forth. 
 
6o Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 For me everything centres there. To poetry I 
 owe everything, since there is no other word to 
 express my thoughts as a whole ; I owe to it all 
 that is pure and high and strong still remaining 
 in my soul ; I owe to it all consolation that has 
 ever come to me ; I shall perhaps owe to it my 
 future. 
 
 I feel that my friendship for L is strong 
 
 to-day, after having passed through the extrava- 
 gances of college life and the frenzy of our first 
 entrance into the world. It is becoming as 
 serious as time, and as sweet as a fruit at its 
 maturity. 
 
 La ChSnaie, February 6th, 1833. 
 I have finished reading the first volume of 
 Goethe's Memoirs. This book has left varying 
 impressions on my mind. My imagination 
 is deeply moved by Marguerite, by Lucinda, 
 by Fr6d6rica. Klopstock, Herder, Wieland, 
 Gellert, Gleim, Burger, — that burst of German 
 poetry which rises, so beautiful and so national, 
 toward the middle of the eighteenth century, all 
 that fermentation of thought in German minds, 
 is deeply interesting, especially in view of the 
 present period, so fruitful and so glorious for 
 Germany. But a bitter thought arises while 
 following the details of the education of the 
 
Journal. 6i 
 
 young men and the march of their intellectual 
 development, as it is understood in that country ; 
 and this bitterness comes from a comparison 
 with French education. Ten years of my life 
 I wasted in college, and, on leaving, carried 
 away with me, besides a few scraps of Latin 
 and Greek, an immense mass of ennui. Such 
 is nearly the result of all college education in 
 France. They place the authors of antiquity in 
 the hands of the youth ; that is all very well. 
 But do they teach them to understand, to appre- 
 ciate antiquity ? Have they ever unfolded to 
 them the relation which these magnificent litera- 
 tures bear to Nature, to religious dogmas, to 
 philosophic systems, to the fine arts, to the 
 civilization of ancient peoples > Have they 
 ever guided their intellects link by link along 
 that beautiful chain which binds together all the 
 parts of a people's civilization, and forms it into 
 a magnificent whole, where all the details con- 
 nect and mutually reflect and explain one an- 
 other? What professor, in reading to his pupils 
 Homer or Virgil, has explained the poetry of the 
 Iliad or the jEneid by the poetry of Nature 
 under the sky of Greece or of Italy ? Who 
 has dreamed of illustrating poets by philoso- 
 phers, philosophers by poets, these by artists, 
 Plato by Homer, Homer by Pheidias ? They 
 
62 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 isolate these great geniuses ; they disjoint a 
 literature and then fling to you its scattered 
 members, without taking the trouble to tell you 
 what place they filled, what relations they held 
 in the great organization from which they were 
 detached. Children have a special fondness for 
 cutting out pictures which chance to fall into 
 their hands. They separate the figures from one 
 another with great skill ; their scissors follow 
 every outline with the utmost precision, and the 
 group thus divided is distributed among the 
 little circle, because each one wants a picture. 
 The work of our professors is not far different 
 from that of the children ; and an author thus 
 separated from his surroundings is just as diffi- 
 cult to understand as is the figure cut out by the 
 children and detached from the general compo- 
 sition and from the lights and shadows of the 
 picture. After this, is it surprising that studies 
 should be so empty, so insufficient ? What 
 could remain other than disgust and wellnigh 
 hatred of study, after having been long and re- 
 lentlessly chained to the letter, — a letter dead, 
 and almost devoid of sense? In Germany, on 
 the contrary, a broad philosophy presides over 
 literary studies, and sheds over the early work 
 of youth a fragrant unction which cherishes 
 and develops the love of science. 
 
Journal. 63 
 
 Well, take heart 1 I am so used to farewells, 
 to separations I Ah, but this one is too hard 1 
 No, it is not too hard, for there is no trial, how- 
 ever great, which does not develop in the soul 
 an equal power of endurance. I shall suffer, 
 but I shall keep my word. 
 
 March ^rd. — I began to write in this notebook 
 on the loth of July, i8p, and have returned to it 
 only at long intervals. These eight months have 
 been passed in the most cruel sufferings of the 
 soul. I have written little because my powers 
 were almost crushed. Had my trials left a little 
 liberty to my intellect, I should have made some 
 very curious observations on moral suffering ; 
 but I was stunned by sorrow. I think that the 
 spring will do me great good. As the sun rises 
 higher in his course and sheds his vital heat over 
 all Nature, the grasp of sorrow loses some of its 
 force. I feel its bonds loosening, and my soul, 
 so long compressed and almost stifled, is gradu- 
 ally expanding and unfolding itself to breathe. 
 
 This day has enchanted me. For the first 
 time in many days the sun has shown himself 
 in all his beauty. He has opened the buds of 
 leaves and flowers, and has awakened in my 
 breast a thousand sweet thoughts. 
 
 Again the clouds take on their light and grace- 
 ful forms, and outline charming fancies against 
 
64 Maurice de Gmrin. 
 
 the azure of the sky. The woods have not yet 
 put forth their leaves, but they have assumed 
 such a gay and lively air that it gives them quite 
 a new aspect. Everything is preparing for the 
 great holiday of Nature. 
 
 /^th. — I see some workmen who are digging 
 in the garden. These poor people wear them- 
 selves out in this way all through their lives, 
 just to earn enough to buy their daily bread, — 
 their bread so dry and black. What a mystery 
 is that of all these rude and lowly lives ! and 
 they form almost the whole of the human race. 
 The day will come when all these drudges of the 
 world will stretch out toward it their black and 
 callous hands, cracked by the handles of their 
 tools, and will say, " Lord, you who have said, 
 ' Blessed are the poor and lowly,' behold us 1 " 
 
 To You, good God, we make our last appeal. 
 
 6ik. — 6lie ' and I have had a long talk. 
 Always full of enthusiasm for travel, we made a 
 pilgrimage to America. We ascended the great 
 rivers, sailed across the lakes, and roved among 
 the forests in the footprints of Natty Bumpo and 
 Cooper's other heroes, — delightful reminis- 
 cences. We returned to Europe, — prodigious 
 fermentation of society. How infinite are the 
 thoughts which pass through the human mind, 
 ' £lie de Kertanguy died in 1846. 
 
Journal. 6$ 
 
 through all minds, from the highest angelic 
 powers down to ourselves, and perhaps below 
 us . . who knows ? What an ocean of thought 
 pulsates before God. What is a single human 
 mind separated from this immensity, or even 
 this immensity itself before the eternal thought, 
 God ? Nothingness ! There is a man who has 
 pondered over all these things, who has lowered 
 his genius into depths of humility, and whose 
 soul is so strong that he writes, not for the glory 
 of the world, but for the good of the world, 
 without shrinking and without yielding. In him 
 we see the mysterious struggles of genius ; to 
 him was given a mission, a martyrdom. God 
 has, in a way, revealed to him the lowest depths 
 of society and all the secrets of the troubles 
 which devour it. He saw all this, but for some 
 time he did not know how to reach diseased 
 society, and was a prey to great sadness, to a 
 kind of agony. At last he found what he sought 
 for, and joy returned to him. He fulfilled his 
 great mission. Oh, whoever could realize the 
 fierce contest in his soul, could not sufficiently 
 admire such devotion, for the internal powers 
 of this man are ceaselessly struggling with 
 thoughts which would crush powers other than 
 his own ; but he has received the apostleship 
 and he announces the good tidings, like Saint 
 5 
 
66 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 Paul: "For, though I preach the gospel, I 
 have nothing to glory of : for necessity is laid 
 upon me ; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not 
 the gospel ! " (i Cor. ix. i6.) 
 
 From all this we drew the conclusion, that 
 there is a necessity, an indispensable law, weigh- 
 ing upon each one of us, to fulfil our social mis- 
 sion, however narrow, however imperceptible it 
 may be. We all owe to the general good, not 
 only the sacrifice of our passions, but the sacri- 
 fice of our innocent tastes, of our plans for indi- 
 vidual happiness, if this happiness is to be idle 
 and useless to our fellow-men. We glanced at 
 that sweet and peaceful existence which lies hid- 
 den in the bosom of the family; but it was a 
 glance of sacrifice, resolved as we are to choose 
 our place where we can do the greatest good. 
 
 This talk has strengthened my weak and fal- 
 tering powers. My heart is filled with unknown 
 sweetness, and my soul revives within me, like 
 a patient, who, after having drank a beneficial 
 draught, settles down in bed with a sense of 
 satisfaction, which is in reality only an expres- 
 sion of hope. 
 
 8//i. — A day of snow. A southeasterly wind 
 whirls it into eddies, into great columns of daz- 
 zling whiteness. It melts as it falls. Here we 
 are, carried back into the very heart of winter. 
 
Journal. 67 
 
 after a few smiles of spring. The wind is quite 
 cold ; the little singing-birds, so newly come, 
 shiver with the cold, as do the flowers. The 
 cracks in the partitions and in the windows wail 
 as in January, and I, in my sorry covering, 
 shrink as Nature does. 
 
 9</j. — More snow, showers, gusts of wind, 
 cold. Poor Brittany, thou indeed hast need 
 of a little verdure to gladden thy sombre 
 countenance. Oh, throw off quickly thy winter 
 cloak and don for me thy spring mantle woven 
 of leaves and flowers 1 When shall I see the 
 folds of thy robe floating at the will of the 
 winds .'' 
 
 I have been reading Homer, and the exploits 
 of the Norman heroes in Italy and in Sicily. 
 Achilles, Diomedes, Ulysses, Robert Guiscard, 
 Roger, have met and have greeted one another. 
 
 10th. — "This, indeed, is the only honour 
 we pay to woful mortals, — to cut the hair, 
 and to pour down the tear from the cheeks " 
 (Odyssey iv. 197). 
 
 wih. — It has snowed all night. When I 
 arose, I had a glimpse, through my badly closed 
 shutters, of that great white sheet which had 
 silently spread itself over the fields. The black 
 tree-trunks rise like columns of ebony from 
 an ivory court ; this hard and sharp contrast 
 
68 Maurice de Gmrin. 
 
 and the dismal aspect of the woods are pecu- 
 liarly saddening. Nothing is to be heard, — not 
 a living thing except a few sparrows which, 
 twittering as they fly, seek refuge among the fir- 
 trees that stretch out their long arms laden with 
 snow. The centre of these dense trees is im- 
 penetrable to frost ; it is a shelter prepared 
 by Providence, and full well the little birds 
 know it. 
 
 I have taken a look at our primroses ; each 
 one bore its little burden of snow with head 
 bent under the weight. These pretty flowers, 
 so rich in colouring, produced a charming effect 
 under their white hoods. I saw whole clusters 
 covered with a single mass of snow ; all these 
 laughing flowers, thus veiled and bending over 
 one another, looked like a group of young girls 
 surprised by a shower and taking refuge under a 
 white apron. 
 
 I was expecting a letter to-night ; I did not 
 receive one, but a friend arrived. It would be 
 most interesting to notice whether in the small- 
 est sorrows of life Providence did not prepare 
 for us compensations which our ill-humour and 
 our injustice prevent us from appreciating. 
 
 i2th. — " I did but taste a little honey with 
 the end of the rod that was in mine hand, and, 
 lo, I must die " (i Sam. xiv. 43). 
 
Journal. 69 
 
 i<)th. — We live too little within ourselves; 
 we scarcely live there at all. What has become 
 of that inner eye which God has given us to 
 watch constantly over our soul, to be the wit- 
 ness of the mysterious play of thought, of the 
 ineffable movement of life in the tabernacle of 
 humanity ? It is closed, it sleeps ; and we open 
 wide our earthly eyes, but we understand noth- 
 ing of Nature, because we do not use that sense 
 which would reveal it to us, reflected in the di- 
 vine mirror of the soul. There is no contact 
 between Nature and ourselves ; we have an 
 understanding only of its external forms, and 
 not of its meaning, its inward language, its 
 beauty in so far as it is eternal and partakes of 
 God, — all of which might be clearly pictured 
 and mirrored in the soul, endowed as it is with a 
 marvellous power of reflection. Oh, this con- 
 tact of Nature and the soul would produce inef- 
 fable rapture, a wonderful love of heaven and of 
 Godl 
 
 To descend into the human soul and to cause 
 Nature to descend into this soul. 
 
 \i)th. — I have been reading in U Europe Lit- 
 Uraire some remarkable thoughts. It is there 
 said that the intellectual zones are becoming 
 more and more obliterated ; that the great in- 
 tellects scattered over the globe are beginning to 
 
70 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 understand one another ; that everything is tend- 
 ing toward a vast republic of human thought ; 
 and further on, that the ancients had a genuine 
 appreciation of the general features of the human 
 soul and of Nature ; that out of these they formed 
 an external, plastic, formal poetry ; but that the 
 age of internal, profound, analytical poetry has 
 come. . . . These thoughts are not entirely new, 
 and have been current in the world for some 
 time ; but it is well to realize, so far as possible, 
 the great movement which is being worked out, 
 and to formulate it. 
 
 ic)th. — A walk in the forest of Coetquen. 
 I came upon a spot quite remarkable for its 
 wildness : the road descends by a sudden decliv- 
 ity into a narrow ravine where a little stream 
 flows over a bed of slate, which gives to the 
 waters a blackish tinge disagreeable at first 
 sight, but which ceases to be so when you 
 notice how it harmonizes with the black trunks 
 of the old oaks, with the sombre foliage of the 
 ivy, and how it contrasts with the smooth white 
 limbs of the birches. A high north wind swept 
 over the forest and made it utter deep roarings. 
 The trees writhed in the blasts of the wind like 
 madmen. Through the branches we could see 
 the clouds coursing rapidly past in strange black 
 masses, and seeming to graze the tree-tops. At 
 
Journal. yi 
 
 times there would come in this great, sombre, 
 floating veil a rift through which a ray of sun- 
 shine darted and glided into the heart of the 
 forest like a lightning-flash. These sudden, pass- 
 ing gleams of light gave to these depths, so 
 majestic in their gloom, something strange and 
 haggard, like a smile on the Ifps of death. 
 
 20th. — Winter takes leave of us smiling ; he 
 bids us farewell with a glorious sun resplendent 
 in a sky as clear and pure as a Venetian glass. 
 Time has taken one more step toward its goal. 
 Oh, that it might, like the steeds of the Immor- 
 tals, reach in four bounds the limits of its 
 course ! 
 
 I have finished reading the first volume of the 
 Histoire des Ripubliques Italiennes. It is a fine 
 sight to see liberty rising from the ruins of 
 the Roman empire, and seating herself, with 
 cross in hand, on the borders of the seas, at 
 Venice, at Genoa, and at Pisa. She first ap- 
 peared at Amalfi, at Naples, at Gaeta ; but the 
 kings expelled her. She then bade a long fare- 
 well to Southern Italy, and, coasting along the 
 shore, settled at the north. Sismondi has failed 
 to appreciate this fine drama of Italian liberty ; 
 he has not understood the character of the 
 highest personage, of the true hero in this great 
 scene, — the Pope. Those actors to whom 
 
72 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 belongs the principal r6le he relegates almost 
 among the supernumeraries. He represents the 
 sovereign pontiffs as vulgarly ambitious men, as 
 quarrelsome barons, with tiara on head and 
 crozier in hand. This is a painful void in his 
 work which makes itself felt at every page. He 
 also pays off in very poor coin the Countess 
 Matilda for her beautiful devotion to the cause 
 of the Popes, and consequently to that of Italian 
 liberty. 
 
 215/. — A pleasure exhausted. I have read 
 the last page of the Etudes de la Nature. It is 
 one of those books which one wishes would 
 never come to an end. From it there is little 
 to be gained for science, but much for poetry, 
 for the elevation of the soul, and to aid in the 
 contemplation of Nature. This book clears and 
 enlightens a sense which we all possess, but 
 which is veiled, vague, and almost deprived of 
 activity, — that sense which gathers in physical 
 beauties and conveys them to the soul, which 
 spiritualizes them, harmonizes them, and com- 
 bines them with ideal beauties, and thus enlarges 
 its sphere of love and adoration. 
 
 Why should we ever complain of our isola- 
 tion ? For a long time I was possessed with 
 this folly. For then I was living a mistaken 
 life ; I had established false relations between 
 
Journal. 73 
 
 the creation and my soul, and I suffered greatly, 
 because creation refused me Us treasures of de- 
 light, and, owing to these false relations, repelled 
 me from its intimacy. In deepest solitude I was 
 plunged in grief ; the earth seemed to me worse 
 than a bare, desert island in the heart of a wild 
 ocean. It was a silence to terrify. Folly, pure 
 folly 1 There is no isolation for him who knows 
 how to take his place in the universal harmony, 
 and to open his soul to all the impressions of 
 this harmony. We then go so far as to feel 
 almost physically that we live of God and in 
 God : the soul drinks of this universal life till 
 it loses breath ; it floats in it like the fish in 
 the sea. 
 
 Let us abjure the worship of idols ; let us turn 
 our backs on all the artificial gods, laden with 
 carmine and with false ornaments, on all these 
 images which have mouths, but do not speak. 
 Let us adore Nature, free, ingenuous, and ex- 
 cluding none. Good God 1 can one poetize in 
 presence of the boundless poetry of the uni- 
 verse ? The Lord has made for you your 
 poesy : it is creation 1 Do you expect to know 
 more about it than He does ? 
 
 22nd. — A profitless day ; the letter which 
 reached me last evening has completely paralyzed 
 me. It is somewhat severe, but full of good 
 
74 Matirice de Guerin. 
 
 counsels. Unfortunately, I am so constituted 
 that the best remedies fail to affect me, and 
 what is far more strange, they sometimes aggra- 
 vate my condition. And thus this letter, in 
 touching my most sensitive wounds for the pur- 
 pose of healing them, has set astir within me a 
 vibration of all my past sufferings. All my 
 bitter memories have been awakened with a 
 start ; in a few hours I have reproduced my 
 trials of ten years, and have reproduced them, 
 not in spirit, but in real and deep sensations. 
 So long as these sad things remain stamped on 
 my memory, my new life will be barren and apa- 
 thetic. The least thing throws me back among 
 these remembrances and leads to crises which 
 exhaust and unman me. True, this past I speak 
 of is still so near that it covers me with the 
 whole length of its shadow. I hope that as I 
 leave it behind me its present power will be- 
 come weaker, and that at last I shall be freed 
 from its influence. Still, I persist in thinking 
 that there is within me such an organic defect, 
 such disorganization, that I shall never be com- 
 pletely restored. My timid, restless, analytical 
 side is too deep-rooted ever to leave me any 
 rest. Perhaps, by dint of loving God, I may 
 succeed in taking from it some of its power. It 
 would be bearable were I alone to suffer from 
 
Journal. 75 
 
 it ; but those whom I love, and who are good 
 enough to love me, suffer from it also. I dis- 
 tress them, and this is my greatest misfortune. 
 
 Very slowly do I advance on the side of intel- 
 ligence. I have a thousand intuitions, but it is 
 torment rather than progress. I read slowly, 
 and never without anxious preoccupations ; even 
 the contemplation of ravishing Nature cannot 
 lull those thoughts which incessantly buzz, like 
 mosquitoes, around my soul. I have to force 
 myself to the study of languages, for which I 
 am, nevertheless, eager. I am backward in all 
 things, and yet I feel something strongly spur- 
 ring me on. 
 
 2/^ih. — E came to me deeply moved, 
 
 with tears in his eyes. — " What troubles you } " 
 — " M. Fdi^ startled me."—" How?" — "He 
 was seated behind the chapel under the two 
 Scotch fir-trees ; he took his stick and outlined 
 a grave on the turf, saying to me, ' It is here 
 I wish to lie ; but no tombstone, only a simple 
 grassy mound. Oh, how good to be there ! ' I 
 thought he was feeling ill ; that he foresaw his 
 approaching end. For that matter, this is not 
 the first time that he has been troubled with 
 presentiments ; on leaving for Rome, he said to 
 us : 'I do not expect to see you again ; do the 
 1 The familiar name of M. de Lamennais. 
 
76 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 good which I have not been able to do.' He 
 is impatient to die. This is such a sad world 
 for all Christian souls, and especially for a 
 Christian soul like his." 
 
 ibth. — A young man of Dauphiny, Henri 
 Guillermard by name, addresses to me some 
 verses on the subject of a few stanzas on Poland, 
 published in L'Avenir, eighteen months ago. 
 It is rather a droll experience to have one's 
 amour-propre roused after so long a time and 
 for so small a thing. 
 
 27^/1. — I am travelling very well along my 
 new road. At times I experience great weari- 
 ness ; but God soon restores my courage, doubt- 
 less because I have come to confide more in 
 His great goodness. My work is becoming 
 more sure and calm ; varied knowledge enters 
 my mind, without confusion and tumult, peace- 
 fully and in good order. 
 
 I experience great delight in combining and 
 mingling the study of ancient and modern art. 
 The union and co-operation of these two studies 
 is fraught with wonderful charm. This recalls 
 to my mind a print in which a beautiful child is 
 leading Homer by the hand. 
 
 2Qth. — Every time that we allow ourselves to 
 be penetrated by Nature, our soul is opened to 
 the most touching impressions. Whether Na- 
 
Journal. jy 
 
 ture smiles and adorns herself on her most 
 beautiful days, or whether she becomes pale, 
 gray, cold, and rainy, in autumn and in winter, 
 there is something in her which moves not only 
 the surface of the soul, but even its inmost 
 depths, and awakens a thousand memories 
 which to all appearance have no connection 
 with the outward scene, but which doubtless 
 hold communion with the soul of Nature through 
 sympathies unknown to us. Lying in a grove 
 of beeches, and breathing the warm air of 
 spring, I experienced to-day this wonderful 
 power. 
 
 2C)th. — Yesterday we extended our walk 
 farther than usual. M. Gerbet, Mermet, and I 
 reconnoitred to the north as far as the height of 
 Saint-H61en. This is a sort of belvedere from 
 which the view extends over a vast horizon, 
 sombre and monotonous to the south and east. 
 Northward stretches the coast of the ocean, de- 
 fined by a long and straight blue line. A little 
 to the northeast, through an opening in the hills, 
 we had a glimpse of the bay of Cancale. The 
 waters, lighted by the rays of the sun, shone 
 brilliantly and formed a line of light, by which 
 we could distinguish them from the bluish coast 
 of Normandy. Westward, we could see Dinan 
 far away, with its tall spires half veiled by the 
 
78 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 mist which always hangs over cities in the dis- 
 tant plains. In the same direction white country- 
 houses stood out from a sombre background, 
 and by their side invariably rose a clump of 
 fir-trees which looked like a huge black giant 
 mounting guard by the fireside. At intervals 
 all along the horizon, pointed steeples pierced 
 the air and rose like towers in this immense 
 rampart. I was delighted with our excursion 
 for having opened up to me this grand pano- 
 rama, but especially for having given me a 
 glimpse of the ocean. 
 
 }oth. — Oh ! c'est un beau spectacle d ravir la 
 pensde, — this immense circulation of life within 
 the broad bosom of Nature, this life which 
 springs from an invisible fountain and swells the 
 veins of the universe ; obeying its upward im- 
 pulse, it rises from kingdom to kingdom, ever 
 becoming purer and nobler, to beat at last in 
 the heart of man, the centre into which flow 
 from all sides its thousand currents. There it 
 meets the Divinity ; there, as on the altar where 
 incense is burned, it evaporates, through an in- 
 effable sacrifice, into the bosom of God. I feel 
 as if deep and marvellous things could be said 
 on the sacrifice of Nature in the heart of man 
 and on the eucharistic immolation in this same 
 heart. The simultaneousness of these two 
 
Journal. 79 
 
 sacrifices and the absorption of the one into the 
 other on the same altar, this meeting of God 
 and of all creation in humanity, would, it seems 
 to me, open up deep and lofty vistas : sublimitas 
 el profitndum. 
 
 ^isi. — The love which speaks and sings and 
 sighs in one part of creation is revealed in the 
 other half in the form of flowers. All this efHo- 
 rescence, with its wealth of forms and colours and 
 perfumes, which gives splendor to the fields, is 
 the expression of love, is love itself, which cele- 
 brates its sweet mysteries in the bosom of every 
 flower. The blossoming branch, the bird that 
 perches thereon to sing or to build his nest, the 
 man who gazes at the branch and at the bird, are 
 all moved by the same principle at different de- 
 grees of perfection. I was reading in Herder 
 that flowers perish immediately after fecunda- 
 tion ; that birds lose their song, their gayety, 
 and some even the brilliant colouring of their 
 plumage, after the nesting season ; and that 
 man rapidly declines toward old age when the 
 period of passion is ended. There is much 
 food for reflection in this law of decay so in- 
 timately connected with the law of love and of 
 reproduction. 
 
 April 2nd. — The clouds have sent us rain all 
 the day long. It has fallen, now in violent 
 
8o Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 showers, now in the gentle rustling of a fine 
 dew. Still the blackbirds and the warblers, 
 all the songsters, whistle and chatter and sing. 
 Sometimes the clouds open and show great clear 
 patches of sky through which the sun pours 
 down floods of light. Then the clouds that fill 
 the lower heavens glow, their successive and 
 drifting ranks gradually retreating, but with their 
 tints obscured and toned down by reason of 
 their distance, until at length the beams die 
 out against a huge mass which hangs motion- 
 less over the southeastern horizon, touching its 
 projections with dazzling light and leaving its 
 deep recesses in shadow. 
 
 4//i. — A very rainy morning. Spring is tak- 
 ing a bad turn. Toward one o'clock the sky 
 cleared, and we had a few moments of sunshine 
 and penetrating heat. Again the clouds begin 
 to invade the sky. I saw their gray heads ris- 
 ing above the horizon ; in the twinkling of an 
 eye we shall have lost the azure ; they are flying 
 toward the east. I am very fond of this racing 
 aspect of the clouds ; some seem to exchange 
 glances as though to challenge one another to a 
 trial of speed. 
 
 5</i. — A day as beautiful as one could wish ; 
 some clouds, but only enough to make a land- 
 scape of the sky. More and more do they 
 
Journal. 8 1 
 
 assume their summer forms. Their different 
 groups hang beneath the sun immovable, like 
 flocks of sheep in the pastures during the great 
 heat. I saw a swallow, and I heard the hum- 
 ming of the bees on the flowers. While seated 
 in the sunshine so as to be penetrated to the 
 very marrow by the divine spring, I experienced 
 some of the impressions of my childhood ; for a 
 moment I looked upon the sky with its clouds, 
 the earth with its woods, its songs, its hum- 
 mings, as I then did. This renewal of the first 
 aspect of things, of the physiognomy which our 
 first glances found in them, is, to me, one of the 
 sweetest reactions of childhood upon the current 
 of life. 
 
 Oh, my God, what is my soul doing in thus 
 giving itself up to such fugitive delights on Holy 
 Friday, on this day so full of Thy death and of 
 our redemption ? There is within me I know 
 not what evil spirit which excites in me a great 
 loathing, and drives me, so to speak, to rebel 
 against the holy exercises and the self-commu- 
 nion of the soul which should prepare us for the 
 great solemnities of the faith. We have been in 
 retreat for two days ; and I do nothing but grow 
 weary, my soul devoured by I know not what 
 thoughts, and embittered even against the routine 
 of the retreat. Ah, how well do I recognize in 
 6 
 
82 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 all this the old leaven, from which as yet I have 
 not cleansed my soul I 
 
 loth. — Three days have passed since the 
 great festival. One anniversary less of the death 
 and resurrection of the Saviour. Each year 
 thus bears away with it its solemn festivals ; 
 when, then, will come the everlasting festival ? 
 I have witnessed a most touching sight : Fran- 
 cois has brought us one of his friends whom he 
 has won over to the faith. This neophyte has 
 taken part in the exercises of our retreat, and on 
 Easter he received the Sacrament with us. 
 Frangois was overjoyed. This is a great 
 work for him to have accomplished. Francois 
 is very young ; he is scarcely twenty years old. 
 
 M . de la M is thirty and is married. There 
 
 is something very touching and almost na'ive in 
 
 M. de la IVI allowing himself to be thus led 
 
 to God by so young a man -, and this youthful 
 friendship which in Frangois becomes an apos- 
 tleship, is no less beautiful and touching. They 
 are country neighbours, often work together, 
 and write charming verses to each other on 
 the events of their family life or on their 
 friendship. 
 
 I have read with the most intense delight 
 Lucrbce Borgia. It is needless to say that 
 all that comes from Hugo is remarkable, and 
 
Journal. 83 
 
 bears the stamp of power. There is something 
 in the temper of his genius so surprising, so 
 brilliant, so bewildering, that after reading one 
 of his works, whether it be drama, ode, or 
 romance, we are filled with wonder, our souls 
 are deeply moved, and our minds greatly ex- 
 cited. All these compositions stir some of the 
 inmost fibres of humanity or probe some hidden 
 depth. Lucr&ce Borgia is far in advance of 
 the others. Hugo was right when he said, in 
 the Preface, that this drama would mark the 
 most important date in his literary career. In 
 fact, to me it seems as though his genius became 
 incarnated in this work. In it I find at the 
 highest point of realization the two genii which 
 possess his soul, — the one, fiery, irrepressible, 
 extreme in its impetuosity, taking pleasure in 
 all that is strange and horrible, rushing into per- 
 ilous and fantastic adventures where bloodshed 
 and encounters make one's hair stand on end, 
 fatalistic because its deviations carry it too high 
 in the ideal of humanity without bringing it near 
 enough to God ; the other calm, gentle, full of a 
 tenderness that is almost plaintive, laying hold 
 upon what is purest and highest in man and most 
 fruitful in virtue and goodness. The Odes 
 et Ballades, Notre-Dame de Paris, Hernani, 
 Han d'lslande, Les Feuilles d'Aulomne, are all 
 
84 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 stamped with this double character. These 
 contrarieties of his soul have a tendency to be- 
 come more and more individualized and to be 
 brought out into clearer relief. He has formu- 
 lated them in the Preface to his new drama, 
 and has expressed them as a sublime creation in 
 the drama itself. He will accomplish magnifi- 
 cent things with this dualism, but he will do 
 great harm if he induces others to use it as 
 he does. 
 
 I ^ i/i. — At last I have seen the ocean. C ^ 
 
 and I started on Thursday, at one o'clock, with 
 fine weather and a fresh breeze. We had seven 
 leagues to walk ; but we were so delighted to 
 be on our way to the sea that we cared little for 
 
 the length of the road. C uttered a cry of 
 
 joy ; this walk reminded him of the pedestrian 
 excursion which he made in the south of Ger- 
 many and in Switzerland. He greatly enjoys 
 this method of locomotion. " In this humble 
 guise," said he, " the traveller mingles with the 
 people. He enters the inns to refresh himself or 
 to rest ; he sleeps in the cottages ; he accosts 
 those who are travellers like himself ; and these 
 casual encounters on the dusty highway, these 
 men, each one of whom goes where God guides 
 
 1 M. Edmond de Cazelis, son of the famous orator of 
 the Assemble Constituante. 
 
Journal. 85 
 
 him, sometimes lead to touching confidences." 
 He then spoke with rapture of the beautiful 
 lakes and the lofty mountains. At the charming 
 little village of Chateauneuf, a beautiful view lay 
 before us : on one side, to the northwest, there 
 were rows of thickly wooded hills, each one 
 bearing its white house, and at the foot of the hills 
 the wide-spreading Ranee shone like a mirror 
 in the sun ; on the other side, to the east, a well- 
 cultivated and open plain lost itself in the hori- 
 zon. Here and there gleamed a few points of 
 precocious verdure ; and the red and lively col- 
 ouring of the woods showed that life and warmth 
 were rising to the brow of Nature, and that she 
 was ready to blossom forth. This grand specta- 
 cle, beautified by all the magic power of the sun, 
 led our conversation to the study and adoration 
 of Nature. I was delighted to hear C ex- 
 press on this subject precisely what I feel at the 
 bottom of my heart. He added : ''This great 
 mystery of the goodness of God, which is mani- 
 fested to all, good and bad, through this unfold- 
 ing of natural beauties and riches, is, in my 
 opinion, a great cause of hope for the destiny of 
 man in the next life." The thought of death 
 which came to us through these reflections 
 seemed so sweet and so consoling that we were 
 seized with a desire to die. We had lifted from 
 
86 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 the face of death that hideous mask thrown over 
 it by the terror of evil consciences ; and it smiled 
 upon us. Would it not be the same with all if 
 they were thrilled by a touch of love for celestial 
 things or even by a little curiosity ? He also said 
 to me : "I have been crowned with the greatest 
 blessings, and have grievously misused them ; 
 but such is my confidence in God that I feel sure 
 of my salvation." We continued our conversa- 
 tion very far along this line of thought. Then 
 we were led to talk of our inner life, of our strug- 
 gles, our way of taking life, etc. Little by little 
 
 the talk drifted onto poets and love. C 
 
 knows many things about Lamartine ; he has the 
 happiness to be his friend. He knows much 
 about love ; he has long and ardently loved, and 
 he loves still, but with a dawning disenchant- 
 ment. Lamartine, Hugo, Nodier, and the rest 
 led us to the gates of Saint-Malo, soothing in a 
 measure the cruel sufferings of my feet, squeezed 
 and torn as they were in boots which were 
 much too narrow. A little after sunset, we 
 came in view of the town. We caught sight of 
 it all at once at the turn of a street in Saint-Ser- 
 van. What struck me at first was a row of ves- 
 sels whose enormous bodies presented a black 
 frontage of forms scarcely distinguishable in 
 the darkness, but whose masts and ropes rising 
 
Journal. 87 
 
 against the sky outlined, as it were, embroideries 
 in the evening light. Behind these vessels we 
 espied a black mass encircled by ramparts. It 
 was Saint-Malo, a real sea-bird's nest ; and far- 
 ther on, though we could distinguish nothing, a 
 great monotonous voice : it was the ocean. We 
 reached the city by way of the beach, thanks to 
 the low tide ; we took rooms at the H6tel de 
 France, whence there was a view of the sea, 
 and for the first time in my life I fell asleep 
 with the ocean two hundred feet from my bed, 
 and under the spell of this great wonder. On 
 the morrow, quick to the sea. The tide was be- 
 ginning to come in ; still we had time to make on 
 foot the round of the rock on which Saint-Malo 
 rests. What I felt as I plunged my gaze into 
 this infinitude, it would be difficult to express. 
 The vision is too great for the soul ; she is terri- 
 fied at this mighty apparition and no longer 
 knows whither she goes. Yet I remember 
 that I first thought of God, then of the deluge, 
 of Columbus, of the continents beyond the deep, 
 of shipwrecks, of sea-fights, of Byron, of Ren6, 
 who embarked from Saint-Malo, and who, borne 
 away on these same billows that I was contem- 
 plating, fixed his gaze upon the grated window 
 where shone the lamp of the nun. Yet this first 
 visit was so short and the impression so turbulent, 
 
88 Maurice de Gueriti. 
 
 so confused, that nothing very positive or very 
 restful remained in my soul. After three hours, 
 which passed like a moment, we left on a small 
 boat which ascended the Ranee as far as Dinan, 
 and then completed our journey on foot, rather 
 tired in body, but happy in mind. 
 
 22n.d. — I have stumbled grievously, and I 
 find it difficult to recover from my distress. 
 With such emotions all work is impossible. 
 Everything becomes bitter, with such a taste of 
 gall in the mouth. Is it my fault? A little 
 perhaps. I ought not to have taken these 
 things so much to heart ; but it must also be 
 confessed that unless, one's spirit has been 
 completely crushed, unless it has been com- 
 pressed, cramped, wrung so as not to leave 
 within it one drop of the love of independence, 
 it is difficult to smother this cry of liberty, 
 or perhaps of pride. This little adventure 
 augurs very badly for my new life ; if so slight 
 a trial has exhausted my patience and all my 
 good resolutions, I cannot hope much for 
 my future resignation. Disenchantment has 
 again taken hold of me. All that smiled on 
 me yesterday frowns upon me to-day ; all that 
 was white is black ; what was clear is turbid. 
 My soul — 
 
 tf est plus qu'une onde obscure oil le sable a monti. 
 
Journal. 89 
 
 It is a misfortune to be tlius constituted. My 
 happiness must be pure and complete at all 
 points ; the slightest blemish disfigures it in my 
 eyes ; a dark cloud in the sky mars the entire 
 firmament. This is folly, and the most ill- 
 advised of all follies, for there are no such 
 joys in this world ; but it would seem as 
 though it were my lot to be as poor in illusions 
 as in realities. Fiat ! fiat ! 
 
 2i,rd. — The awakening of vegetation is won- 
 derfully slow. I am almost in a bad humour 
 with Nature, who seems to take pleasure in 
 making us lose patience. The larches, the 
 birches, two lilacs which we have in our garden, 
 the rose-bushes, and the hedges of hawthorn, 
 have scarcely any verdure ; all the rest is 
 sombre and sleeps almost as in winter, except 
 a few beeches, which, more spring-like than 
 their companions, begin to variegate the black 
 mass of the grove which borders the pond. 
 Still, all the birds have arrived ; the nightingales 
 sing night and day ; the sun shines wonder- 
 fully ; the winged insects buzz and whirl, — 
 everywhere is life and joy except in me. I 
 do not know from what strange inconsistency 
 it is that I have found it harder to live of 
 late than during the winter days, although even 
 then I was not free from trouble. I remind 
 
go Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 myself of a dead tree in the midst of a verdant 
 wood. 
 
 2a,th. — I have finished reading the Physio- 
 logie vigilale, by Candolle, 3 vols, in 8°. The 
 first treats of nutrition, the second of repro- 
 duction, the third of the influence of external 
 agents. Notwithstanding the chemistry which 
 occupies an important place in this work, es- 
 pecially in the first volume, and of which I do 
 not understand a word, I have taken lively 
 pleasure in reading it. An entirely new world 
 has been revealed to me, somewhat vague, it is 
 true, and one within which I have not taken 
 more than a step ; but, however that may be, 
 it is no small happiness to open up a new per- 
 spective in the contemplation of this world, and 
 to have a taste of the life and beauty of Nature. 
 An infinite number of details have escaped me, 
 but the impression which remains is precious. 
 It has redoubled my taste for the observation of 
 natural objects, and has drawn me toward an 
 inexhaustible source of consolation and of 
 poetry. Ah, what joy there must be in heaven, 
 since we take such deep delight in the merest 
 glimpse of the order and the vital energy of our 
 globe, which is so small. On the other hand, 
 trouble and anguish increase ; every day we run 
 against phenomena which we do not under- 
 
Journal. 91 
 
 stand, — vulgar phenomena, — and that is all 
 the more cruel. But we must be patient in view 
 of the future, and accustom our souls to know 
 how to live on little. 
 
 25//1. — It has just been raining. Nature is 
 fresh and radiant ; the earth seems to taste with 
 rapture the water which brings it life. One 
 would say that the throats of the birds had 
 also been refreshed by this rain ; their song 
 is purer, more vivacious, more brilliant, and 
 vibrates wonderfully in the air, which has 
 become most sonorous and resounding. The 
 nightingales, the bullfinches, the blackbirds, the 
 thrushes, the golden orioles, the finches, the 
 wrens, — all these sing and rejoice. A goose, 
 shrieking like a trumpet, adds by contrast to the 
 charm. The motionless trees seem to listen to 
 all these sounds. Innumerable apple-trees in full 
 bloom look like balls of snow in the distance ; 
 the cherry-trees, all white as well, rise like 
 pyramids or spread out like fans of flowers. 
 
 The birds seem at times to aim at those or- 
 chestral effects where all the instruments are 
 blended in a mass of harmony. 
 
 Would that we could identify ourselves with 
 spring ; that we could go so far as to believe that 
 in ourselves breathe all the life and all the love 
 that ferment in Nature ; that we could feel 
 
92 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 ourselves to be, at the same time, flower, ver- 
 dure, bird, song, freshness, elasticity, rapture, se- 
 renity 1 What, then, should I become ? There 
 are moments when, by dint of concentrating 
 ourselves upon this idea and gazing fixedly on 
 Nature, we fancy that we experience something 
 like this. 
 
 May ist. — Oh, how forlorn it is! — wind, 
 rain, cold. This first day of May gives me the 
 idea of a wedding-day which has become a 
 funeral-day. Last evening the moon, the stars, 
 the azure, the limpidness, the clearness, were 
 enough to fill one with rapture. To-day I have 
 seen nothing but showers rushing after each 
 other in great columns through the air, chased 
 wildly along by a mad wind. I have heard 
 nothing but this same wind moaning all around 
 me with those woful and sinister groans which 
 it finds or learns I know not where ; one 
 would say that it was a breath of evil, of calam- 
 ity, of all the afflictions which I fancy to be 
 floating in our atmosphere, shaking our houses 
 and coming to chant, at all our windows, its 
 mournful prophecies. This wind, whatever it 
 may be, while it moved my soul to sadness by 
 its mysterious power, unsettled Nature without 
 by its material influence, and perhaps also by 
 something more, — for who can say that we 
 
Journal. 93 
 
 know the full extent of the relations and the 
 intercourse of the elements with each other ? 
 Through my windows I have watched this wind 
 raging against the trees and driving them to de- 
 spair. It sometimes burst over the forest with 
 such impetuosity that it convulsed it like the sea, 
 and I fancied I saw the entire forest revolve 
 and spin upon its roots, like an immense whirl- 
 wind. The four great fir-trees behind the house 
 were from time to time lashed with such fury 
 that they seemed to be seized with fright, and 
 uttered, as it were, cries of terror, enough to 
 make one tremble. The birds which ventured 
 to take wing were carried along like straws ; I 
 saw them drifting rapidly away, giving scarcely 
 any sign of their feeble struggle against the 
 current, and being at most just able to keep 
 their wings extended. Those that remain still 
 hidden give barely a few signs of life by be- 
 ginning a song which they never finish. The 
 flowers are bruised and crumpled, and all is 
 desolate. I am sadder than in winter. On 
 such days a sort of strange despair makes itself 
 felt at the bottom of my soul, in the most inter- 
 nal, in the deepest part of its substance ; it is 
 like desolation and darkness outside of God. 
 Oh, my God, why should my rest be troubled 
 by what passes in the air, and the peace of my 
 
94 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 soul be thus given over to the will of the winds ? 
 Ah, it is that I know not how to rule myself, 
 that my will is not united to Thine ; and as there 
 is nothing else by which it can be guided, I 
 have become the plaything of all that breathes 
 upon the earth. 
 
 ■^rd. — Joyous day, full of sunshine, warm 
 breeze, perfumes in the air, felicity in the soul. 
 The verdure visibly increases ; it has sprung 
 from the garden to the thicket ; it has gained 
 possession of the whole length of the pond ; it 
 bounds, so to speak, from tree to tree, from 
 thicket to thicket, in the fields and on the hill- 
 sides, and I can see that it has already reached 
 the forest, and is beginning to spread over its 
 broad back. Soon it will extend as far as the 
 eye can reach ; and all these broad expanses, 
 bounded by the horizon, will sway and surge 
 like a vast sea, — a sea of emerald. Yet a few 
 more days, and we shall have all the pomp, all 
 the display, of the vegetable kingdom. 
 
 'jth. — I have this moment received a letter 
 and some verses from my dear Francois,' in an- 
 swer to the poem which I had sent him. This 
 friendship that I have formed is a very sweet 
 one. Francois is one of the freshest, one of the 
 
 ' M. Fran9ois du Breil de Marzan, author of La Fa- 
 mille and L'Autel. 
 
Journal. 95 
 
 most transparent, one of the most consoling 
 souls that I have ever known. Furthermore, he 
 is a poet, otherwise this would not be possible ; 
 and a poet, not by effort and mental labour, of 
 which there are so many, but by expansion and 
 natural expression. Poetry flows from him like 
 water from a fountain. His friendship is all the 
 dearer to me, and I understand his talent all the 
 better, that I am far from being worthy of the one 
 or approaching the other. 1 resemble him so 
 little ; but I find consolation in the thought that 
 friendship is born of contrasts. 
 
 <)th. — Five or six days of sunshine without 
 the shadow of a cloud. The unfolding of the 
 verdure is almost completed. Nature has decked 
 herself with all her jewels. She is at that unique 
 point of freshness, of purity, and of grace which 
 one should make haste to grasp, for it soon 
 passes away. The leaves which opened yester- 
 day are of a transparent green, and as tender as 
 the dew ; I hardly dare to touch them for fear 
 of bruising them. Day before yesterday, how- 
 ever, 6lie and I picked some from the beech- 
 trees to make them into a dish, after the fashion 
 of the Bernardines. It was not bad ; there was 
 a relish to it, but it was rather hard. I really 
 had compunctions in picking these poor new- 
 born leaves. They would have lived out their 
 
g6 Maurice de Gmrin. 
 
 life ; they would have rejoiced in the sun and 
 rocked in the wind. I thought of all this while I 
 was cutting them, and still my hand went on lay- 
 ing waste the branches. Yet while committing 
 this little cruelty, I was having one of those talks 
 with 6lie which recur from time to time, and 
 always possess a certain fascination and bring 
 relief to my soul. On our return with our basket 
 full, we promised each other that we would 
 gather leaves now and then, calling to mind this 
 talk of ours. 
 
 La ChSnaie gives me the idea of an old 
 woman, all wrinkled and hoary, changed back by 
 a fairy's wand into a young and most graceful 
 girl of sixteen. She has all the freshness, all the 
 brilliancy, all the mysterious charm of virginity. 
 But, alas, how short a time will it last 1 Yester- 
 day, M. F61i was showing us some leaves which 
 were already riddled and their edges gnawed by 
 the insects. 
 
 It has rained all night long. Great increase 
 of verdure and of life. At about seven o'clock, I 
 strolled along the borders of the pond. The trees 
 which bent over the water were slowly dripping, 
 and each drop fell on the smooth surface with a 
 gentle echo which had something plaintive about 
 it. One would have said that the trees, having 
 wept all night, were letting fall their last tears. 
 
Journal. 97 
 
 " Do you know," said M. F61i, on the even- 
 ing of day before yesterday, "why man is the 
 most suffering among all creatures ? It is be- 
 cause he has one foot in the finite and the other 
 in the infinite, and that he is torn asunder, not 
 by four horses, as in certain horrible times, but 
 between two worlds." He also said to us, on 
 hearing the clock strike, "If one were to say to 
 this clock that in an instant it would be de- 
 stroyed, it would none the less strike its hour 
 until that instant had arrived. My children, be 
 like the clock : whatever is to happen, always 
 strike your hour." 
 
 22nd. — There are no more flowers on the 
 trees. Their mission of love accomplished, 
 they have died, like a mother who expires in 
 giving birth. The fruits have set ; they inhale 
 that vital and reproductive energy which is to 
 produce new individuals. An innumerable 
 generation is at this moment hanging from the 
 branches of all the trees, from the fibres of 
 the humblest grasses, like children oa the 
 maternal bosom. All these germs, incalculable 
 in their number and diversity, are swinging 
 in their cradle between heaven and earth, 
 given over to the care of the winds, whose 
 charge it is to rock these new-born creatures. 
 Future forests sway unseen on living forests. 
 7 
 
98 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 All Nature is full of the cares of her immense 
 maternity. 
 
 ajrrf. — V/e succeeded in launching on the 
 pond an old long-boat which we dragged out of 
 the mud where it had lain buried for more than a 
 year. It cost us a great deal of trouble to repair 
 it ; but we are well repaid for our pains by the 
 pleasure we take in our little expeditions. This 
 boat used to belong to a Swedish vessel. Who 
 knows what seas she has traversed ? Even 
 though she may have gone around the world, 
 she will all the same come to decay on a little 
 pond. 
 
 June i2th. — These twenty days have passed 
 miserably, and so miserably that I have not had 
 the courage to write a word here or elsewhere. 
 My trouble has taken hold of me anew with ex- 
 treme violence, and has, so to speak, reduced me 
 to the last extremity. It may be compared to 
 the severest sufferings I have endured in the 
 past. A letter from Eugenie, which reached me 
 in the height of the attack, did me great good, 
 but the crisis had to take its course. . . . My 
 God and my good angel, have pity on mel Pre- 
 serve me from such sufferings 1 
 
 I ^th. — Without the verdure, one would think 
 it December. The fine season has gone I know 
 not where. The sun will lose his reputation ; 
 
Journal. 99 
 
 it is cold enough to make one shiver. This de- 
 testable west wind has filled the sky with its in- 
 numerable flocks of clouds, and inundates us with 
 rain. One would think that, up there, winter 
 with its mournful procession were passing by. 
 
 There is nothing more distressing than this 
 contrast of the heavenly vault, all darkened by 
 rain-clouds, with the verdant earth, with this 
 carpet so rich, so marvellously variegated, which 
 Spring has spread over the surface of the earth 
 to rest her beauteous feet upon. It suggests to 
 my fancy a wedding celebrated in a church hung 
 with black. After all, even on the finest days, 
 what a difference there is between the sky of 
 Brittany and the sky of our South 1 Here the 
 summer on its festal days always has about it 
 something sad, veiled, and limited. It is like a 
 miser who on occasion lavishes his money ; there 
 is something niggardly even in his magnificence. 
 Long live our sky of Languedoc, so liberal in 
 light, so blue, so broadly arched 1 
 
 \')th. — Strange dream! I dreamed that I 
 was alone in a vast cathedral. I was there 
 under the impression of the presence of God, 
 and in that condition of the soul when one is 
 conscious of nothing but of God and one's self, 
 when a voice arose, — a voice infinitely sweet, 
 a woman's voice, and yet it filled the whole 
 
lOo Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 church like a great choir. I recognized it at 
 once ; it was the voice of L[ouise], silver-sweet 
 sounding. 
 
 ic)th. — Three nights in succession the same 
 figure has appeared to me. What can this 
 mean ? 
 
 2 5rd. — " I feel indeed that I am a poor crea- 
 ture who has but little spirit." Ah, how well 
 that is said, my dear Bernardin ! How well 
 hast thou rendered the sentiment of a soul which 
 others are striving to raise above its sphere, and 
 which, impressed by its powerlessness, cries out, 
 " I feel indeed that I am a poor creature," as 
 thou makest Virginie to say. For a long time 
 have I been repeating to myself these words ; 
 it is the summing up of all my labours, of all 
 my life. Ah, if I were barren only on that 
 side, that would still be endurable ; but the 
 trouble is that my barrenness is almost univer- 
 sal, — yes, universal, — and that I shall never 
 succeed in bringing forth from my mind much 
 that is worth anything, not for myself, but for 
 those who have a right to expect something 
 from me. This is what grieves me. I have 
 mistaken my path. I might have done some- 
 thing useful by taking an entirely opposite 
 direction. It would be impossible to carry 
 experiments further than I have done. The 
 
Journal. loi 
 
 one which I am now in a fair way to finish will 
 never be repeated. After that, who can say 
 what will become of me ? The invisible thread 
 of Providence will always draw me to the best 
 side. 
 
 2^th. — I have many things to say, so let me 
 hasten. I experience an irritation which must 
 needs speak and find expression before all else. 
 I have suffered so much in my soul that I ought 
 to be proof against pin-pricks, were it the same 
 with the soul as with the body, which be- 
 comes hardened to blows, like iron beneath the 
 hammer. But with the soul it is just the re- 
 verse. I would greatly desire ^ . . 
 
 July 4th. — I have received my death-blow ; 
 behold me formally and duly arraigned and con- 
 victed of the grossest blunder that could be 
 fancied. I look upon this experience as a judg- 
 ment without appeal, and it is all the better from 
 one point of view, — it will teach me finally to 
 value myself for what I am worth. The rate of 
 my valuation is henceforth fixed, and by experts. 
 This is the result of listening to vain thoughts : 
 I said to myself that sooner or later evil would 
 come of this ; but I laughed at myself, I became 
 a boaster, and to-day here I am disgracefully 
 
 ' The end of the phrase is erased in the original manu- 
 script. 
 
103 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 repulsed all along the line. I swe^r, by all that 
 I have suffered and by the respect which I owe 
 to my soul, that this shall be my last sortie. I 
 want to barricade myself within my own domain, 
 to wall myself up there, so as to remove all temp- 
 tation, moving no more than a boundary-stone, 
 were I to be consumed with ennui. I have 
 read somewhere that thousands of animalcules 
 swim with ease in a drop of water ; the circum- 
 ference of my intellectual domain is very nearly 
 equal, I think, to that of the drop, and I am 
 there alone. Have I not reason to be happy 
 without further disturbing my repose by dreams 
 of ambition ? Ah, yes, my little world, my 
 little imperceptible droplet, thou art mine alone, 
 and henceforth thine alone shall I be. Should I 
 meet any living creature as minute as myself 
 who implores me to admit him, I will willingly 
 show hospitality, I will receive him cordially, 
 full of gratitude for the sympathy which urged 
 him to knock at my door ; I will take him all 
 over my dwelling, displaying to his curiosity all 
 the details, as one would in a palace. We 
 will talk with delight of a thousand little, little 
 things, which for us would be great things, — 
 joys, troubles, labours, discoveries, philosophy, 
 poetry, all this would have a place in our talks, 
 but in proportions suited to the infinitely limited 
 
Journal. 103 
 
 extent of our conceptions and to the narrowness 
 of our souls. After having indulged in talks and 
 kindnesses to our hearts' content, I will conduct 
 my guest back to the door, and giving him a 
 kiss and a farewell (two touching things which 
 go together), I will push the bolts and will re- 
 main quiet in my microscopic universe, until the 
 knocker again warns me that there is outside a 
 thought that thinks of me. 
 
 lyth. — Yesterday I saw the swallows flying 
 in the clouds, — a presage of clear weather which 
 has not deceived me. I write at the close of a 
 beautiful day, very brilliant and very warm, after 
 a month and a half of clouds and cold ; but this 
 glorious sun, which usually does me so much 
 good, has passed over me like an extinct star. 
 It has left me as it found me, cold, icy, insensible 
 to all external impressions, and suffering, in the 
 little of me that still lives, fruitless and paltry 
 trials. My internal life withers away every 
 day ; I sink into a nameless abyss, and it must 
 be that I have already reached a great depth, 
 for the light scarcely comes to me, and I feel 
 the cold gaining upon me. Oh, well do I know 
 what is dragging me down I I have always 
 said it, and to-day, as I fall, will say it more em- 
 phatically than ever : it is the distressing con- 
 viction of my impotence, it is this fatal impotence. 
 
104 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 a truth the germ of which I brought here with 
 me and which has so increased during these 
 eight months that it has ended by crushing me, 
 by overthrowing me, and precipitating me in a 
 fall the limits of which I do not know. Yes, I 
 fall, — that is very certain ; for I no longer see 
 what I once saw, I no longer feel what I once 
 felt. 
 
 August ist. — For some time past I have 
 been struggling, like a converted sinner, to love 
 what I hated and to hate what I loved. I have 
 solemnly abjured poetry, contemplation, all my 
 ideal life. I have promised myself to live very 
 peacefully in a little world of my own making, 
 whence I have banished all the beautiful phan- 
 toms which filled the one in which I used to 
 dwell. I thought that an existence circum- 
 scribed within a very narrow circle of reality, 
 confined like the ant in a small hole dug in the 
 sand, would be better for me than those adven- 
 turous and sterile flights of thought into a world 
 which has clearly repulsed me. But alas ! it is 
 written that my poor imagination shall not have 
 where to lay its head here below. This little 
 corner which I had chosen for it among realities, 
 wherein it might fall asleep, rejects it as did the 
 ideal sphere. What will become of me in this 
 state of suspension between two spheres, in this 
 
Journal. 105 
 
 region where thought sustains itself only be- 
 cause it is equally rejected by both ? 
 
 \2th. — I take up my pen again only after 
 long intermissions, because the sweet and ex- 
 pansive hours no longer return to me excepting 
 at great intervals. Such a coldness has taken 
 hold of my soul that everything which falls 
 therein is immediately benumbed. I know not 
 what paralysis it is that has struck me ; what 
 apathy, a hundred times more painful than the 
 most nervous sensibility, causes me to pass 
 whole weeks without caring for anything. 
 
 i4</i. — After a long series of brilliant days, I 
 love to see the sky, some fine morning, hung 
 with gray, and all Nature reposing herself, as it 
 were, after her festal days, in melancholy calm. 
 It is even so to-day. An immense, immovable 
 veil, without the smallest wrinkle, covers the 
 whole face of the sky ; the horizon wears a 
 wreath of bluish vapours ; not a breath stirs the 
 air. Thanks to this silence, every sound from 
 the distant plains reaches the ear, — labourers' 
 songs, children's voices, the calls and oft-re- 
 peated cries of the animals, and from time to 
 time the barking of a dog from I know not 
 where, and the crow of the cocks as they answer 
 each other like sentinels. Within me also all is 
 calm and at rest. A gray and somewhat melan- 
 
io6 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 choly veil has spread itself over my soul, like the 
 peaceful clouds over Nature. A great silence 
 prevails ; and I hear, as it were, the voices of a 
 thousand sweet and touching memories which 
 rise up in the far-off past and come to murmur in 
 my ear. 
 
 2<jth. — It will be a year to-morrow since I left 
 
 for R with Eugenie : sweet anniversary. 
 
 To-morrow also will be for me a day of travel. 
 I am going to La Brousse to spend a few 
 days of friendship and consolation with my 
 dear Frangois. 
 
 September ist. — Alas! this, then, is how all 
 things end : regrets, tears ! It is only an hour 
 since I returned from a charming little trip, and 
 now I am crying like a child, and am con- 
 sumed with regrets for a joy which I ought to 
 have accepted without clinging to it, knowing 
 that it must be of short duration ; but it is 
 always thus. Whenever I meet with some little 
 happiness, I am disconsolate when we have to 
 part, because I know that I shall fall back into 
 myself and resume my mournful routine. 
 
 ■^rd. — Here I am struggling with a terrible 
 position, — I, the weakest of all characters, the 
 most timid of all wills. 
 
 26th. — The memories which are connected 
 with objects of nature . . . 
 
Journal. 107 
 
 Ploermel, October ist. 
 I do not know what stopped me short in the 
 very midst of my phrase ; but I wanted to ex- 
 press what I felt at the sight of a heavy fog 
 which hung over the plain. When the sun had 
 risen high above the horizon I saw all this mist 
 clear away imperceptibly, become diffused with 
 light, and begin to ascend toward the sky, where 
 it soon vanished. Not a quarter of an hour had 
 passed before the most perfect serenity reigned ; 
 but some time after the centre of the horizon had 
 cleared, I still saw some trails of mist flying over 
 the distant ridges, like the last fugitives of a routed 
 army, and it was with this that my recollection 
 and my unfinished phrase were connected. Last 
 year, at about this time, I was also watching the 
 mist rising toward the sky and uncovering the 
 mountain-tops; and in these majestic regions this 
 scene was invested with a character of infinite 
 grandeur. One might have fancied that he 
 saw primeval darkness rolling away, God re- 
 moving with His own hand, like a sculptor, 
 the veil which concealed His work, and the 
 earth exposed in all the purity of its primitive 
 forms to the rays of the first sun. But this 
 is not yet the keynote of my reminiscence. 
 Often, at the moment when the mist began to lift 
 from the earth and to become diaphanous, and I, 
 
io8 Maurice de Guar in. 
 
 with my forehead glued to my window, watched 
 its changes, a blue dress — Oh, how beau- 
 tiful the sky is to-night 1 While in the 
 midst of writing, I turned my head toward the 
 window, and my gaze was flooded with tints so 
 sweet, so soft, so velvety, I saw so many won- 
 drous things on the horizon, that I could not re- 
 sist this exclamation of delight. It is the twilight 
 of autumn in all its melancholy. The distant 
 tree-tops, with their majestic plumes and capri- 
 cious undulations, form a marvellous boundary to 
 the range of vision. The trees which stand out 
 alone, either from their size or position, have 
 physiognomies, characters, I might almost say 
 faces, which seem to express the silent passions 
 and the unknown things which are going on, 
 perchance, under the bark of these immobile 
 beings. With the attitudes they take and the 
 tossing of their heads, they seem to be acting 
 some mysterious scene in the glimmer of the 
 evening. Every day, since I have been here, 
 the twilight brings me these magnificent specta- 
 cles. — A blue dress, I was saying, passed 
 rapidly by in the mist and disappeared in the 
 white obscurity, like the bluebird, which glides 
 so rapidly along the ponds and brooks. Some- 
 times this apparition would sing in her flight and 
 leave behind her a trail, as it were, of silvery 
 
Journal. 109 
 
 notes which rolled forth with ineffable rapidity 
 and melody. A quarter of an hour later, when 
 the atmosphere had cleared, and the trailing end 
 of the fog still crept over the tops of the most 
 
 distant mountains, I saw L return home 
 
 with a slow step and serious air, like a philoso- 
 pher returning from meditation. 
 
 I have wept over partings both last year 
 and this year, almost date for date. These 
 regrets should not be compared ; they are of a 
 nature too different : only in depth do they resem- 
 ble each other. Both are inexpressible. If I 
 were forced to make a comparison between 
 them, I would say that last year, in the month of 
 September, at two o'clock in the afternoon, 
 under a brilliant sun, I bade farewell to that 
 happiness which we meet at a certain point in 
 the path of life, which leads us on a few leagues, 
 talking of ravishing things with the words of an 
 angel, and then, all at once, there comes a cross- 
 way, and it turns to the left if we are obliged to 
 turn to the right, saying, with jesting sweetness, 
 " Traveller, farewell 1 traveller, I wish you a 
 good journey." And I would add that this 
 year, in the month of September, at four o'clock 
 in the afternoon, in gray and foggy weather, I 
 embraced on leaving him a man whom I love 
 with that ardent affection which resembles no 
 
no Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 other, kindled in the depths of the soul by that 
 mysterious power reserved to men of genius. 
 M. F61i was my guide in life during nine 
 months, at the end of which we met the fatal 
 crossway. The habit of living with him had led 
 me not to notice what was passing within me ; 
 but, since I no longer see him, I have discovered 
 there a great rent which came at the moment of 
 separation. 
 
 2nd. — Six o'clock in the evening. This is the 
 moment when memories come back to me by 
 thousands, like the birds which at the same hour 
 hasten in crowds to the rendezvous they have 
 made on some great poplar, where they warble 
 confusedly until night sends them to sleep. 
 The setting of the sun is entrancing: the clouds, 
 which have escorted him to the west, stand aside 
 at the horizon like a group of courtiers on the 
 approach of their king, and then close I'n again 
 after he has passed by. After the sun has set, 
 some of these clouds again mount up into the 
 sky, laden with the richest colours. The most 
 massive remain at the gates of the palace, like a 
 company of guards with golden breastplates. 
 These clouds do not quite touch the horizon : 
 a luminous band which tapers off at the extremi- 
 ties divides them from the blue line of the earth. 
 Some slender and distant poplars, which seem 
 
Journal. 1 1 1 
 
 to rise from this blue line, and whose delicate 
 forms stand out sharply against the clear and 
 luminous background, seem like the masts of 
 vessels at anchor on the horizon of the sea. 
 
 j^th. — If I knew how to draw a little, I should 
 have brought away with me yesterday some me- 
 mento of our expedition to Josselin. I have at 
 last gazed upon an old baronial castle. Enor- 
 mous towers, Cyclopean ramparts, enclose within 
 their massive belt the most graceful, the slen- 
 derest, and apparently the frailest architecture, 
 — one of those dreams of the Middle Ages em- 
 broidered high in the air on stone with the deli- 
 cacy of the fairies' needle. At twilight, take a 
 leaf where the tissue has been eaten away by 
 insects, watch by the dying light this network 
 of delicate fibres and veins, and you will have 
 in miniature, so to speak, the delicious fancies 
 of Gothic art. 
 
 <jth. — The most beautiful days, the most de- 
 lightful studies, cannot stifle within me that rest- 
 less and complaining spirit which forms the 
 groundwork of humanity. 
 
 i^th. — While I am following up a swarm of 
 vain thoughts, like a man who has no longer 
 anything to trouble him, my whole future is 
 overturned. I have been told that I must go 
 back to the world. Strange 1 I have surprised 
 
1 12 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 myself a hundred times longing for the novel life 
 one leads there, and, now that solitude and seclu- 
 sion have bid me leave them, the world inspires 
 me with horror. Ah, my place was indeed here 1 
 and, notwithstanding my worldly whims and ca- 
 prices, I clung to it from the depths of my soul. 
 I was beginning to see clearly into my destiny, 
 and now again I find myself knowing nothing 
 about it. My God, how cruel it is 1 What, 
 then, wilt Thou do with me among men i" What 
 is to become of me in thfs vortex, — of me, the 
 weakest of creatures I" Of a truth, I see in this 
 my trial. I thought that I was already suffi- 
 ciently convinced of my powerlessness, of my 
 weakness, of the sickly and imperfect constitu- 
 tion of my moral nature. Alas I it would seem as 
 though I did not sufficiently realize it, since I 
 am sent back to that great destroyer of all in- 
 ward joy, of all lofty energy, of all ingenuous 
 hope, — the world. 
 
 2i,ih. — Truly, a run over the fields is a great 
 delight. What happiness to fling down the 
 heavy chain of daily life and escape to the coun- 
 try, where one can breathe freely and taste the 
 noble rapture of a few hours' independence; 
 where the heart is lifted up and the thoughts 
 turn to contemplation ; where one is overjoyed 
 at finding one's self — humanity — alone with 
 
Journal. 113 
 
 Nature. We made the circuit of a pond which 
 is at least two leagues in circumference ; it is a 
 long time since a walk has given me so much 
 pleasure. The sight of water always has an 
 immense fascination for me, and to-day was all 
 that heart could wish to give me delight. This 
 pond, of broad expanse, spreads out between 
 two woods, the borders of which form irregular 
 but all the more graceful lines. As the day de- 
 clined, there was something infinitely melancholy 
 in this sheet of vague, green water, in the wan 
 colour of the woods, which are beginning to lose 
 their leaves, and in the gray tint of the sky, 
 where flocks of crows and wild ducks passed 
 silently by. A thousand thoughts of sweet sad- 
 ness came to me : I remembered that in my 
 childhood I loved to sit at that same hour on the 
 parapet of the terrace at Cayla, and watch the 
 birds pass by as they went to find a shelter for 
 the night. 
 
 Le Val, December 7 th. 
 After a year of perfect calm, with the excep- 
 tion of those internal storms which should not be 
 attributed to solitude, — for she wrapped me in a 
 peace and silence so deep that a soul less restless 
 than mine would have fallen into a delicious 
 sleep, — after a year, I say, of this complete calm, 
 my fortune, which had allowed me to enter the 
 
114 Maurice de Gmrin. 
 
 sanctuary so that I might find some rest, has 
 knocked at the door to call me back ; for she 
 had not pursued her way, but had seated herself 
 upon the threshold, waiting till I should have re- 
 gained sufficient strength to set out again on my 
 journey. " Thou hast halted long enough," said 
 she ; " come, let us go onl" And she took me 
 by the hand ; and behold her again on her way, 
 like those poor women whom we meet on the 
 roads, leading a child who follows on with a dis- 
 consolate air. But what folly in me to com- 
 plain! Are there no other sufferings in this world 
 besides my own to water with my tears? Hence- 
 forth, every time that I am tempted to call upon 
 the Lord and ray tears for my own sake, I shall 
 say to the fountain-head of my tears, " Be 
 closed; " and to the Lord, " Lord, listen not to 
 my lamentations;" for it is good that I should 
 suffer, — I , who, like all feeble souls, can purchase 
 nothing in heaven by the merit of my acts, and 
 who can gain something there only through the 
 virtue of suffering. Such souls have no wings 
 by which to rise heavenward ; and the Lord, 
 who wishes, nevertheless, that they should come, 
 sends them help. He places them on a pyre of 
 thorns and sends down the fire of sorrow ; when 
 the wood burns, it rises toward heaven as a white 
 cloud, like those doves which took their flight 
 
Journal. 1 1 5 
 
 from the dying flames of the martyr's pyre. It 
 is the soul, which has consummated its sacrifice, 
 and which has been made so light through the 
 fire of tribulation that it can rise like smoke to 
 the sky. The wood is heavy and motionless ; 
 set it on fire, and a part of it will rise even to 
 the skies. 
 
 Lord, I am one of these souls ; therefore I 
 must not shed tears to extinguish my pyre. But 
 I will shed floods of tears for those who suffer 
 and who ought not to suffer. I will shed them 
 above all for him who is to-day a prey to the 
 deepest sorrow ; for him who has done so much 
 good that he seemed to have already such abun- 
 dant merit as to have no need to add to it through 
 suffering. I will weep over him and over those 
 who do him wrong, and who have done me wrong 
 through him. As Jesus Christ shed for His exe- 
 cutioners the priceless virtue of His blood, it is 
 indeed a very small thing that men should let fall 
 their tears for their enemies. 
 
 I shall treasure up these tears and the pre- 
 cious memories that I carry away with me from 
 under this blessed roof of La Chfinaie, which 
 during a whole year has shielded my life, hidden 
 within the bosom of a priest whom men account 
 as one of their glories upon this earth, and whom 
 the saints claim as one of theirs in heaven. 
 
ii6 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 Although my sorrow is most bitter, I will not 
 hang my harp upon the willows, for a Christian, 
 unlike an Israelite, must sing in a strange land 
 the song of the Lord and of the man of God. 
 
 And see how' full of goodness is Providence 
 toward me! Fearing lest the sudden change 
 from the soft and temperate atmosphere of a re- 
 ligious life to the torrid zone of the world should 
 prove too great a trial for my soul, it has led me, 
 on leaving that sacred refuge, to a house placed 
 upon the borders of these two regions, where, 
 without being in solitude, one is yet not in the 
 world, — a house whose windows open on one 
 side upon the plain where stirs the tumult of 
 men, and on the other side upon the wilderness 
 where sing the servants of God. I wish to put 
 on record here an account of ray sojourn in this 
 place, for the days spent under this roof are full 
 of happiness, and I know that in the future I 
 shall often turn back to read again of these joys 
 of the past. — A pious man and a poet,^ a woman 
 
 1 See in our first edition, vol. i. pp. 83-97, a variation of 
 the end of this fragment and of the four following frag- 
 ments, We substitute this time for the text of the Cahier 
 Vert a version which the author had subsequently written 
 on some fly-leaves, and which he would have without any 
 doubt preferred. 
 
 2 Hippolyte La Morvonnais, author of La Thibdide des 
 ■ Grtves. 
 
Journal. 1 1 7 
 
 whose heart beats so in unison with his that they 
 seem like parts of but one soul ; a child whose 
 name is Marie, like her mother, the first rays of 
 whose love and intelligence shine like a star 
 through the white veil of childhood ; a simple 
 life in an old-fashioned house ; the ocean, which, 
 morning and evening, brings us its harmonies ; 
 finally, a pilgrim who descends from Mount Car- 
 mel on his way to Babylon and who has left at 
 the door his staff and his sandals, to take a seat 
 at the hospitable board, — here is material for a 
 Biblical poem, could I describe things as well as 
 I can feel them. 
 
 Qih. — Yesterday a west wind blew furiously. 
 I saw the ocean troubled, but this tumult, how- 
 ever sublime it may be, is far from equalling, in 
 my eyes, the sight of the sea blue and serene. 
 But why assert that one is not equal to the 
 other } Who could measure these two sub- 
 limities and say, " The second is greater 
 than the first"? Let us merely say, "My 
 soul takes more delight in serenity than in 
 storm." 
 
 Yesterday there was a great battle on the 
 watery plains. The leaping waves seemed like 
 the countless Tartar cavalry galloping ceaselessly 
 over the plains of Asia. The entrance to the 
 bay is barred, as it were, by a chain of granite 
 
ii8 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 isles. It was a sight to watch the billows rush- 
 ing to the assault , and with frightful outcries 
 throwing themselves madly against these masses 
 of rock ; it was a sight to watch them take 
 their start and try who should best clear the 
 black reef-heads. The most daring or the nim- 
 blest leaped onto the other side with a great cry ; 
 the others, heavier or more awkward, shattered 
 themselves against the rock, tossing up foam of 
 dazzling whiteness, and then retreated with dull 
 and deep growlings, like house-dogs thrust back 
 by the traveller's staff. 
 
 From the top of a cliff where we could with 
 difficulty keep our footing against the shocks of 
 the wind, we witnessed these strange struggles. 
 The immeasurable tumult of the sea, the noisy 
 rushing of the waves, the no less rapid but silent 
 passing of the clouds, the sea-birds that floated 
 in the sky, balancing their slender bodies be- 
 tween two arched wings of redundant spread, — 
 all this mass of wild and sonorous harmonies con- 
 verged toward the souls of two beings, five feet 
 high, planted on the crest of a cliff, shaken like 
 two leaves by the force of the wind, and in this im- 
 mensity hardly more conspicuous than two birds 
 perched upon a clod of earth. Oh, how strange 
 and beautiful is one of these moments when sub- 
 lime agitation and deep revery meet together. 
 
Journal. 119 
 
 when the soul and Nature rise to their whole 
 height face to face 1 
 
 From the cliff we descended into a gorge 
 which disclosed an inlet of the sea, such as the 
 ancients knew how to describe, where a few 
 peaceful waves fall murmuring to sleep, while 
 their foolish brethren beat against the reefs and 
 struggle with one another. Immense bowlders 
 of gray granite mottled with white moss lie scat- 
 tered in disorder over the slope of the hill, which 
 had been worn away and formed this creek. 
 They are so strangely placed and seem so on the 
 verge of falling that one would say some giant 
 had amused himself one day by hurling them 
 from the crest of the hill, and that they had 
 stopped wherever they met with an obstacle, — 
 some a few steps from their point of departure, 
 others halfway down the hill ; and yet they seem 
 suspended instead of stopped, or rather they 
 appear to be ever rolling downward. The noise 
 of the winds and the waves, as they resound 
 through these sonorous depths, produces the 
 most beautiful harmonies. We lingered there 
 for a time, leaning on our staves and filled with 
 wonder. 
 
 ()th. — The moon, together with a few stars, 
 was still shining when the bell called us to Mass. 
 I am especially fond of this morning Mass, said 
 
I20 Maurice de Gmrin. 
 
 between the last glimmerings of the stars and the 
 first rays of the sun. 
 
 In the evening Hippolyte and I took a walk 
 along the shore. We wanted to see what the 
 ocean was like at the close of a gray and calm 
 December day. The mist veiled the distant 
 waters, but left enough range to the eye to give 
 a sense of the infinite beyond. We stationed 
 ourselves upon a point where the hut of a cus- 
 tom-house officer stood, and leaned with our 
 backs against the hut. On the right, the woods, 
 scattered over the slope of the shore, stretched 
 out in the pale glimmering light their bare and 
 slender branches, which whistled softly in the 
 wind. Far away on the left, the Tour des Ebi- 
 hens at times half disappeared, as though swal- 
 lowed up in the shadows, and at times reappeared 
 with a feeble glimmer on its front whenever a 
 furtive ray of the twilight succeeded in breaking 
 through the clouds. The sound of the sea was 
 calm and dreamy as on the most beautiful days ; 
 but in it there was something more plaintive. 
 Our ears followed this sound, as it swelled along 
 the whole length of the shore ; and we held our 
 breath until the wave which had produced it had 
 withdrawn to give place to the next. I believe 
 that it is from the deep and solemn voice which 
 rolls from the breaking billow, and from the 
 
Journal. i3i 
 
 shrill and stony sound of the receding wave, as 
 it lightly washes the sand and the shells, that 
 arises this wonderful tone of the song of the sea. 
 But why dissect this music? I shall never say 
 anything of value on this subject, for I under- 
 stand nothing of analysis ; so let us return to 
 sentiment. 
 
 Darkness closed in upon us, but we did not 
 dream of leaving, for the harmonies of the sea 
 went on increasing as all became hushed upon 
 the earth and as night unfolded her mysteries. 
 Like those statues which the ancients placed on 
 promontories, we remained immovable, as though 
 fascinated and bound by the spell of the ocean 
 and of the night. We gave no other sign of 
 life than to raise our heads as we heard the 
 whistling wings of the wild ducks passing by. 
 
 My wandering fortunes have thus led me to a 
 solitary headland in Brittany, there to dream all 
 through an autumn evening. There for a few 
 hours was silenced all that inward tumult never 
 before completely hushed since the first storm 
 burst forth within me. There, all the sweet and 
 celestial melancholies thronged into my soul 
 with the harmonies of the ocean, and my soul 
 wandered as if in a paradise of reveries. Oh, 
 when I shall have left Le Val and shed my fare- 
 well tears on the bosom of your friendship; when 
 
122 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 I am in Paris, where there is neither vale nor 
 ocean, nor souls like yours ; when I shall be 
 alone with my sadness, and my soul is inclined to 
 despair, — oh, how many tears shall I then shed 
 at the memory of our evenings, for happiness is 
 a fine soft rain which penetrates the soul, but 
 flows forth again in abundant tears ! 
 
 2oth. — Never have I tasted so intimately and 
 so deeply the joys of family life. Never has that 
 perfume which encircles a pious and happy house- 
 hold enveloped me so completely, It is like a 
 cloud of invisible incense which I breathe un- 
 ceasingly. All these minute details of family 
 life, which as a whole make up the day, are to 
 me so many gradations of a continuous charm 
 that gradually unfolds itself from one end of the 
 day to the other. 
 
 The morning salutation, which renews in a 
 way the pleasure of the first arrival, for the 
 words of greeting are almost the same, and then 
 the nightly parting is a semblance of longer sep- 
 arations, being, like them, full of danger and un- 
 certainty ; the breakfast, a repast by which we 
 celebrate the joy of coming together again ; 
 the walk which then follows, a sort of saluta- 
 tion and adoration which we render to Na- 
 ture; our return home and withdrawal into an 
 old wainscoted room looking on the sea and 
 
Journal. 123 
 
 beyond the reach of household noises, in a 
 word, a true sanctuary of work ; the dinner 
 announced, not by the sound of a bell, which 
 recalls too vividly the school or a large establish- 
 ment, but by a gentle voice ; the mirth, the 
 lively pleasantries, the flowing talk, gliding on 
 unceasingly throughout the repast ; the crack- 
 ling fire of dry branches around which we draw 
 our chairs immediately after ; the pleasant things 
 said by the warmth of the flames which roar 
 while we talk ; and, if the sun be shining, the 
 walk on the borders of the ocean, which sees 
 approaching it a mother, her child in her arms, 
 the father of this child, and a stranger, these last 
 two with stick in hand ; the rosy lips of the little 
 girl, who talks to the sound of the waves, and 
 sometimes the tears she sheds and her cries of 
 childish grief by the borders of the sea ; our 
 own thoughts as we watch the mother and child 
 smiling upon each other, or the child weeping 
 and the mother seeking to soothe her with the 
 sweetness of her caresses and her voice ; the 
 ocean ever rolling in its train of billows and of 
 sounds ; the dead branches we cut while walk- 
 ing to and fro in the copse, with which to light 
 a quick, bright fire on our return ; this little 
 touch of wood-cutter's work which brings us 
 nearer to Nature and recalls the singular passion 
 
124 Maurice de Guerin, 
 
 which M. F61i had for the same work ; the 
 hours, of study and of poetic effusion which 
 bring us to the supper hour ; this repast to 
 which we are called by the same gentle voice as 
 at noon, and which is passed amid the same 
 though less brilliant joys, for the evening softens 
 all things, tempers all things ; then the evening, 
 which opens with the bright light of a glad- 
 some fire, and from reading to reading, from 
 talk to talk, expires at last in sleep, — to all 
 the charms of such a day add I know not what 
 angelic radiance, what magic spell of peace, of 
 freshness, and of innocence, which emanates 
 from the blond head, the blue eyes, the silvery 
 voice, the laughter, the little airs full of intelli- 
 gence, of a child who, I feel sure, excites the 
 envy of more than one angel, who delights you, 
 fascinates you, who by the slightest movement 
 of her lips awakens in you the most passionate 
 fondness, so great is the power of weakness ; 
 finally, to all this add the dreams of the imagina- 
 tion, and you will still fall far short of realizing 
 the fulness of all these family joys. 
 
 2\st. — For some days the weather has been 
 at its worst. The rain falls, and the wind blows 
 in squalls, but with such fury that it seems as 
 though everything would be swept away by these 
 frightful bursts. For three nights in succession 
 
Journal. 125 
 
 I have been awakened with a start by one of 
 these squalls, which pass over us regularly at 
 about midnight. They make such a furious 
 assault upon the house that everything within 
 trembles and quakes. I spring halfway up in 
 bed and listen to the passing hurricane, and a 
 thousand thoughts surge up within me which 
 before had slept, some on the surface, others in 
 the very depths of my being. 
 
 All the sounds of Nature — the winds, those 
 formidable breaths from an unknown mouth 
 which put into play innumerable instruments 
 scattered over the plains, on the mountains, in 
 the ravines, or massed together in the depths of 
 the forests ; the waters, whose voice has a 
 compass of such unbounded extent, from the 
 murmuring of a moss-grown spring to the 
 immeasurable harmonies of the ocean ; the 
 thunder, voice of that sea which floats above our 
 heads ; the rustling of the dry leaves as the foot 
 of man or a playful breeze passes over them ; 
 in fine (for we must indeed close this enumer- 
 ation which would become endless), this con- 
 tinual outpouring of sounds, this ever-surging 
 uproar of the elements — lead my thoughts to 
 expand in strange reveries and throw me into a 
 state of wonder from which I cannot recover. 
 The voice of Nature has taken such hold upon 
 
126 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 me that I rarely succeed in shaking myself free 
 from the habitual preoccupation which it imposes 
 upon me, and to which I try in vain to turn a 
 deaf ear. But to awake at midnight with the 
 shrieks of the tempest, to be assailed in the 
 darkness by a wild and furious harmony which 
 destroys the peaceful dominion of the night, is 
 an incomparable experience in the way of strange 
 impressions ; it is the luxury of terror. 
 
 MoRDREUX, January 2nd, 1834. 
 
 On the evening of day before yesterday I 
 closed a letter to Frdd^ric with the following 
 words : — 
 
 " I write you during the last hours of 1833. 
 There is an indescribably solemn sadness in this 
 last agony of the year. My heart is full of 
 strange and rueful thoughts, for the tempest 
 roars without, and the year expires in the con- 
 vulsions of a dark and stormy night." 
 
 I suffered strangely all through that evening. 
 The incredible rapidity of the flight of life, the 
 mystery of our destiny, the terrible questions 
 which doubt brings up at times even to those 
 men who are most firmly grounded in their faith, 
 finally, that condition which often comes upon 
 me, in which the soul, like Lenore, feels itself 
 borne away at full speed toward dreary regions 
 
Journal. 127 
 
 unknown, — all this had taken deep hold of 
 me. During the same evening I received the 
 confirmation of the news of which we had heard 
 rumours for some days : the defeat of a great man 
 who has surrendered his pen as brave men sur- 
 render their sword, with indignation in his heart 
 and tears in his eyes. Poor M. F61i 1 you have 
 often pressed me to your bosom, I have breathed 
 your soul, and my timid and unworthy gaze has 
 penetrated the depths of your heart ; for there 
 were days when you became so transparent, so 
 limpid, that one could see into your very depths, 
 as into the clearest spring. Oh, what sorrow 
 takes possession of rae when I see you so mis- 
 understood, and suffering so much wrong in re- 
 turn for all the good that you longed to do 1 
 What man could better say to the Lord than 
 you, "The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me 
 up " } and you have been reputed among those 
 whom Satan sends to bring consternation into 
 the house of the Lord 1 ' . . . 
 
 Le Val, January 20th. 
 
 1 have passed three weeks at Mordreux/ in 
 the midst of a household as peaceful, as united, 
 
 ^ The end of the page is effaced in the original manu- 
 script, and the two following leaves have been taken out, 
 doubtless by Guerin himself. 
 
 2 With M. de La Villion, father-in-law of Hippolyte 
 La Morvonnais. 
 
128 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 as blest as fancy could picture. And yet, in this 
 tranquillity, in this sweet monotony of family life, 
 my days were full of inward agitation, so much 
 so that I think I never experienced such disquie- 
 tude of heart and head. A strange emotion 
 took possession of my whole being and drew 
 tears from my eyes for a mere trifle, as it is with 
 little children or old men. At every moment 
 my bosom expanded and my soul overflowed 
 with inward aspirations, with outpourings of 
 tears and of silent words. I felt as if a gentle 
 lassitude were weighing upon my eyes and 
 sometimes fettering all my members. I no 
 longer ate excepting with reluctance, although 
 my appetite urged me on ; for I was pursuing 
 thoughts which so intoxicated me with their 
 sweetness, and the happiness of my soul im- 
 parted such serenity to my body, that it revolted 
 from an act which would degrade it from such 
 exalted rapture. I strove to resist this perilous 
 exaltation, this rush of feeling, of which I real- 
 ized the danger ; but I was too completely a 
 victim to save myself, and to all appearances I 
 should have been wholly lost had I not found a 
 powerful diversion in the contemplation of Na- 
 ture. I began to observe her still more atten- 
 tively than usual, and by degrees the tumult 
 within me subsided ; for out of the fields, the 
 
Journal. 129 
 
 waters, and the woods came a sweet and benefi- 
 cent virtue which penetrated me and changed all 
 my transports into melancholy dreams. This 
 mingling of the calm impressions of Nature with 
 the stormy reveries of the heart produced a 
 state of the soul which I would long wish to 
 retain, for it well befits a restless dreamer like 
 myself. It is like a temperate and tranquil ec- 
 stasy which transports the soul outside of itself 
 without depriving it of the consciousness of a 
 permanent and somewhat tumultuous sadness. 
 The soul also becomes insensibly filled with a 
 languor which deadens all the activity of the 
 intellectual faculties, and lulls it into a half-sleep, 
 void of all thought, in which it still feels the 
 power to dream of the most beautiful things. 
 At other times it is as if a softly tinted cloud 
 were spread over the soul and threw that sweet 
 shadow which invites to contemplation and re- 
 pose. The disquietudes, the passions, all the 
 turbulent crowd whose uproar is heard in the 
 inner city become silent, sometimes have re- 
 course to prayer, and always end by settling 
 down to rest. Nothing can more faithfully 
 represent this state of the soul than the shades 
 of evening falling at this very moment. Gray 
 clouds just edged with silver cover the whole 
 face of the sky. The sun, which set but a few 
 9 
 
130 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 moments ago, has left behind light enough to 
 temper for a while the black shadows, and to 
 soften in a measure the fall of night. The 
 winds are hushed, and the peaceful ocean, as I 
 come to listen on the threshold of the door, 
 sends me only a melodious murmur which softly 
 spreads over the soul like a beautiful wave 
 over the beach. The birds, the first to feel the 
 influence of the night, fly toward the woods, and 
 their wings rustle in the clouds. The coppice, 
 which covers the entire slope of the hill of Le 
 Val, and resounds all day long with the chirp of 
 the wren, the gay whistle of the woodpecker, 
 and the various notes of a multitude of birds, 
 has no more a sound along its paths or within 
 its thickets, unless it be the shrill call of the 
 blackbirds as they play together and chase one 
 another, after the other birds have hidden their 
 heads under their wings. The noise of men, 
 always the last to become silent, gradually dies 
 away over the face of the fields. The general 
 uproar ceases, and not a sound is heard ex- 
 cept from the towns and hamlets, where, far 
 into the night, the children cry and the dogs 
 bark. Silence inwraps me ; all things yearn 
 for rest, except my pen, which disturbs, per- 
 chance, the slumber of some living atom asleep in 
 the folds of my notebook, for it makes its little 
 
Journal. 131 
 
 sound as it writes these idle thoughts. Then 
 let it cease; for what I write, have written, and 
 shall write, will never be worth the sleep of a 
 single atom. 
 
 Ten o'clock in the evening. — My last walk, 
 my last visit to the sea, to the shore, to all this 
 magnificent scenery which for two months has so 
 enchanted me. Winter smiles upon us with all 
 the grace of Spring, and gives us days which 
 make the birds sing and the verdure start upon 
 the rose-bushes in the gardens, and the sweet- 
 brier in the woods, and the honeysuckles which 
 climb along the walls and rocks. At two o'clock 
 we took the path which winds so gracefully 
 among the flowering gorse and the rough ver- 
 dure of the cliffs, then skirts along the wheat- 
 fields, bends toward the ravines, steals between 
 the hedges, and fearlessly climbs toward the 
 loftiest rocks. The object of our walk was a 
 promontory which overlooks the bay of Quatre- 
 Vaux. The sea shone in all its brilliancy, and 
 broke, a hundred feet below us, with sounds 
 which passed through our souls as they mounted 
 to the sky. Toward the horizon some fisher- 
 men's boats spread out against the azure their 
 sails of dazzling whiteness, and our gaze passed 
 alternately from this small fleet to one more 
 numerous that floated near by to the sound of 
 
132 Maurice de Ouerin. 
 
 songs. It was an innumerable flock of sea-birds 
 gayly fishing, and delighting our eyes by the bril- 
 liancy of their plumage and the grace with which 
 they sat the waves. These birds, these sails, the 
 beauty of the day, the universal serenity, gave a 
 festive air to the ocean, and filled my soul with 
 joyous enthusiasm, in spite of the background of 
 sad thoughts which I had brought with me to 
 our promontory. Still I became intently absorbed 
 in the contemplation of the headlands, the 
 rocks, and the islands, striving to take an im- 
 pression of them and transfer it to my soul. On 
 my return I trod religiously, and with regret at 
 every step, this path which has so often led me to 
 such beautiful meditations in such sweet com- 
 panionship. This path is so full of charm as it 
 reaches the copse and stretches out between 
 hazel-trees which tower high above it and a box- 
 wood hedge which grows unchecked in shaggy 
 masses 1 There, the joy which Nature had im- 
 parted to me died away, and I was seized with 
 the melancholy of parting. To-morrow this 
 sea, these shores, these woods, all the delights 
 which I have tasted here, will become for me a 
 dream, a shadowy remembrance which I shall 
 contemplate with a different feeling. And that 
 I might carry away with me all that I could from 
 these sweet spots, and as though it were in their 
 
Journal. 133 
 
 power to give themselves to me, I inwardly im- 
 plored them to engrave themselves upon my 
 soul, to give me something from their very selves 
 that should not pass away. In the mean time I 
 pushed aside the branches of the box-trees, the 
 bushes, and the dense thickets, and buried my 
 head in their depths to inhale the wild fragrance 
 which they hold within, to penetrate their hid- 
 den life, and to speak, as it were, to their very 
 hearts. 
 
 The evening was spent as usual in talks and 
 readings. We recalled the happiness of the days 
 just past. I have outlined a feeble picture of it 
 in this notebook ; we looked back upon it sadly 
 as upon the picture of one of the dearest and 
 sweetest of our departed ones. 
 
 Hippolyte has gone to rest. I am writing this 
 in the solitude and stillness of the night, by the 
 side of an expiring fire. I have been listening 
 at the door to the sounds from without. They 
 are but few. The ocean has retreated far away ; 
 he is at peace ; he sleeps ; he makes no sound. 
 The Arguenon flows freely over the strands ; the 
 moon rides on its waves ; and from the fords, 
 where the waters foam, I hear a gentle murmur. 
 The breeze barely sighs in the woods, and all else 
 is at rest. 
 
 Farewell, farewell, beloved abode 1 if thou 
 
134 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 lovest me and if thou doubtest my constancy, 
 listen to tliis and be reassured : I lose the half of 
 my soul in losing solitude. I enter into the 
 world with secret horror. 
 
 Caen, January 24th. 
 I have just been wandering through some 
 streets of this city by the light of a few pale 
 street lamps. What have I seen ? The black 
 phantoms of churches and their bell-towers, 
 of which I could discern only the general 
 masses ; but the mystery of night which envel- 
 ops them and which does not define their pro- 
 portions as would the light of day, adds to their 
 religiousness and has filled me with a sentiment 
 which is better, I believe, than that of forms. 
 My thought rose indefinitely toward the sky 
 with those spires which seemed never to end, 
 and roamed with terror around those naves as 
 gloomy as the tomb. This is all. There was a 
 crowd in the streets ; but what signifies a crowd 
 at night, and even by day ? At night I love bet- 
 ter the sound of the winds, and by day those 
 great congregations, now silent, now sounding, 
 which we call forests. Moreover, I met with 
 some of those men who always make me turn 
 and fly quickly home, — students who move 
 along proudly sporting their costume, and breathe 
 
Journal. 135 
 
 from every feature an indescribable expression 
 which intimidates me and puts me to flight. O 
 my notebook I my sweet friend, how I felt that 
 I loved thee as I escaped from this throng 1 So 
 here I am with thee, although the night is far 
 spent and I am all exhausted with fatigue, — 
 wholly with thee to tell thee of my troubles and 
 quietly to hold converse with thee in secret. 
 Can I too often recall those memories still 
 steeped with my tears and which will forever 
 remain incorruptible in my soul ? That good 
 Hippolyte and his adorable Marie ! I had bid- 
 den her farewell ; she had answered me with a 
 few words of the most touching kindness ; I 
 had stammered out a few more words and had 
 started to descend the stairs rapidly, thinking 
 that she had not crossed the threshold of the 
 door, and that all was over, when I heard a new 
 farewell which came to me from above ; I raised 
 my head and saw her bending over the railing. 
 I answered feebly, very feebly, for her voice had 
 exhausted what little strength I had left to re- 
 strain my tears. . . 
 
 Paris, February ist. 
 My God, close my eyes ; keep me from seeing 
 all this multitude, the sight of which stirs up 
 within me such bitter, such discouraging thoughts 1 
 
136 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 Grant that, as I pass through it, I may be deaf to 
 the noise, insensible to those impressions which 
 crush me as I move among the crowd ; and, for 
 this, place before my eyes an image, a vision 
 of things I love, a field, a valley, a moor, Cayla, 
 Le Val, some object of Nature. I will walk with 
 my gaze fixed upon these sweet forms, and shall 
 thus pass on undisturbed. 
 
 17//1. — O purity of the fields! Unceasingly 
 did I go on rising from Nature to God, and de- 
 scending again from God to Nature. Such was 
 my inward life, mingled with some melancholy, 
 with a few heart-thrills, which did but delay or 
 quicken the course of my thoughts without 
 changing them. Nought that was sullied en- 
 tered into my soul, and I felt the power of my 
 intellect increasing; for, when the inner man is 
 pure, his thought rises without hindrance and 
 ever goes on approaching nearer to the source 
 of all intellectual strength. I was beginning to 
 rise above my discouragement and to acquire 
 that beautiful and noble confidence of a heart 
 which feels itself to be the friend of God, and 
 which could not fall so long as it rested in this 
 consciousness. 
 
 March 16th. — Something very strange is now 
 going on within me. It has perhaps never before 
 happened to me to receive stronger proofs of my 
 
Journal. 137 
 
 intellectual incapacity than during these last 
 weeks, and I go on my way as though it were 
 not so ; I write undauntedly a quantity of arti- 
 cles which are printed in a small journal, by 
 what miracle I know not. In truth, I do not 
 know which should be most admired, whether 
 the excess of goodness on the part of the men 
 who receive such poor attempts, or my incredible 
 assurance in thrusting such nonsense upon the 
 world. Whence comes this extraordinary bold- 
 ness ? I am willing to confess to myself the 
 motive which inspires it; it is pure, it is praise- 
 worthy, and it so rarely happens that I can look 
 at one of my thoughts face to face without hav- 
 ing to lower my eyes, that I must here record 
 the one which gives me such unusual energy. I 
 work solely for my father and for my friends ; all 
 my strength is in them ; and it is not I who work, 
 but they who work in me. It is true that for 
 three years it was lost labour for them to have 
 excited and urged me on, and that this should 
 have been enough to make me die of shame and 
 remorse, were my soul capable of experiencing 
 in any high degree a sentiment like that of 
 repentance. 
 
 2'^rd. — Let me now hasten to note down here 
 as far as possible the ecstasies of this day ; let me 
 hasten to write that on this day I have been 
 
138 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 happy with the most sublime joy, — the joy of a 
 man who has had a glimpse of the raptures of 
 heaven, that I have felt myself strong for good 
 and full of the love of God and of men. Yes, I 
 must hasten to write it, for these noble exalta- 
 tions last but for a moment in my soul, for 
 to-morrow* ... 
 
 It seems to me intolerable to appear before 
 men other than one does before God. My 
 severest torture at this moment is the over- 
 esteem which noble souls have for me. It is 
 said that at the Last Judgment the secret of 
 all consciences will be revealed to the whole 
 universe ; I wish that this could happen to me 
 this very day, and that my soul could be open 
 for all to see. 
 
 April 20th. — O my notebook, for me thou 
 art not a mass of paper, something insensible, 
 inanimate ; no, thou art living, thou hast a soul, 
 an intellect, love, goodness, compassion, pa- 
 tience, charity, sympathy pure and unalterable. 
 I find in thee that which I have not found 
 among men, — a tender and devoted being who 
 becomes attached to a soul weak and morbid, 
 who encircles it with affection, who alone under- 
 stands its language, divines its heart, compassion- 
 ates its sadness, is intoxicated with its joys, 
 ' There is a lacuna in the manuscript : a leaf is wanting. 
 
Journal. 139 
 
 makes it rest upon his bosom or leans upon it 
 himself at times to rest in his turn ; for it is giv- 
 ing great consolation to the one we love to lean 
 on him for sleep or rest. It is such a love as 
 this that I need, — one full of compassion. For 
 in me there is nothing which can awaken that love 
 so often seen in this world, — a love between 
 equals, between souls that are alike, souls that 
 are drawn together because each sees the other 
 to be noble and beautiful, as if two stars, hav- 
 ing caught sight of each other from the two 
 ends of heaven, were to cross all space in order 
 to come together. To be loved as I am, I 
 should need to meet a soul willing to stoop to its 
 inferior, a strong soul which would bow the knee 
 before the weaker, not to adore it, but to serve, 
 console, and watch over it as one would over the 
 sick, — in fine, a soul endowed with a sensibility 
 humble as well as profound, which should so far 
 divest itself of that pride so natural even to love 
 as to bury its heart in an obscure affection, of 
 which the world would understand nothing ; to 
 consecrate itself to a feeble, languishing, and 
 wholly introspective being ; to be willing to 
 concentrate all its rays upon a flower without 
 splendor, frail and trembling, which would 
 indeed yield it those perfumes whose sweet- 
 ness charms and penetrates, but never those 
 
140 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 which intoxicate and exalt to the blissful folly of 
 ecstasy. 
 
 May \st. — Forever a burden, forever obliged 
 to borrow my sustenance. The lips of the new- 
 born babe have strength enough to suck the 
 mother's breast, and I, in all the vigour of youth, 
 have not sufficient energy to earn ray own liveli- 
 hood, to draw in enough to sustain life. 
 
 yth. — Gentle rain. Not a breath in the air. 
 The rain fell peacefully with a monotony not de- 
 void of charm. The foliage bent beneath the 
 water's weight, and each drop as it struck the 
 leaves gave them a gentle oscillation which was 
 endlessly repeated. It was as if a general tre- 
 mor had seized upon the green groves, a thrill 
 of joy and rapture. The air, impregnated with a 
 warm humidity, and heavy with all the perfumes 
 of May, filled one with languor, and was almost 
 cloying in its softness and sultry fragrance. 
 
 At present all my communings with Nature, 
 that other consoler of the afflicted, take place in 
 a little garden of the Rue d'Anjou-Saint-Honord, 
 very near the Rue de la P^pini^re. Day before 
 yesterday evening I had passed my arm around 
 a lilac-tree, and was singing in an undertone. 
 Que le jour me dure, by J. J. This touching 
 and melancholy air, my attitude, the calm of the 
 evening, and, more than all, this habit that my 
 
Journal. 141 
 
 soul has of rehearsing at eventide all its sorrows, 
 of burying itself in pale shadows toward the 
 close of day, filled me with a deep, heartfelt, 
 boundless sense of my misery, of my inward 
 poverty. I saw myself poor, miserably poor, 
 pitiable and wholly incapable of a future. At the 
 same time, high above my head and far away, I 
 seemed to hear the murmur of that world of 
 thought and poetry to which I so often aspire, 
 but which I am never able to attain. I thought 
 of those of my own age whose wings are strong 
 enough to reach it ; but I did so without jeal- 
 ousy, and as we here below contemplate the elect 
 and their felicity. But my soul burned, panted, 
 struggled against its powerlessness. It felt 
 something of the despair and the vain transports 
 which those unfortunates feel who can only 
 dream of love, and in their dreams press a burn- 
 ing phantom with frenzy to their breast. The 
 trunk of the lilac, which I clasped, quivered 
 beneath my touch ; I thought I felt it move 
 spontaneously, and the fluttering of its leaves 
 made a sweet sound which to me seemed like a 
 language, like the murmur of lips whispering 
 words of consolation. O my lilac, at that mo- 
 ment I embraced thee as the sole being in this 
 world upon whom I could lean my faltering 
 nature, as the only one capable of enduring an 
 
142 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 embrace from me, and sufficiently compassiona,te 
 to become the support of my misery ! How did 
 I repay thee ? With a few tears which fell upon 
 thy roots. 
 
 i8//i. — My internal wretchedness increases; 
 I no longer dare to look within. 
 
 2<,th. — I shall doubtless be blamed ; but how 
 is it possible for me to express other than what I 
 feel ? Experiences are accumulating ; that is 
 but too evident. I have now no refuge but in 
 resignation. I well foresaw, when I placed my 
 foot upon the lowest step of my strivings and my 
 endeavours, that, after having attempted every- 
 thing, I should consider myself fortunate at find- 
 ing, not a modest abode where I could install 
 myself and breathe at my ease, but a little covert 
 in which I might crouch down and lie hidden until 
 the end. My prevision has been fully realized ; 
 I have now no further refuge than in resignation, 
 and in headlong haste I flee to it, all trembling and 
 bewildered. Resignation is like the burrow dug 
 beneath the roots of an old oak or in the crevice 
 of some rock which gives shelter to the fleeing 
 and long-pursued prey. Rapidly does it dart 
 through the dark and narrow opening, cower at 
 the very bottom, and there, crouching down and 
 all drawn together, it listens with palpitating 
 heart to the distant baying of the hounds and to 
 
Journal. 143 
 
 the hunters' cries. And here am I in my bur- 
 row. But when the danger has passed, the prey 
 again takes to the fields and returns to look upon 
 the sun and liberty ; all rejoicing, it comes back 
 to its carpet of wild thyme and savoury herbs, 
 which it had left but half browsed, and again 
 takes up the habits of its wild and roving life. 
 The grains and vines, the copses, thickets, and 
 flowers, its bed in a tuft of grass or amid the 
 moss beneath the dense bushes, its naps, its 
 dreams, its vague and sweet existence, — all this 
 is again restored to it ; while I, so long hunted 
 down, shall never again be free, but shall for- 
 ever remain imprisoned within my subterranean 
 dwelling. Ought I to complain ? Why should 
 I ? In the depths of my hiding-place I find 
 security, a certain measure of peace, and suffi- 
 cient range for the limited evolutions of my soul. 
 A ray of soft and subtile light glides within my 
 dwelling and sheds about as much brightness as 
 it would in the cell of a bee. So long as the 
 wind wafts me from time to time whiffs of wild 
 fragrance, and my ear catches distant accents of 
 the melodies of Nature, what shall I have to re- 
 gret ? Does the spider, which at evening-tide 
 hangs suspended on its thread between two 
 leaves, concern itself with the flight of the eagle 
 and the pinions of the birds ? And does the 
 
144 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 imagination of the bird, as it broods over its 
 nestlings well-sheltered beneath some bush, re- 
 gret the caprices of its liberty and the soft un- 
 dulations of its flight through the airy heights ? 
 Never have I had the freedom of the bird, nor 
 has my thought ever been as happy as its wings ; 
 then let us fall asleep in resignation, as does the 
 bird in its nest. 
 
 26th. — Why do I make myself uneasy by 
 forever asking. What shall I do with my life ? 
 I have devoted myself to many things, but have 
 succeeded in none ; with a semblance of apti- 
 tude, I remain useless, and I suffer in a posi- 
 tion almost without resources. But who knows 
 if, all superfluous as I seem to be in the world, 
 God does not extract from me some good of 
 which I am unaware; if, unknown to me. He 
 has not endowed me with some virtue, some 
 hidden influence for the good of men ? In the 
 future, every time that I am pursued by the fatal 
 thought of my uselessness and powerlessness, I 
 shall take refuge in this other thought : that 
 Providence puts me to some use and makes me 
 serve some hidden purpose, requiring from me 
 only ray consent and my faith in this mission 
 which It has not wished to reveal to me. By 
 this acquiescence of my will, I fertilize the im- 
 perceptible good which I accomplish, I sow in 
 
Journal. 145 
 
 it the seeds of merits which will secretly sprout 
 and blossom into celestial rewards in the fields 
 of a better world. The paths which lead the 
 creatures of this earth to heaven are not all 
 alike, — some seem to wander strangely, al- 
 though in the end they arrive at the common 
 centre ; each one has its turnings, its angles, its 
 mysterious labyrinths. Among all the paths 
 which men follow, perhaps a larger number than 
 we are accustomed to think lead to heaven ; but 
 I am convinced that all are difficult. However 
 that may be, I go forward on my own, which is 
 very dark, with full confidence. This constant 
 thought, that I am ignorant of the good work 
 for which I am destined by the Lord, will incline 
 me to respect all creatures, to bow before all 
 beings, to conduct myself upon the earth as in 
 a temple where all things fulfil a sacred ministry, 
 where the atoms of dust are so many Levites 
 whose innumerable legions prostrate themselves 
 and pray in the chinks of the pavement. 
 
 June loth. — When I begin on a subject, my 
 self-love imagines that I am doing wonders ; 
 and when I have finished, I see nothing but a 
 wretched patchwork composed of the remnants 
 of colours scraped from the palettes of others, 
 and crudely mixed on my own. But, after all, 
 why should I ceaselessly torment myself with 
 
146 Maurice de Gmrin. 
 
 this thought ? I do my best, I go as far as I 
 can ; and to the Devil with What will they say 
 of it 1 This philosophy is of recent date. During 
 the last eight days I have made great progress 
 in abnegation, in resignation, in the renunciation 
 of all high thought. I have withdrawn into my 
 poor little shell, and strive to settle myself in it 
 as best I can, with the resolution never again to 
 come out of it. I defy my imagination, which, 
 like the tortoise, wanted to travel through 
 the air ; I insult at pleasure my pretentions, al- 
 though they are timid, and they burst with vex- 
 ation ; I take delight in scoffing at the proud ego 
 which vainly kicks against the sting of inward 
 sarcasm ; I bite myself as does the scorpion in 
 the fire, to cut short the agony. 
 
 I ^th. — And am I not a mockery, a plaything, 
 something which little children pursue with their 
 jeers, a being before whom the feeblest hold up 
 their heads, whom the foot of a boy of ten can 
 crush, without its being able even to turn like 
 the worm under the wheel ? All the children 
 whom I meet have, as it were, an instinct by 
 which they divine the imbecility of my character, 
 and at once they treat me as the master would 
 the slave ; their first idea, as soon as I come in 
 sight, is to make sport of me, to torment me 
 with the sarcastic na'iveti of their age. I bear 
 
Journal. 147 
 
 them no ill-will ; it is in their nature to make use 
 for their own enjoyment of everything that is 
 weaker than their feeble hands. 
 
 Le Parc (Eure-et-Loire), June 25th. 
 How can I express what I have felt on once 
 again burying myself in solitude, and in a solitude 
 which reminds me of the country of my sweetest 
 dreams, Brittany ? For this region falls off very 
 much toward the west ; and one inhales here, as 
 it were, emanations from the good country. In 
 appearance the fields are very much the same : 
 there are hollows covered with verdure, paths by 
 the side of the wheat-fields, hedges, enclosures of 
 furze, of broom, and of stunted oaks ; they make 
 excellent butter here, and cider flows abundantly. 
 I rejoice in this resemblance ; I give myself up 
 to studying it ; I revive a multitude of charming 
 memories which, to my mind, is one of the soul's 
 sweetest pastimes. But restless thought does 
 not fall asleep ; it goads me and keeps me for- 
 ever on the alert, but its annoyances are now 
 less active and less tormenting. Relieved from 
 a weight of material anxieties, which stifled me, 
 my fancies soar more freely ; but what matters 
 it ? They are always full of misgivings, doubts, 
 and perplexities ; only to seek them, I go higher 
 and into a more vague and less material order of 
 
148 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 things. They are chimeras of the future which 
 appear and vanish, inquiries into my destiny, 
 beautiful hopes, and misgivings, — a strange 
 combination of all the thoughts which can be 
 awakened in a mind unproductive but always 
 restless, in an imagination which alternately be- 
 lieves and does not believe in itself, which chas- 
 tises and caresses itself, which welcomes all 
 fancies, all impressions, without adhering to 
 any, and goes on forever asking for something 
 new. When, then, shall I subdue it, and when 
 shall I attain to pure and simple reason ? Could 
 I yield to the wise counsels which come to me 
 from all sides, I would pack up all this baggage 
 of vain thoughts, and despoiled of all fancies, 
 but at rest, I would follow in the footsteps of 
 other men. 
 
 26/ft. — The sweetest hospitality, the seclusion 
 of Nature, to which I freely resort, the absence of 
 all constraint, of all subjection, the realization of 
 that half-savage, half-social happiness of which I 
 dreamed with so much eagerness at Paris in my 
 dark and stifling chamber, — all these good things 
 I possess, and yet I cannot wholly abandon my- 
 self to their enjoyment. I fancied to myself 
 that as soon as I were here I should fall into the 
 half-slumber of an equable, free, and natural 
 life ; but how little do I know myself if I hope 
 
Journal. 149 
 
 ever to taste complete rest and be lulled to sleep 
 by the sweet sound of that harmony which we 
 hear within us when all parts of the soul are in 
 unison. My faculties, intellectual as well as 
 moral, have too many inequalities ever to attain 
 an equilibrium. Here I am sheltered from all 
 external shocks. Withdrawn from social tu- 
 mult, out of reach of those blows which bruise 
 me, irritate me, or utterly crush me while I live 
 in the very midst of the world, good order would 
 be re-established within me, if society were the 
 only source of my ills. She is responsible for a 
 large portion of them, — I recognize this in the 
 great feeling of deliverance I experience every 
 time I turn away from her ; but to the nature of 
 my soul a large share is also due, as solitude 
 proves to me as soon as I return to her. For 
 then certain anxious and restless faculties awake, 
 and, to torment me, bring back to life the ca- 
 pacity for bitter suffering, heart-burnings, pent- 
 up vexations, dull anger, all of which subside 
 and fall asleep under the powerful spell of the 
 country. The host of caressing sensations 
 which solitude brings, the animating and pene- 
 trating influences of nature, soothe and delight 
 the surface of my soul ; but on entering within, 
 they become irritants which increase the power 
 of the visionary and restless faculties. 
 
ISO Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 ' ' They are also to the weary and aching soul 
 what the morning dew is to the flowers half- 
 withered by the heat of the previous day : it re- 
 vives and refreshes them, but often only to yield 
 them, more sensitive than ever, to the burning 
 heat of the mid-day sun." (o. l. v.) 
 
 July i6th. — I am beginning to observe within 
 me something which mitigates in part my in- 
 ward sufferings, and which may perhaps end 
 by raising me in my own eyes ; it is the pro- 
 gress of my soul in the love and the comprehen- 
 sion of liberty. It was in 183 1 that my heart 
 first thrilled at this word. Until that time the 
 weak and backward character of my soul had 
 left me insensible to and ignorant of the delights 
 of liberty. But its manhood finally declared 
 itself ; and the first aspirations of this active and 
 powerful faculty were directed toward this vir- 
 gin. She moved my soul at twenty-one, as a 
 young girl had troubled my heart at fourteen, 
 with sensations which were wholly novel, con- 
 fused, and full of delicious agitation. During 
 two years and a half of my life I have been 
 limited to the timid and vague reveries of a first 
 love which knows not itself and is satisfied 
 with little ; but for some months past I have 
 experienced violent transports of the soul, and 
 from time to time there come to me, as it were, 
 
Journal. 1 5 1 
 
 flushes of a powerful and intoxicating heat which 
 permeate my very being. Careless and un- 
 certain fancies take form and become active ; 
 insensibly they are transformed into strong, full 
 thoughts. As many wavering and lukewarm 
 desires as I once had, just so many ardent 
 longings I now possess. Instinct has become 
 passion. 
 
 I have reached a critical period of my inward 
 life. By a strange commotion in my ideas, by 
 the almost sudden development of many of my 
 faculties, by a quickening in the movement of 
 my inner life, I recognize the approach of a 
 revolution which for a long time I have been 
 craving. Until now I have left the guidance of 
 my faculties to caprice and to chance. To me 
 they seemed so weak and of so little promise 
 that I judged them unworthy of other masters ; 
 but they have undeceived me. These pale and 
 puny children have taken on vigour and colour ; 
 their irresolute and timid constitution has be- 
 come emboldened, and by a quick and sudden 
 bound it has freed itself from the languors of its 
 long childhood. I must think of their destiny : 
 this internal revolution is necessary ; I am about 
 to embrace an active life and bid farewell to my 
 ■beloved indifference, sweet companion of my 
 childhood and my youth. Alas 1 it will not be 
 
152 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 without tears in my eyes. I am, then, at last to 
 seriously exercise ray faculties ; and it will be 
 under the inspiration and the fire of that thought 
 which, burning like a passion, fills my soul, — the 
 thought of liberty ; that is to say, of the greatest 
 happiness and the greatest progress of humanity. 
 I shall be nothing more than an ant bringing a 
 straw toward the construction of the future ; 
 but, however small may be my powers, they will 
 none the less be animated by a broad and holy 
 thought which will never allow the soul wherein 
 it dwells to yield, which purifies and expands it 
 and is sufficient to its happiness, — a thought 
 which we all have and of which every one is 
 proud ; the thought which impels the century 
 before it, the most beautiful and the most 
 powerful after that of God, the thought of 
 liberty. 
 
 When I go out for a walk, well disposed, and 
 free from care, at the very first step I feel, 
 springing up from the depths of my soul, an 
 unwonted joy, full of wondrous life and activity. 
 As I get farther into the country this joy in- 
 creases and expands, sometimes rapidly, some- 
 times slowly, according to the incidents of the 
 way and the length of time it takes to arrive at 
 the most beautiful spot in my walk. As soon 
 as I have reached it, and have placed myself to 
 
Journal. 153 
 
 my liking, and always so as to receive a lively 
 impression from all sides of the horizon which 
 surrounds me, this increasing feeling of ineffa- 
 ble delight reaches its fulness, spreads through 
 my whole being, and fills it to overflowing. 
 
 August ^th. — Paris is again to hold sway over 
 me ; but I am now stronger, more courageous, 
 and in every way in a better condition to sustain 
 the burden of life. During the six weeks that I 
 have spent here, without study, without effort, 
 allowing my soul to drift along at its pleasure, 
 living as an idler, but as a contemplative idler and 
 one open to all impressions, I have greatly de- 
 veloped. What does my intelligence need where- 
 with to enrich itself and acquire greater expansion ? 
 Books i' persevering labour ? profound investiga- 
 tions in science ? No 1 A free life ; a country 
 which envelops me in verdure and in genial ex- 
 halations ; walks, sometimes eager and hurried, 
 sometimes easy and languid ; and all the light, 
 the clouds, the ravishing sounds, the universal 
 rapture that encompass a man who spends 
 whole days leaning against a tree and occupied 
 solely with watching Nature live. My intel- 
 ligence found itself placed under these condi- 
 tions ; and its natural sap, warmed by the potent 
 atmosphere which surrounded it, sprang up like 
 a fountain. 
 
154 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 Many clouds have been detaching themselves 
 from the mass of darkness which weighs upon 
 my soul, and which only recently has been dis- 
 turbed by the tardy breath of my intelligence. 
 Each day I lighten myself of some prejudice. 
 The love of liberty is taking possession of my 
 character, and is beginning to establish there a 
 solid and rational independence which inwardly 
 strengthens me and gives me force to resist the 
 rough shocks of that marvellously ordered and 
 regulated battle-array called society. I am 
 about to plunge into the fight, and do not know 
 whom I shall run against ; but I am very sure 
 that bruises and wounds will be showered upon 
 me. What matters it i" A nothing disconcerts 
 me ; a breath overthrows me ; a child is master of 
 my 'timidity. What, then, will happen when I 
 find my existence tied to men all bristling with 
 prejudices, proud and imperious in their servile 
 opinions, vain, inflated, and with hands always 
 ready to fetter the feeble ? They will trouble 
 my timid nature ; they will cause me horrible suf- 
 fering through the weak and defenceless side of 
 my soul ; but their darts will not wound me else- 
 where. While, misled by appearances, they will 
 account me vanquished, my soul, in the hidden 
 temple of freedom, will press to her heart her 
 generous and independent opinions, her faith 
 
Journal. 155 
 
 freed from the slender chains with which so 
 many minds are wont to fetter it, and will say : 
 " Thrust aside these men and their sayings, and 
 steep thyself in the memory of those days of 
 independence when thou didst wander at will 
 over the country, thy heart swelling with rap- 
 ture, and singing at the top of thy voice hymns 
 to liberty, or when thou didst enjoy a day of 
 idleness from beginning to end, from the gay 
 breezes of the morning to the warm fragrance of 
 the evening, lying under a pear-tree,- heedless 
 of all things, and setting at defiance, in thy con- 
 temptuous indolence, the tyrants of all kinds 
 fastened on the human race like vultures." 
 
 Paris, August 20th. 
 To quit solitude for the crowd, green and un- 
 frequented paths for thronged and noisy streets, 
 through which the only breeze that circulates is 
 the hot and tainted breath of humanity ; to pass 
 from quietism to turbulent life, and from the 
 vague mysteries of Nature to the harsh realities 
 of society, — has always been for me a terrible 
 exchange, a return toward evil and misfortune. 
 According as I discern more clearly the true and 
 the false in society, my inclination to live, not 
 as a wild man or a misanthrope, but as a man of 
 solitude on the borders of society, on the out- 
 
IS6 Maurice de Gmrin. 
 
 skirts of the world, has become strengthened 
 and expanded. The birds flutter and peck 
 about, they build their nests around our dwell- 
 ings, they are like fellow-citizens of the farms 
 and hamlets ; but they fly through the boundless 
 sky ; the hand of God alone distributes and 
 measures out to them their daily food ; they 
 build their nests in the heart of the thickets or 
 hang them on the tops of the trees. Even thus 
 I would wish to live, roving around the out- 
 skirts of society, and having always behind me a 
 field of liberty as vast as the sky. If my facul- 
 ties are not yet formed ; if it be true that they 
 have not attained their full growth, — they will 
 not reach their maturity except in the open air 
 and in a somewhat wild environment. My last 
 sojourn in the country redoubled my conviction 
 on this point. 
 
 I have idled away my six weeks of holiday in 
 the most complete inaction. Lying under a 
 tree, to break the uniformity of the far niente, 
 hardly did 1 follow some careless reading, and 
 far more than half my attention was distracted 
 by a breeze or by a bird skimming through the 
 woods, by the song of a blackbird or a sky- 
 lark, or whatever it might be, — by all the vague 
 and bewitching things which pass through the 
 air as they appear to one lying on the fresh 
 
Journal. 157 
 
 grass, under the shade of a tree, in the midst of 
 a Nature intoxicated with life and sunshine. But 
 this repose, this lull, had not extinguished the 
 play of ray faculties, nor arrested the mysterious 
 circulation of thought in the most active portions 
 of my soul. I was like a man bound by mag- 
 netic sleep : his eyes are closed, his body is re- 
 laxed, all his senses are passive ; but, beneath this 
 veil which covers almost all the phenomena of 
 physical life, his soul is far more alive than when 
 in a state of wakefulness and natural activity : 
 it pierces through dense darkness, beyond which 
 it sees certain mysteries laid bare before its 
 eyes, or enjoys the sweetest visions ; it holds 
 converse with spirits, and the gates of a marvel- 
 lous world are opened to it. I tasted simultane- 
 ously two raptures, of which one alone would 
 have been enough to fill and more than fill my 
 whole being, yet both found a place there and 
 expanded freely without contention or confusion. 
 I enjoyed both at the same time, and also each 
 one by itself, as distinctly as though I possessed 
 but one, — no confusion, no mingling, no modifi- 
 cation of the vitality of one by the activity of the 
 other. The first consisted in the inexpressible 
 feeling of complete and unbroken repose resem- 
 bling sleep ; the second came from the progres- 
 sive, harmonious, slowly cadenced movement 
 
158 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 of the innermost faculties of my soul, as they 
 expanded in a world of fancies and of thought; 
 and this I felt to be a kind of vision, in vague a/id 
 fleeting shadows, of the most secret beauties of 
 Nature and of her divine forces. When the hour 
 of departure broke the spell, and I once m6re 
 laid hold upon the habitual consciousness of my 
 being, I again found myself poor and wretched 
 as before ; but by the livelier movement of ray 
 thoughts, by a more subtile delicacy of sensation, 
 by a marked growth in my moral and intellectiial 
 powers, I recognized that my six weeks of idle- 
 ness had not been lost, that the wave of strange 
 visions which had flooded my soul had raised it 
 and borne it higher. I returned to society filled 
 with this joy ; but it was fully offset and almost 
 subdued by the sadness of my heart, which was 
 filled with regrets and languor. I tore myself 
 away from the country as from a sweetheart; 
 and I confess that I cannot explain to my- 
 self the wonderful likeness there is between 
 the sadness with which it filled me and that 
 of love. 
 
 ^^nA.. — I have received a letter from On^sime; 
 on opening it, a perfume of flowers and of the 
 country exhaled from all its folds. I at first 
 thought that he had enclosed within it one of 
 those breezes which hover all day over the 
 
Journal. 159 
 
 meadows and the gardens ; but I soon changed 
 my mind, when, on turning the page, I scattered 
 over the floor blue and yellow petals, rose- 
 leaves and blades of grass. There were other 
 people in the room. I blushed ; I was all 
 abashed ; I thought they were about to question 
 me, perhaps rally me on what gave me so much 
 pleasure. I should not have known what to re- 
 ply ; I should have stammered and have been at 
 a loss for words. And then, besides, how could 
 one make strangers appreciate the value of a 
 blade of grass in a letter, the charm of these 
 touching childish things, of these exquisite sim- 
 plicities } Happily no one noticed it ; they 
 were chatting. I let them alone and hastened to 
 gather up my treasure furtively like a thief. 
 Society, such as it has become, has so changed 
 men, and destroyed in them the ingenuous in- 
 stincts of the soul, that those who have escaped 
 the general contagion and preserved in its vir- 
 ginity the simplicity of primitive tastes are com- 
 pelled to hide themselves, to steal away, to 
 envelop themselves in a sort of modesty. 
 
 26ih. — My soul contracts and curls up like a 
 leaf touched by the cold ; it falls back upon its 
 centre ; it has abandoned all the positions from 
 which it held survey. After a few days of 
 struggle with social realities, it has been obliged 
 
i6o Maurice de Gmrin. 
 
 to beat a retreat and retire under cover. I am 
 now circumscribed and blockaded until the 
 moment when my thought, swollen by a fresh 
 inundation, shall overflow the dike and spread 
 freely over its banks. I know of few internal 
 mishaps so perilous for me as this sudden con- 
 traction of my being after an extreme expansion. 
 When thus circumscribed, the most active facul- 
 ties, the most restless and stirring elements, find 
 themselves taken captive and condemned to in- 
 action, but without paralysis, without diminution 
 of life ; with them, all their impetuosity is shut 
 in and restrained. Pressed and crowded to- 
 gether, they struggle among themselves, and all 
 together against their common barrier. At such a 
 time all my consciousness of life is reduced to a 
 dull and deep irritation mingled with struggles : 
 it is the fermentation of many different elements 
 which become excited and exasperated in their 
 forced contact, and make repeated attempts to 
 break forth. All the faculties which placed me in 
 communication with the outside world, with the 
 far-away, those brilliant and faithful messengers 
 of the soul which go and come continually from 
 the soul to Nature and from Nature to the soul, 
 are immured within me, so that I remain isolated, 
 and cut off from all participation in the universal 
 life. I am becoming like an infirm roan who has 
 
Journal. i6i 
 
 lost the use of all his senses, solitary and ex- 
 communicated from Nature. 
 
 September jth. — I waste myself in conversa- 
 tion. Most often I reap from it only despon- 
 dency and bitterness. In it I compromise my 
 inward life, everything that is best in me. To 
 feed the conversation, I throw into it my fa- 
 vourite thoughts, those which I love the most 
 secretly and with the greatest solicitude. My 
 timid and embarrassed speech disfigures them, 
 mutilates them, and thrusts them into broad 
 daylight, disorderly, confused, and half-naked. 
 When I leave, I gather together and clasp my 
 scattered treasure ; but I replace within me only 
 visions bruised like fruit fallen from the tree 
 onto stony ground. 
 
 c)th. — At this moment there is a medley in 
 my soul, — a mixture of bitterness and sweet- 
 ness, a confusion of honey and gall, a strange 
 pell-mell. For several days my mind, already 
 lawless, has been filled with a restless and burn- 
 ing inconstancy which makes it come and go 
 from pole to pole, never lets it alight or rest in 
 the midst of any order of ideas or beliefs, but 
 carries it rapidly along from region to region, 
 and lowers it, as it passes, over every abyss. I 
 experience strange rapture in feeling my soul 
 caught up like that prophet whom an angel bore 
 
1 62 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 &yNar^ by the hair, and, like him, traversing bound- 
 less space with frightful speed. But what is the 
 result of these lawless journeys ? Lassitude, be- 
 wilderment, increased confusion ; and still, at 
 the bottom of all this, my self-love was filled 
 with secret satisfaction, and gloried in the fiery 
 journey, secretly .exciting the growing passion 
 of my soul for these perilous adventures. In 
 the country also, during those days of idleness, 
 the ravisher came to bear away my soul ; to- 
 gether they went far, far away, but with a 
 more tempered flight, and through regions more 
 serene, though equally vague and undulating. 
 As to-day, my soul on its return was lost in 
 confusion and uncertainty, but there was less 
 agitation and anxious pre-occupation in its 
 perplexity. 
 
 i<)th. — O truth ! dost thou not appear to me 
 at times like a luminous phantom behind a cloud ? 
 But the first wind dissipates thee. Might it be 
 that thou art merely an illusion of the eyes of 
 the soul ? Reason and faith ! when these two 
 words shall form but one, the enigma of the 
 world will be solved. While waiting, what is to 
 be done ? At the hour I write, the sky is mag- 
 nificent, Nature breathes fresh breezes, full of 
 life, the world rolls on melodiously, and among 
 all these harmonies there circulates something 
 
Journal. 163 
 
 of sadness and dismay, — the mind of man, 
 troubling itself about all this system which it 
 does not understand. 
 
 2\st. — After all, what is the problem here 
 below ? To live a useful life. This being 
 granted, of what account is the instrument which 
 God places in our hands to . utilize the time, 
 whether it be a pen or a hammer ? To accept 
 without hesitation every condition for which the 
 powers of my mind or my hands are sufficient, 
 such is the resolve to which my soul clings, see- 
 ing that everything around it is vanishing and 
 drifting away, that the earth is crumbling beneath 
 its feet. But can I count upon one of my soul's 
 resolves ? Who will assure me of its constancy 
 after a thousand changes, after a thousand pro- 
 jects attempted, abandoned, and taken up again ? 
 I elude my own self ; my sluggish and indifferent 
 will loses breath in the pursuit of my soul, which 
 takes the wings of the lightest fancies, of the 
 most fleeting illusions. Such is my life, — it is 
 made up of serious projects ever changing, and 
 of permanent but idle dreams, of long intoxi- 
 cations of the fancy, and of absurd contests 
 between my will and my soul, which is indepen- 
 dent, and as light in flight as a wild creature ; 
 while in the most sensitive and hidden depths 
 of my being, there is always acute suffering or 
 
1 64 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 dull discomfort^ according as the disorder in- 
 creases or diminishes. 
 
 ibth. — I accept with a passive resignation the 
 recoil of those hopes which were once sent 
 forth and now come back to me. I am begin- 
 ning to trouble myself very little about the out- 
 ward progress of my hfe and the greater or less 
 amount of pleasure which I shall meet on my 
 way. When 1 have bread according to my 
 hunger, and water to my thirst, I should, more 
 than others, be satisfied and silent. An idle 
 and wholly supferfluous memBi^ of society, I 
 have no right, in 'the general olstribution, to 
 more than the portion strictly necessary for the 
 support of my life. 
 
 2Qth. — Everything is becoming confused 
 within and without. A boundless chaos. Nature, 
 men, science, the totality of things rolls its waves 
 against a point isolated like a reef in the sea, — 
 my soul, lost in the foam and the turmoil. . . . 
 I sustain the assault of boundless waters ; how 
 long shall I stand firm ? If I am swallowed up 
 in your bosom, mysterious waves, will it happen 
 to me as to those knights who, when dragged 
 down to the bottom of the lakes, found there 
 marvellous palaces, or shall I, like that fisher- 
 man of the fable, in falling into the sea, become 
 a god ? 
 
Journal. 165 
 
 Hitherto I have doubted myself, — I who am 
 this imperceptible point. The doubt which 
 covered this imperceptible point has broken 
 through its boundaries, and now overspreads 
 the world ; an atom has expanded over the 
 entire universe. Then I suffered only in myself, 
 now I suffer in all things. 
 
 2<)th. — The germinating grain puts forth life 
 in two contrary directions : the plumule shoots 
 upward, the radicle downward. I would like 
 to be the insect which dwells and lives in 
 the radicle. I would station myself at the 
 furthermost point of the roots, and there I 
 would contemplate the powerful action of the 
 pores which draw in the life ; I would watch 
 the life passing from the bosom of the fruitful 
 molecule into the pores which, like so many 
 mouths, arouse and attract it with melodious 
 calls. I would be a witness of the ineffable 
 love with which it rushes toward the being that 
 calls it, and of the joy of this being. I would 
 be present at their embraces. 
 
 October 22nd. — For three Weeks, outside 
 work which devours all my daws to the last 
 crumb ; revolution in my habitsN; a sudden 
 transition from the heedlessness of dreams to 
 the breathlessness of action. All this bustle of a 
 busy life absorbs a certain portion of my thought ; 
 
1 66 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 but it is that unsettled portion which I give over 
 to every wind, like the folds of a mantle. I feel 
 no regret for this. It is like the waves which flow 
 over the beach, — the sand absorbs them, man 
 gathers booty from them, the sea gives them up 
 to all who want them. Thus the outskirts of my 
 thought are absorbed by the cares and anxieties 
 of active life ; but in its integrity nothing touches 
 it, no one draws from it, nothing escapes from 
 its waves, except through the continual evapo- 
 ration of its waters drawn up by an unknown 
 power. 
 
 November i^rd. — Two months of action, of 
 participation in human toil. But in bending 
 over my work, in digging the furrow wherein I 
 have just sown my first labours, I experienced 
 only physical weariness. My soul returns from 
 its day's work with all the freshness of its first 
 awaking. It is not very long since it shud- 
 dered and fainted whenever the thought of an 
 outward action to be accomplished passed before 
 it. If at the moment when necessity forced me 
 into the conflict of active life, scourging me on 
 like those soldiers of the East who were driven 
 to battle by the lash of the whip, — if, I say, at that 
 moment my soul had stooped sufficiently earth- 
 ward to have been near the scene of action, it 
 would have been stricken to the ground. Hap- 
 
Journal. 167 
 
 pily, shortly before this time, it had started upon 
 a course which is carrying it far away from the 
 battlefields of action. This departure was not 
 sudden or unexpected ; it had been heralded by 
 breaths which moved my soul from time to time 
 like the first freshness of a breeze. It started 
 out just in time ; it is now out of danger. Joy- 
 ous, like those captives who ply their oars, flying 
 from a barbarous coast, it plunges forward in 
 rapturous flight, it seeks places unknown to all 
 and to itself, but is sure of reaching them, for 
 they lure it on, and as it presses onward it is 
 encouraged by an infallible presentiment of the 
 marvels which they are holding in reserve. 
 
 December loth. — Of what, then, is my nature 
 made, that new conditions, for which I can in no 
 wise make ready, are ever taking me by surprise ; 
 that at every moment some new weakness be- 
 trays itself on a side where I had felt no disqui- 
 etude ? To-day this poor imagination of mine, 
 through which I habitually live, and whence 
 flow all the unknown joys and hidden transports 
 that circulate within me, no part of which goes 
 forth to be lost in the outside world, — this poor 
 imagination has become exhausted. It is now 
 eight days since my inner life has begun to ebb, 
 since the stream has subsided, so visibly re- 
 duced that after a few rounds of the sun it be- 
 
1 68 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 came but a thread of water. To-day I saw its 
 last drop pass away. 
 
 I give a wide range to tiie meaning of the 
 word "imagination": to me it stands for the 
 inner life, and is the collective name for the 
 most beautiful faculties of the soul, for those 
 which clothe ideas in the ornaments of imagery 
 as well as for those which, turning toward the 
 infinite, are perpetually meditating upon the in- 
 visible, and conceive it in images of unknown 
 origin and of ineffable form. This is but little 
 philosophical and is far removed from known 
 psychologies ; but on this point I trouble myself 
 very little about men and the arrangement they 
 have made of our faculties ; I shatter their sys- 
 tems, which fetter me, and, free, I go as far 
 away from them as possible, to reconstruct a soul 
 and a world according to my own will. 
 
 I certainly cannot believe that our most living 
 faculties die out like a flickering torch, and that 
 all the inward springs are of a sudden stopped as 
 though struck by a curse. But it is undeniable 
 that life is interrupted, that the river of secret 
 joys suspends its course, to open a way for tribes 
 of afflictions and unknown desolations to pass 
 through. I am now suffering this terrible inva- 
 sion. I listen within me and no longer hear any 
 sound of what used to charm me. Subtile and 
 
Journal. 169 
 
 blended murmurings, undulating choirs of dis- 
 tant voices, echoes of the secret songs of Nature, 
 — all this beautiful torrent of sounds has ceased. 
 Like a man who walks by night, carrying a 
 torch, objects, as I advanced, appeared to be 
 clothed in a brightness at once intense and soft ; 
 and beneath that radiance all forms, softened 
 and glorified, seemed to bask as though in 
 their element, and to feel unknown raptures 
 which animated their features and imparted to 
 them such beauty as was never seen. To-day I 
 only cast a shadow ; every form is opaque and 
 branded with death. As in a midnight walk I 
 pass on, wrapped in the sense of my own iso- 
 lated existence among the motionless phan- 
 toms of all things. 
 
 My inner life recalls to mind that circle of 
 Dante's Inferno where a crowd of souls rush 
 headlong after a standard which is being borne 
 rapidly along. The multitude of my thoughts, a 
 crowd eager and tumultuous, but silent, like 
 ghosts, rush restlessly along toward a fatal gpal, 
 a swaying and luminous form most irresistibly 
 attractive, which flees with the speed of un- 
 created shapes. A deceptive guide, no doubt, for 
 its flight is too seductive not to allure my soul 
 into some cruel snare ; but, whatever may be the 
 result, I yield to the glimmering light. Like a 
 
170 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 child on a journey, my spirit forever smiles at 
 the beautiful visions which it sees within it and 
 will never see elsewhere. 1 dwell with the 
 inner elements of things ; I ascend the rays of 
 the stars and the current of the rivers up to the 
 centre of the mysteries of their generation. I 
 am admitted by Nature to the most secluded of 
 her divine abodes, to the point where are the 
 springs of universal life ; there I detect the 
 cause of motion, and I hear in all its freshness 
 the first song of created beings. Who has not 
 surprised himself watching the shadows of sum- 
 mer clouds coursing over the face of the coun- 
 try ? I do that very thing while writing this. I 
 watch the shadow of my fancies, as it flies over 
 this paper like scattered flakes forever swept 
 along by the wind. Such is the nature of my 
 thoughts, of all my intellectual endowment, — a 
 little floating vapour which melts away. But 
 even as the air delights in condensing the evapo- 
 rations of the waters, and in peopling itself with 
 beautiful clouds, so does my fancy seize upon 
 the emanations of my soul, gather them to- 
 gether, shape them at its pleasure, and let them 
 drift in the current of that secret breath which 
 passes through every intelligence. This is the 
 happiness of my instincts, — an evanescent and 
 unstable happiness which often melts beneath my 
 
Journal. 171 
 
 kisses and dissolves in my embrace. Thus 
 neither my serenities nor my storms are of long 
 duration ; alas 1 neither are my resolutions per- 
 manent. Whatever of philosophy and practical 
 reason there is in my soul groans and suffers. 
 Like a vessel which has unfurled too many sails, 
 I hold a blind, mad course through life, sustain- 
 ing at every moment the most cruel damages. 
 
 One enjoys and admires, in a picture, the fea- 
 tures of an unknown man, perchance of a shep- 
 herd, dreaming on a mountain, representing 
 intelligence in the midst of creation, the sono- 
 rous and deep echo in the centre of melodies, 
 the divine mirror among the innumerable images 
 of the increate which God has sent forth upon 
 their journey, — that moving display of symbols 
 which is called the universe. The real person- 
 ages, the shepherd and myself, are poor crea- 
 tures who instinctively and as a pastime in our 
 solitude watch the clouds as they sail past, and 
 listen to the whistling of the wind. 
 
 January 26lh, 1835. — I have unfolded my 
 little drama under your eyes ; you have listened 
 to it, and have followed its movements with a 
 tender interest which has given me all my cour- 
 age. And yet what were you watching ? What 
 one follows with the eye, during summer even- 
 ings : a winged insect which spins around and 
 
172 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 flies through the air with a gentle buzzing of its 
 wings. Like it, my thought foolishly takes a 
 capricious flight which leads nowhere. I have 
 acquired enough philosophy to walk resolutely 
 through practical life, and to rise above certain 
 misfortunes which formerly would have crushed 
 me. But I do not possess any control over my 
 thought. It has no other guide than an unwea- 
 ried instinct to fly far away from the common 
 haunts, as though liberty consisted in evasion, 
 and truth were reached at the end of an endless 
 journey. Thus, notwithstanding the smoothing 
 of my material pathway, I experience scarcely 
 less weariness in living ; for the disquietude of 
 the intellect is an evil equal to the uncertainty of 
 the morrow. Poetry has no longer a place in my 
 soul, no more do I enjoy her familiar commun- 
 ings ; by the absence of a sweet burden, by the 
 chilling of the habits of my imagination, I realize 
 that she has taken flight ; and besides, I hear 
 her voice afar off, from on high, already faint 
 and dying away in the distance. At times it 
 seems as though she called me, having found it 
 better beyond the darkness than here, for now 
 I rest all my hopes upon the unseen world ; and 
 at other times it seems as though she bade me 
 farewell. Yet what matters it that what we 
 call imagination, poetry, should leave me or 
 
Journal. 173 
 
 should stay with me ? It cannot arrest or hasten 
 the course of my destiny ; and, whether I foresee 
 or not from here below, I shall none the less 
 contemplate some day what is reserved for me. 
 Ought I not rather, neglecting all these anxieties, 
 to apply myself to extending my positive knowl- 
 edge, and to prefer the smallest luminous thread 
 of exact truth to the vague glimmerings in which 
 I drown myself? The man who accounts for 
 any mathematical truth is more advanced in the 
 comprehension of the true than is the most 
 beautiful imagination. He has acquired an in- 
 violable possession in the domain of the intellect ; 
 he can dwell there for eternity. The poet is 
 driven from exile to exile, and will never have a 
 sure abode. 
 
 February 2nd. — We lost Marie on the 22nd 
 of January, at nine o'clock in the evening. 
 
 After the happiness of dying before those 
 whom we love, I know of no greater sign of the 
 favour of HeaVen than to be admitted to the 
 bedside of a dying friend ; to follow him as far 
 as we can into the shadow of death ; to become 
 partly initiated into the deep mystery wherein he 
 disappears ; to take faithful and incorruptible im- 
 pressions from his face ; and to thus acquire a 
 treasure of sorrows and of secret thoughts which 
 shall be sufficient to fill the longest life. 
 
174 Maurice de Guerin. ; 
 
 I have seen nothing except through the repre- 
 sentation which the soul creates for itself, as far 
 as it is able, of what passes far away from lis. 
 Poor Marie 1 I have pictured in spirit the 
 scene of your end ; I have eagerly contemplated 
 through the shadows of this terrible dream 
 what passed between you and death ; I have 
 seen your calm and peaceful features, your 
 sweetness, and the beauty of your soul, which 
 the last agony had not yet dimmed, still dwelling 
 on your lips. At times this vision becomes con- 
 fused and disappears, but is soon restored, for I 
 call it back with fatal power. During its longest 
 absences, it gives place to another image more 
 released from the shadows of death : Marie 
 appears to me in vague and uncertain outlines, 
 hovers before my imagination, and , without touch- 
 ing the ground, guides me to those spots which 
 she loved, and through which we so often wan- 
 dered together. 
 
 She has vanished from this visible world ; she 
 belongs to the regions of thought ; she is now 
 accessible only to that powerful faculty which 
 rises from the soul toward spiritual abodes, 
 mounts up to them in secret through the shadows, 
 and redescends, accompanied by a sweet phan- 
 tom. How many times did our fancies mount 
 together toward those indistinct and veiled 
 
Journal. 175 
 
 abodes which attracted us by their mystery 1 
 How many times did they gently knock at 
 the gates of that world of intelligences and 
 of pure spirits 1 And now thou art merged, 
 absorbed into that ocean of spiritual sub- 
 stance ! My thought forms thee within itself 
 by the same process and of the same essence 
 as those sweet dreams which used to mingle 
 with thine and turn toward the same celestial 
 goal. 
 
 I strive to understand this, to reconcile the 
 thought which seeks her on the earth with that 
 which no longer looks for her there. With sad- 
 ness I reform the habits of my imagination, that 
 was wont to fly with such delight toward the 
 beloved wilderness ; at every moment I am 
 forced to turn it from its way, and to start it on 
 the new road which it must henceforth take, — 
 strange and bitter confusion of two worlds, ter- 
 rible displacement of the soul in the pursuit of 
 her who has changed her dwelling-place 1 But 
 no ; I am happy to turn my gaze toward the 
 world into which she has vanished, to carry all 
 my communings, all my aspirations, toward the 
 invisible, which has robbed us of her presence. 
 Who will make me share in the treasures gath- 
 ered from those supreme moments > Who will 
 initiate me into those mysteries in which I would 
 
176 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 wish to be forever enshrouded ? I hunger after 
 sorrow and baleful knowledge. ' . . . 
 
 ()th. — The work is finished ; doubt is no 
 longer rampant ; I am convinced. I have 
 draped in mourning the charming scene of my 
 memories. The sweet face whose outlines 
 wavered in my memory, — for time and absence 
 spread over the dearest features a mist which 
 blurs them and makes them indistinct, — the 
 sweet face has been restored to my view ; but 
 my imagination has done even as death did, — 
 it has covered her with pallor, it has touched 
 her lips with the tint of the expiring rose, and 
 has closed her eyes forever. I have shattered 
 the idea of her terrestrial existence, I have ef- 
 faced her from the outward world. There has 
 been a complete change ; an entire individuality 
 of actual life has been withdrawn from my soul, 
 and there have come in its place the incor- 
 ruptible images and forms of the unknown world 
 which lies near us. My bosom filled with love, 
 I clasp these new apparitions, which wear cher- 
 ished forms, and look attentively upon them. 
 I pray that I may draw within me as many as 
 I can of these secret guests around whom 
 
 1 After this fragment, a leaf has been detached from 
 the original manuscript, and several lines are effaced at 
 the top of the following page. 
 
Journal. 177 
 
 sorrow clings and who strengthen sorrow in its 
 hopes. Still the consciousness of the terrible 
 blow is not weakened ; however much the soul 
 may wish to withdraw within its shadows, to 
 lament apart without external sign, the necessity 
 of tears oppresses it. Then, if my eyes resist, I 
 say like Hippolyte : Dost thou then not weep, 
 dost thou then no more recall the good days of a 
 year ago with Marie I 
 
 12th. — Of what world should we dream? 
 What secret beauties of Nature could attract and 
 hold fast our minds with greater power than the 
 shores beyond which Marie has vanished ? I 
 know that she is there, that the darkness of the 
 spirit-world hides her from us. How attractive 
 does this darkness become, and what charm 
 there lies for me in venturing to approach this 
 unknown world 1 I go forward ; I imagine as 
 best I can the dwelling-places of pure spirit ; 
 I strive to represent to myself a soul restored 
 to its element, the secrets of its new life, 
 and all the phases of its imperishable condi- 
 tion. The imagination, carrying its terrestrial 
 habits into its visions, clothes the cherished 
 soul in form, and I see Marie with her earthly 
 features renewed in the heavens. But often, 
 sorrow, for a moment driven away, is born 
 again from the very fashioning of these sweet 
 
178 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 phantoms ; it comes upon me amid the most 
 soothing visions. She is, then, I say to my- 
 self, nothing more than a thought ; she is, then, 
 no longer accessible except to the reveries of 
 my soul 1 With difficulty I escape from the 
 oppressive and human sadness of this idea. 
 Sometimes I avoid it by starting anew on the 
 pilgrimage of retrospection. The light and 
 silent footsteps of my imagination return to the 
 beloved paths. Like Paul wandering over his 
 island, I return, led by an irresistible attraction, 
 to the site of the shipwreck. A few days ago, 
 in a library where I found myself alone, I 
 came upon a book from which we used to read 
 during our long and sympathetic evenings. I 
 opened it. . . . How can I express what arose 
 from it, and the keenness of the memories which 
 slept in those lines as in so many furrows ? 
 How many tears did I shed over this good Colin 
 d'Harleville, so gay, so charming ! Thus all is 
 changed to mourning. Come back all, — memo- 
 ries, sweet emanations of the past, shadows of 
 what has vanished ! return into my soul, even as 
 at the fall of night the little birds and the bees, 
 which had strayed over the country, fly back 
 toward their haunts and gather there together. 
 Come back all ; night is falling. Thus do I 
 throw off the scent those excessive regrets which 
 
Journal. 1 79 
 
 no consolation dares to approach. I surround 
 them- with this murmuring throng of memories. 
 They listen to their mingled voices and look 
 upon their features of a thousand hues ; the 
 hurried course of sorrowful thoughts gradually 
 abates and grows calmer, so as to flow on like a 
 sluggish and melancholy stream. 
 
 March 24th. — Formerly my sorrows were 
 watered, I might say ; they have now become 
 arid. My griefs once contained in their floods 
 some drops of liquid balm ; to-day the pure 
 liquor no longer leaves any sweet deposit to be 
 tasted lingeringly and in secret. 
 
 I used to fancy the soft and tender glimmer- 
 ings of the twilight to be sweet and beneficent 
 particles left by the burning river of light which 
 had but lately traversed the heavens ; and I 
 looked upon the sky with profound pleasure as 
 with melancholy charm it became penetrated 
 by that ethereal alluvium which softened it. I 
 followed in the sunset what was passing within 
 me at the same hour ; and the evening and I 
 both sank to rest in the same appeasement of 
 our sorrow. 
 
 Calming sweetness of those lingering sights, 
 conformity of my soul with the spirit of natural 
 scenes, what has become of you ? I am alone. 
 No longer do I feel or experience anything but 
 
i8o Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 my own life. The bitterness of an existence 
 deeply impaired by a thousand internal poisons, 
 — such is the sole savour of my days. 
 
 2jth. — I am well aware that were I to make 
 a resolute effort I could accustom my intellect 
 to a severe logic, to a regular discipline of my 
 faculties, to a consecutive grasp of useful truths. 
 But I have been given so little power of deduc- 
 tion, so little method and logical observation, 
 that such an attempt could never be other than 
 feeble and sickly. 
 
 Calmness in thought marks the power of the 
 intellect. Now, all my attempts are but crea- 
 tions without coherency, — convulsive, breaking 
 off suddenly at every moment, like the speech of 
 a madman. I lose control of myself ; a fatal con- 
 fusion distracts my mind ; the ardour of certain 
 ideas intoxicates it ; it scours the country on 
 the wings of nameless fancies. But what is the 
 use of complaining ? Were I a labourer I should 
 perhaps blame the weakness of my arms and the 
 quick exhaustion of my breath. Never in my 
 life have I dug the soil, and on that score I am 
 tranquil. If I had limited the work of my under- 
 standing to what was required by my condition, 
 and had not put its strength to such severe tests, 
 I should be tranquil on that score also. But it 
 is done ; to console one's self for it is the easiest 
 
Journal. 1 8 1 
 
 thing. Why not also reascend the current of 
 habit and thus return to my original tranquillity ? 
 May I close forever the outlet foolishly made 
 for the secret floods contained within my soul 1 
 There may they sleep ! These floods, — they are 
 but a few drops ; no need to fear their tempests. 
 
 If I have still a few more steps to take here 
 below, I would that it might be with composure. 
 I know not whence I come nor whither I go. 
 One should at least walk tranquilly in the peace 
 of an ignorance which will soon be enlightened. 
 True wisdom is patience with what endureth 
 not. 
 
 There is more strength and beauty in the 
 well-guarded secret of ourselves and our 
 thoughts than in the display of a whole 
 heaven which we may have within us. Thus 
 did Marie : the riches and the sweetness of 
 her soul were not revealed other than in the 
 charm of her voice and the peaceful enchant- 
 ment which her life shed on all around her. 
 This is not discouragement that I am indulging 
 in. Although I am still subject to certain 
 returns of this old infirmity, I have so reduced 
 it that it no longer impedes the positive advance 
 of my life. The eager and restless nature of 
 my mind, in no wise suited to the strong 
 and severe operations of the reason, forbids 
 
1 82 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 me all hope of making any serious progress in 
 the philosophy of this world. Now, this order 
 of research taken away, I see nothing worth 
 an effort of thought. Consequently, when 
 I shall have acquired enough common knowl- 
 edge to distribute during my lifetime among 
 small boys, I ought to be contented. I shall 
 then possess my share of knowledge. This 
 is a very small and restricted ambition. But 
 for a man like myself, who has not in his heart 
 enough energy to produce even a mere ignis 
 fatuus of passion, and who, in his intellect, has 
 only just enough to be fruitlessly tormented, is 
 not this little the best? That little which is 
 needed to regulate one's material life, and yet 
 to deal peaceably and deliberately with men 
 and things, conscious of a profound ignorance 
 of the impenetrable destiny which urges us on, 
 and also, perchance, with a touch of revery. 
 
 April yd. — The moral expanse which my 
 life includes is like a desert covered by a pale, 
 motionless, and changeless sky. Its temperature 
 is sufficiently warm to have excited a certain 
 fermentation in the fecundity of the soil ; but, 
 as it ever preserves the same degree, the inter- 
 nal sap, drawn up and heated to a correspond- 
 ing point, cannot rise beyond, and finds itself 
 condemned to ferment monotonously, without 
 
Journal. 183 
 
 rest and unproductive, like the water which 
 simmers without interruption, neither increasing 
 nor diminishing its murmur, over the constant 
 heat of a small fire. The result for me is a con- 
 tinuous, subtile, and obstinate suffering. Eager, 
 restless, and seeing only by glimpses, my mind 
 is afflicted with all the evils which would be the 
 sure result of a youth destined never to reach its 
 manhood. I grow old and I exhaust myself in 
 such petty transports of the mind, in such 
 worthless ebullitions of the intellect, and all that 
 stirs within me makes so little progress, and all 
 that cannot stir sees things from such a distance, 
 that it would have been a hundred times better 
 had I been given an intellect blind and paralytic. 
 The suffering, at first somewhat restricted, has 
 rapidly increased. Like a disease which is 
 diffused throughout the blood, it now shows 
 itself everywhere, and under the strangest de- 
 velopments. My head is wasting away. Like 
 a tree that is decaying at th-e top, I feel, when 
 the wind blows, as though at my summit it were 
 passing through many a withered branch. Work ■ 
 is intolerable to me, or rather impossible. Appli- 
 cation does not bring on sleep, but a keen and 
 nervous repugnance which hurries me away I 
 know not where, into the streets and public 
 squares. The spring, whose blessings used to 
 
1 84 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 come each year quietly and secretly to charm 
 me in my retreats, crushes me this year under a 
 burden of sudden heat. Life does not de- 
 scend from heaven in the freshness of the night, 
 neither is it distributed in the rain-drops, nor 
 does it melt and dissolve throughout the whole 
 expanse of the air ; it falls from on high like a 
 weight. 
 
 I wish that some event might release me from 
 my present position. If I were free, I would 
 embark for some country where I should be 
 obliged to form new habits. 
 
 Zth. — My head is a waste. I suffer there a 
 pain partly moral, partly physical. On certain 
 days I feel as if my nerves were knotted to- 
 gether by dull, resistless contractions. Excess of 
 cold or heat, ennui, certain motions of the head, 
 internal irritations, contribute to this. All ideas 
 then leave me. A strange stupor pervades me ; 
 I remain motionless, feeling nothing but the 
 heavy, overwhelming immutability of life, which 
 seems brought to a standstill in a state of in- 
 comprehensible distress, and the beating of 
 an artery which quivers at that spot in ray 
 head. 
 
 30i/i. — When suffering has passed away, and 
 life remains, pale, enfeebled, but full of confi- 
 dence and of calm enjoyment in watching the 
 
Journal. 185 
 
 extinction of the last symptoms of disease, then 
 even the most self-centred soul is in a mood for 
 lengthy and somewhat vague disquisitions, a 
 mingling of sad memories and a thousand pleas- 
 ing schemes. With the entrance of the first 
 rays of returning health, there flock in languish- 
 ing dreams, and visions sweet and indefinite, like 
 atoms swimming in their waves of light. This 
 condition is dearer to the soul than health. It 
 is in these moments that from various sides of 
 my being, as from the quiet fields beneath a gray, 
 cloudless sky, rise gentle sounds, signs of a life 
 which returns from afar. These sounds are 
 made by my thoughts, which, as they come out 
 of their sad torpor, give a gentle flutter of 
 timid joy, and begin a converse full of reminis- 
 cences or of hopes. At other times, when 
 slower to awaken, I hear within me, during 
 these hours of calm, only slight and infrequent 
 rustlings, as in a wood where birds are sleeping 
 on the topmost branches. To-day, released 
 from their torpor, they speak connectedly and 
 with tranquillity of the sorrows they have en- 
 dured. They are awaiting life, the future, the 
 coming of the successive mysteries of existence, 
 while strengthening each other with the elo- 
 quence of inward exhortations, or by hushing 
 themselves at times to listen to the rushing of 
 
1 86 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 the secret torrent of philosophy which flows 
 beneath some lives, like those which swept 
 through mediaeval cloisters. 
 
 The greater part of those faculties which con- 
 stitute mental power are either entirely wanting 
 in me or are merely indicated, as, on the trees, 
 dead or barren buds represent those branches 
 which were to shoot forth. Co-ordination, 
 comparison, deduction, are for me processes so 
 momentous, and so rapidly exhaustive of my 
 intellectual powers, that, even though I am not 
 entirely prevented from strong mental exercise, 
 the faculty for it that is still left to me is almost 
 useless. When I want to connect one truth with 
 another, I resemble a man who, with his half- 
 paralyzed arm, strives to fasten together two ob- 
 jects : he raises his arm with difficulty ; it falters, 
 shakes, and always misses its aim. Many causes, 
 in both my internal and external natures, turned 
 me early toward introspection. My soul was 
 my first horizon. For a long time I have been 
 contemplating it. I watch, as they come up 
 from the depths of my being, vapours which rise 
 as from a deep valley, and take on form only 
 at the breath of chance, — indescribable phan- 
 toms which ascend slowly and continuously. The 
 powerful fascination exercised upon the soul, as 
 well as upon the senses, by the monotonous and 
 
Journal. 1 87 
 
 continuous passing of some wandering thing, 
 whatever it may be, holds possession of me and 
 does not allow my eyes to turn aside for one 
 moment from this spectacle. 
 
 I make my living by the help of the little Latin 
 which I learned at college and have not since 
 lost, I know not why. The courses are so long, 
 the tasks so varied, that they occupy the best 
 part of my days. I suffer great loss through 
 these material occupations ; my stream is lost in 
 the sands. I can reserve scarcely anything from 
 this excessive usurpation of daily subsistence 
 over the time of thought ; and I foresee that dur- 
 ing my whole life I shall always be forced to 
 throw this divine prey a sacrifice to cruel neces- 
 sity. I am persuaded that the time must come 
 when we shall pass our days in perpetual con- 
 templation, with a surety as to our peace ; but, 
 here below, to toil, to exhaust ourselves for the 
 sake of mere raiment in the future^ to despoil 
 the spirit so as to buy for it a place among men 
 (too highly considered, alas, were I to call 
 them strangers) engrossed in their everlasting 
 petty affairs and of a depressing mediocrity, — all 
 this is a mighty trial to the soul, and one which 
 strangely reverses the meaning of this word, 
 " Life." 
 
 May jth. — You are suffering to-day from the 
 
1 88 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 poetry which fills your being and has no outlet. 
 This sorrow is terrible, but so beautiful ! Con- 
 sole yourself in the noble and rare nature of 
 your torments : there are so many men who for 
 trifles suffer as much as you do 1 You are 
 privileged in sorrow ; what more do you wish 
 for here below ? 
 
 What every man of a nature apart rather than 
 superior guards with the greatest vigilance, is 
 the secret of his soul and of the inner work- 
 ings of. his thoughts. I love that god Harpo- 
 crates, his index-finger on his lips. 
 
 14th. — Who can say that he has found a haven 
 of rest unless he has reached some height, the 
 loftiest he is able to attain ? I have been for 
 some time gazing toward those temples of serene 
 wisdom erected by ancient philosophy upon sum- 
 mits so lofty that few can reach them. Would 
 that I could storm these heights ! When shall I 
 find my rest ? In olden times the gods, willing 
 to reward the virtue of certain mortals, would 
 envelop them in the clasp of some vegetable 
 growth, which, as it sprang up, absorbed in its 
 embrace their worn-out bodies and substituted 
 for their life, exhausted by old age, a life strong 
 and silent, such as throbs beneath the bark of 
 the oaks. These mortals, become stationary, 
 moved only at the tips of their boughs swaying 
 
Journal. 1 89 
 
 in the winds. Is not this a type of the wise 
 man and his serenity ? Does he not continually 
 inwrap himself in this metamorphosis of the few 
 men beloved of the gods ? To fill one's self 
 with a self-chosen elemental life ; to enshroud 
 one's self ; to seem to men as firmly rooted and 
 grounded, and as full of grave unconcern, as 
 some great forest tree-trunks ; to give forth on 
 occasion only responses undefined but deep, as 
 when some heavy tree-tops re-echo the murmurs 
 of the sea, — this is a condition of existence 
 which seems to me worthy of endeavour, and 
 one well suited to be a bulwark against men 
 and the vicissitudes of fortune. 
 
 June 4th. — Why should I be so saddened by 
 the sight of mediocre productions? Never do 
 I chance to open a book of the kind we looked 
 through yesterday that I do not leave it with 
 my mind ailing and my imagination cast down. 
 Is it mournful pity for such a spectacle of power- 
 less vanity, one of the saddest I know of, or is 
 it caused by self-consciousness and introspection > 
 What matters it which it is ? The beauty of 
 man does not lie in such feelings. Great would 
 be the mediocrity of the soul could it not endure 
 that of the mind. I understand all this, and yet 
 I linger in my weakness. Great God, what kind 
 of moral education is given to-day I I am 
 
I go Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 twenty-five years old ; ten years were spent in 
 schools, and as yet I have not opened the ele- 
 mentary textbook of inward strength and guid- 
 ance of the moral sense 1 Never a word was said 
 to me of the great things of the soul. It is only 
 since yesterday that, old child that I am, I am be- 
 ginning to get a glimpse of man, but at a great 
 distance and on those serene heights which can 
 scarcely be reached by a step already feeble. 
 Inveterately weak and all crippled by baneful 
 habits, I drag myself along and progress with 
 pain. But I understand, I see ; and if during 
 my life I may not attain to moral beauty, I shall 
 at least die with my eyes fixed upon it. Still 
 there is in me a very untoward sign : it is that 
 on the morrow I do not find myself above the 
 acts of the day before, and that my soul seems 
 to remain at the level of these same acts, — of acts 
 that belong to days long past. My mind, on the 
 contrary, sees all that it does fast growing old. 
 What happiness to rise above one's past, and 
 what joy to be able to despise one's self from day 
 to day in one's own actions 1 What a destiny 
 were I to remain coeternal with myself in the 
 moral condition I am in at the present 1 
 
 5//1. — My God, how I suffer in life 1 not in 
 its accidents (a little philosophy is sufficient for 
 these), but in itself, in its substance, apart from 
 
Journal. 191 
 
 all phenomena. I am advancing in age ; ray mind 
 casts off a thousand relics on its way ; bonds are 
 broken ; prejudices fall away ; I am beginning to 
 raise my head above the waters : but existence 
 itself remains fettered, — ever the same sad point, 
 marking the centre of the circumference. Is 
 there a philosophy and are there rules that touch 
 this evil ? I am getting to know less and less 
 about this groundwork of life and what I ought 
 to do. Oh Stoicism, appointed to fight sorrow 
 by strength and constancy of soul, thou knewest 
 not how to fight life except by death, and we 
 are no farther advanced than thou wert 1 
 
 12th. — I do not commit my bad actions im- 
 petuously. In my inmost depths there lie I 
 know not what dead and fatal waters like that 
 deep pool in which perished the poet Stenio. 
 
 22nd. — What makes me at moments despair 
 of myself is the intensity of my sufferings in 
 small things, and the always blind and mistaken 
 use of my moral powers. I sometimes put forth, 
 in turning over a few grains of sand, an amount 
 of energy sufficient to roll a rock to a mountain- 
 top. I could bear enormous burdens better 
 than this light and almost impalpable dust which 
 clings to me. Each day I perish imperceptibly ; 
 my life slips away through invisible pin-holes. 
 Not long ago I was told that contempt of men 
 
192 Maurice de Guerin. 
 
 would carry me a long way ; yes, and especially 
 if it be mingled with bitterness. My surround- 
 ings weary me. I know not where I would like 
 to live, nor in what profession ; but I detest my 
 own, which lowers me and makes me miserable. 
 At every turn it places me at variance with the 
 little philosophy which I have acquired during 
 my serious and leisure hours ; it irritates me 
 against men who are still children. How I hate 
 myself in the midst of these trifles, and how 
 vehemently do I long to leap onto a free shore, 
 and to thrust back with my foot the odious boat 
 which bears me along ! 
 
 July nth. — Who is the true God, — the 
 God of the city or the God of the desert ? ' To 
 which should we turn ? Tastes long fostered, 
 impulses of the heart, accidents of life, decide 
 the choice. We carry within ourselves a thou- 
 sand fatalities. What knowledge have we of 
 the powers which urge us on, and which is the 
 best among all these ? The man of the cities 
 laughs to himself at the lonely dreams of the 
 recluse ; and the recluse rejoices in his separa- 
 tion and at finding himself, like an island of the 
 great ocean, far away from the continents and 
 bathed by unknown waters. Most to be pitied 
 are those who, thrown between these two con- 
 traries, stretch out their arms to both. 
 
Journal. 193 
 
 October i]th. — I have been travelling. I 
 know not what impulse of my destiny carried 
 me along the banks of a river as far as the sea. 
 All along the borders of this river I saw plains 
 where Nature was strong and gay, royal and 
 ancient dwellings stamped with memories which 
 hold their place in the sad legend of humanity, 
 many cities, and at the end the surging ocean. 
 Thence I returned into the interior, to the region 
 of great forests, also abounding in limitless and 
 ceaseless sounds. I shall long and vividly yearn 
 for those fatigues to which I subjected myself, 
 in crossing the broad plains, in mounting from 
 one horizon to another, delighting in the wide 
 expanse, and experiencing many times a day the 
 grasp of those impressions which spring up on 
 all sides in newly seen countries, and sweep 
 down in flights upon the traveller. The tide of 
 travel is full of charm. ... Oh, who will set me 
 afloat upon this Nile } . . 
 
 THE END.