At bottom there is but one subject of study: the forms and metamorphoses
of mind. All other subjects may be reduced to that; all other studies
bring us back to this study.
GENEVA, April 20, 1849.--It is six years [Footnote: Amiel left Geneva
for Paris and Berlin in April, 1848, the preceding year, 1841-42,
having been spent in Italy and Sicily.] to-day since I last left Geneva.
How many journeys, how many impressions, observations, thoughts, how
many forms of men and things have since then passed before me and in me!
The last seven years have been the most important of my life: they have
been the novitiate of my intelligence, the initiation of my being into
being.
Three snowstorms this afternoon. Poor blossoming plum-trees and peach
trees! What a difference from six years ago, when the cherry-trees,
adorned in their green spring dress and laden with their bridal flowers,
smiled at my departure along the Vaudois fields, and the lilacs of
Burgundy threw great gusts of perfume into my face!...
May 3, 1849.--I have never felt any inward assurance of genius, or any
presentiment of glory or of happiness. I have never seen myself in
imagination great or famous, or even a husband, a father, an influential
citizen. This indifference to the future, this absolute self-distrust,
are, no doubt, to be taken as signs.
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