Read a part of Krause's book "_Urbild der
Menschheit_" [Footnote: Christian Frederick Krause, died 1832, Hegel's
younger contemporary, and the author of a system which he called
_panentheism_--Amiel alludes to it later on.] which answered marvelously
to my thought and my need. This philosopher has always a beneficent
effect upon me; his sweet religious serenity gains upon me and invades
me. He inspires me with a sense of peace and infinity.
Still I miss something, common worship, a positive religion, shared with
other people. Ah! when will the church to which I belong in heart rise
into being? I cannot like Scherer, content myself with being in the
right all alone. I must have a less solitary Christianity. My religious
needs are not satisfied any more than my social needs, or my needs of
affection. Generally I am able to forget them and lull them to sleep.
But at times they wake up with a sort of painful bitterness ... I waver
between languor and _ennui_, between frittering myself away on the
infinitely little, and longing after what is unknown and distant. It is
like the situation which French novelists are so fond of, the story of a
_vie de province_; only the province is all that is not the country of
the soul, every place where the heart feels itself strange,
dissatisfied, restless and thirsty.
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