His
type is that of the Satyr in the "Legende des Siecles," who crushes
Olympus, a type midway between the ugliness of the faun and the
overpowering sublimity of the great Pan.
May 23, 1863.--Dull, cloudy, misty weather; it rained in the night and
yet the air is heavy. This somber reverie of earth and sky has a
sacredness of its own, but it fills the spectator with a vague and
stupefying _ennui_. Light brings life: darkness may bring thought, but a
dull daylight, the uncertain glimmer of a leaden sky, merely make one
restless and weary. These indecisive and chaotic states of nature are
ugly, like all amorphous things, like smeared colors, or bats, or the
viscous polyps of the sea. The source of all attractiveness is to be
found in character, in sharpness of outline, in individualization. All
that is confused and indistinct, without form, or sex, or accent, is
antagonistic to beauty; for the mind's first need is light; light means
order, and order means, in the first place, the distinction of the
parts, in the second, their regular action. Beauty is based on reason.
August 7, 1863.--A walk after supper, a sky sparkling with stars, the
Milky Way magnificent. Alas! all the same my heart is heavy. At bottom I
am always brought up against an incurable distrust of myself and of
life, which toward my neighbor has become indulgence, but for myself has
led to a _regime_ of absolute abstention.
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