Everything disappears, but nothing is lost,
and the civilization or city of man is but an immense spiritual pyramid,
built up out of the work of all that has ever lived under the forms of
moral being, just as our calcareous mountains are made of the debris of
myriads of nameless creatures who have lived under the forms of
microscopic animal life.
April 5, 1864.--I have been reading "Prince Vitale" for the second time,
and have been lost in admiration of it. What wealth of color, facts,
ideas--what learning, what fine-edged satire, what _esprit_, science, and
talent, and what an irreproachable finish of style--so limpid, and yet
so profound! It is not heartfelt and it is not spontaneous, but all
other kinds of merit, culture, and cleverness the author possesses. It
would be impossible to be more penetrating, more subtle, and less
fettered in mind, than this wizard of language, with his irony and his
chameleon-like variety. Victor Cherbuliez, like the sphinx, is able to
play all lyres, and takes his profit from them all, with a Goethe-like
serenity. It seems as if passion, grief, and error had no hold on this
impassive soul. The key of his thought is to be looked for in Hegel's
"Phenomenology of Mind," remolded by Greek and French influences.
His faith, if he has one, is that of Strauss-Humanism.
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