When I say all, I mean all that is arbitrary, indifferent,
partial, or intellectual in the combinations of one's life. For I feel
that the things of the soul, our immortal aspirations, our deepest
affections, are not drawn into this chaotic whirlwind of impressions. It
is the finite things which are mortal and fugitive. Every man feels it
OH his deathbed. I feel it during the whole of life; that is the only
difference between me and others. Excepting only love, thought, and
liberty, almost everything is now a matter of indifference to me, and
those objects which excite the desires of most men, rouse in me little
more than curiosity. What does it mean--detachment of soul,
disinterestedness, weakness, or wisdom?
September 19, 1864.--I have been living for two hours with a noble
soul--with Eugenie de Guerin, the pious heroine of fraternal love. How
many thoughts, feelings, griefs, in this journal of six years! How it
makes one dream, think and live! It produces a certain homesick
impression on me, a little like that of certain forgotten melodies
whereof the accent touches the heart, one knows not why. It is as though
far-off paths came back to me, glimpses of youth, a confused murmur of
voices, echoes from my past. Purity, melancholy, piety, a thousand
memories of a past existence, forms fantastic and intangible, like the
fleeting shadows of a dream at waking, began to circle round the
astonished reader.
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