Amiels Journal | Page 4

réussi à notre auteur_," he says, a little reluctantly--for M.
Caro has his doubts as to the legitimacy of _rêverie_; "Il en aufait une
oeuvure qui restera." The same final judgment, accompanied by a very
different series of comments, was pronounced on the Journal a year
later by M. Paul Bourget, a young and rising writer, whose article is
perhaps chiefly interesting as showing the kind of effect produced by
Amiel's thought on minds of a type essentially alien from his own.
There is a leaven of something positive and austere, of something
which, for want of a better name, one calls Puritanism, in Amiel, which
escapes the author of "Une Cruelle Enigme." But whether he has
understood Amiel or no, M. Bourget is fully alive to the mark which
the Journal is likely to make among modern records of mental history.
He, too, insists that the book is already famous and will remain so; in

the first place, because of its inexorable realism and sincerity; in the
second, because it is the most perfect example available of a certain
variety of the modern mind.
Among ourselves, although the Journal has attracted the attention of all
who keep a vigilant eye on the progress of foreign literature, and
although one or two appreciative articles have appeared on it in the
magazines, the book has still to become generally known. One
remarkable English testimony to it, however, must be quoted. Six
months after the publication of the first volume, the late Mark Pattison,
who since then has himself bequeathed to literature a strange and
memorable fragment of autobiography, addressed a letter to M. Scherer
as the editor of the "Journal Intime," which M. Scherer has since
published, nearly a year after the death of the writer. The words have a
strong and melancholy interest for all who knew Mark Pattison; and
they certainly deserve a place in any attempt to estimate the impression
already made on contemporary thought by the "Journal Intime."
"I wish to convey to you, sir," writes the rector of Lincoln, "the thanks
of one at least of the public for giving the light to this precious record
of a unique experience. I say unique, but I can vouch that there is in
existence at least one other soul which has lived through the same
struggles, mental and moral, as Amiel. In your pathetic description of
the _volonté qui voudrait vouloir, mais impuissante à se fournir à
elle-même des motifs_--of the repugnance for all action--the soul
petrified by the sentiment of the infinite, in all this I recognize myself.
_Celui qui a déchiffré le secret de la vie finie, qui en a lu le mot, est
sorti du monde des vivants, il est mort de fait_. I can feel forcibly the
truth of this, as it applies to myself!
"It is not, however, with the view of thrusting my egotism upon you
that I have ventured upon addressing you. As I cannot suppose that so
peculiar a psychological revelation will enjoy a wide popularity, I think
it a duty to the editor to assure him that there are persons in the world
whose souls respond, in the depths of their inmost nature, to the cry of
anguish which makes itself heard in the pages of these remarkable
confessions."
So much for the place which the Journal--the fruit of so many years of
painful thought and disappointed effort; seems to be at last securing for
its author among those contemporaries who in his lifetime knew

nothing of him. It is a natural consequence of the success of the book
that the more it penetrates, the greater desire there is to know
something more than its original editors and M. Scherer have yet told
us about the personal history of the man who wrote it--about his
education, his habits, and his friends. Perhaps some day this wish may
find its satisfaction. It is an innocent one, and the public may even be
said to have a kind of right to know as much as can be told it of the
personalities which move and stir it. At present the biographical
material available is extremely scanty, and if it were not for the
kindness of M. Scherer, who has allowed the present writer access to
certain manuscript material in his possession, even the sketch which
follows, vague and imperfect as it necessarily is, would have been
impossible.
[Footnote: Four or five articles on the subject of Amiel's life have been
contributed to the _Révue Internationale_ by Mdlle. Berthe Vadier
during the passage of the present book through the press. My
knowledge of them, however, came too late to enable me to make use
of them for the purposes of the present introduction.]
Henri Frédéric Amiel was born at Geneva in September, 1821. He