The Diary of an Ennuyée | Page 3

generosity, you are then but words, signifying nothing? Yet if this vain philosophy lead to happiness, would not S** be happy? it is evident he is not. When he said that the object existed not in this world which could lead him twenty yards out of his way, did this sound like happiness? I remember that while he spoke, instead of feeling either persuaded or convinced by his captivating eloquence, I was perplexed and distressed; I suffered a painful compassion, and tears were in my eyes. I, who so often have pitied myself, pitied him at that moment a thousand times more; I thought, I would not buy tranquillity at such a price as he has paid for it. Yet if he should be right? that if, which every now and then suggests itself, is terrible; it shakes me in the utmost recesses of my heart.
S**, in spite of myself, and in spite of all that with most perverted pains he has made himself (so different from what he once was), can charm and interest, pain and perplex me:--not so D**, another disciple of the same school: he inspires me with the strongest antipathy I ever felt for a human being. Insignificant and disagreeable is his appearance, he looks as if all the bile under heaven had found its way into his complexion, and all the infernal irony of a Mephistopheles into his turned-up nose and insolent curled lip. He is, he says he is, an atheist, a materialist, a sensualist: the pains he takes to deprave and degrade his nature, render him so disgusting, that I could not even speak in his presence; I dreaded lest he should enter into conversation with me. I might have spared myself the fear. He piques himself on his utter contempt for, and disregard of, women; and, after all, is not himself worthy these words I bestow on him.
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Aug. 25.--Here begins, I hope, a new ?ra. I have had a long and dangerous illness; the crisis perhaps of what I have been suffering for months. Contrary to my own wishes, and to the expectations of others, I live: and trusting in God that I have been preserved for some wise and good purpose, am therefore thankful: even supposing I should be reserved for new trials, I cannot surely in this world suffer more than I have suffered: it is not possible that the same causes can be again combined to afflict me.
How truly can I say, few and evil have my days been! may I not say as truly, I have not weakly yielded, I have not "gone about to cause my heart to despair," but have striven, and not in vain? I took the remedies they gave me, and was grateful; I resigned myself to live, when had I but willed it, I might have died; and when to die and be at rest, seemed to my sick heart the only covetable boon.
Sept. 3.--A terrible anniversary at Paris--still ill and very weak. Edmonde came, pour me désennuyer. He has soul enough to bear a good deal of wearing down; but whether the fine qualities he possesses will turn to good or evil, is hard to tell: it is evident his character has not yet settled: it vibrates still as nature inclines him to good, and all the circumstances around him to evil. We talked as usual of women, of gallantry, of the French and English character, of national prejudices, of Shakspeare and Racine (never failing subjects of discussion), and he read aloud Delille's Catacombes de Rome, with great feeling, animation, and dramatic effect.
La mode at Paris is a spell of wondrous power: it is most like what we should call in England a rage, a mania, a torrent sweeping down the bounds between good and evil, sense and nonsense, upon whose surface straws and egg-shells float into notoriety, while the gold and the marble are buried and hidden till its force be spent. The rage for cashmeres and little dogs has lately given way to a rage for Le Solitaire, a romance written, I believe, by a certain Vicomte d'Arlincourt. Le Solitaire rules the imagination, the taste, the dress of half Paris: if you go to the theatre, it is to see the "Solitaire," either as tragedy, opera, or melodrame; the men dress their hair and throw their cloaks about them à la Solitaire; bonnets and caps, flounces and ribbons, are all à la Solitaire; the print shops are full of scenes from Le Solitaire; it is on every toilette, on every work-table;--ladies carry it about in their reticules to show each other that they are à la mode; and the men--what can they do but humble their understandings and be extasiés, when beautiful eyes sparkle in its