myriad mean faults of the social man, and yet make no nearer approach to misanthropy than his Alceste. These witty Frenchmen, Rabelais, Montaigne, Molière, are great as were their marshals and preux chevaliers; when the Frenchman tries to be poetical, he becomes theatrical, but he can be romantic, and also dignified, maugre shrugs and snuff-boxes.’
‘Thursday Evening. — Although I have been much
engaged these two days, I have read Spiridion twice.
I could have wished to go through it the second time
more at leisure, but as I am going away, I thought I
would send it back, lest it should be wanted before my
return.
‘The development of the religious sentiment being the same as in Hélene, I at first missed the lyric effusion of that work, which seems to me more and more beautiful, as I think of it more. This, however, was a mere prejudice, of course, as the thought here is poured into a quite different mould, and I was not troubled by it on a second reading.
‘Again, when I came to look at the work by itself, I thought the attempt too bold. A piece of character-painting does not seem to be the place for a statement of these wide and high subjects. For here the philosophy is not merely implied in the poetry and religion, but assumes to show a face of its own. And, as none should meddle with these matters who are not in earnest, so, such will prefer to find the thought of a teacher or fellow-disciple expressed as directly and as bare of ornament as possible.
‘I was interested in De Wette’s Theodor, and that learned and (on dit) profound man seemed to me so
