You might think him at first sight only an admirable specimen of a
thoroughly well-educated [22] man, full, of course, of the modern
spirit; stimulated and formed by the influences of the varied
intellectual world around him; and competing, in his turn, with many
very various types of contemporary ability. The use of his book to
cultivated people might lie in its affording a kind of standard by
which they might take measure of the maturity and producible quality
of their own thoughts on a hundred important subjects. He will write
a page or two, giving evidence of that accumulated power and
attainment which, with a more strenuous temperament, might have
sufficed for an effective volume. Continually, in the Journal, we
pause over things that would rank for beauties among widely differing
models of the best French prose. He has said some things in Pascal's
vein not unworthy of Pascal. He had a right to compose "Thoughts":
they have the force in them which makes up for their unavoidable want
of continuity.
But if, as Amiel himself challenges us to do, we look below the
surface of a very equable and even smoothly accomplished literary
manner, we discover, in high degree of development, that perplexity
or complexity of soul, the expression [23] of which, so it be with an
adequate literary gift, has its legitimate, because inevitable,
interest for the modern reader.
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