The Diary of an Ennuyée | Page 3

then be
possible that he is right? No--O no! my understanding rejects the idea
with indignation, my whole heart recoils from it; yet if it should be so!
what then: have I been till now the dupe and the victim of factitious
feelings? virtue, honour, feeling, 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.
* * * * *
Aug. 25.--Here begins, I hope, a new æra. 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