Doubting Amiel still thinks that Christ is better than Buddha:
Sorrow is the most tremendous of all realities in the sensible world, but the transfiguration of sorrow, after the manner of Christ, is a more beautiful solution of the problem than the extirpation of sorrow, after the method of Cakyamouni [Buddha].
Amiel was a naturally noble spirit, not equal to making for himself the career that he needed. But the right career, made for him, would have left to history and to literature a very different man from the writer of Amiel’s “Journal.”
The very latest conspicuous French candidate for renown as a writer of pensées is Joseph Roux, a rural Roman Catholic priest, and a man still living. Out of a volume of his “Thoughts” lately translated and published in America under the title of “Meditations of a Parish Priest,” we show the following specimen of literary criticism peculiarly pertinent to the subject of the present chapter:
Pascal is somber, La Rochefoucauld bitter, La Bruyère malicious, Vauvenargues melancholy, Chamfort acrimonious, Joubert benevolent, Swetchine gentle.
Pascal seeks, La Rochefoucauld suspects, La Bruyère spies, Vauvenargues sympathizes, Chamfort condemns, Joubert excuses, Swetchine mourns.
Pascal is profound, La Rochefoucauld penetrating, La Bruyère sagacious, Vauvenargues delicate, Chamfort paradoxical, Joubert ingenious, Swetchine contemplative.
Pensée-writing has gained such headway in France, there is so much literary history behind it there, and it is in itself so fascinating a form of literary activity, that, in that country at least, the fashion will probably never pass away.