tious display of luxury is ever now exhibited by persons in the
same position as Mademoiselle Duthe; and that if the same folly that
enabled her to indulge in such extravagance still prevails, a sense of
decency prevents all public display of wealth so acquired. Modern
morals censure not people so much for their vices as for the display of
them, as Aleibiades was blamed not for loving Nemea, but for allowing
himself to be painted reposing on her lap.

Finished the perusal of _Cinq Mars_, by Count Alfred de Vigny. It is an
admirable production, and deeply interested me. The sentiments noble
and elevated, without ever degenerating into aught approaching to
bombast, and the pathos such as a manly heart might feel, without
incurring the accusation of weakness. The author must be a man of fine
feelings, as well as of genius,--but were they ever distinct? I like to
think they cannot be, for my theory is, that the feelings are to genius
what the chords are to a musical instrument--they must be touched to
produce effect.

The style of Count Alfred de Vigny merits the eulogium passed by Lord
Shaftesbury on that of an author in his time, of which he wrote, "It is
free from that affected obscurity and laboured pomp of language aiming
at a false sublime, with crowded simile and mixed metaphor (the
hobby-horse and rattle of the Muses.")

---- dined with us yesterday, and, clever as I admit him to be, he
often displeases me by his severe strictures on mankind. I told him
that he exposed himself to the suspicion of censuring it only because
he had studied a bad specimen of it (self) more attentively than the
good that fell in his way: a reproof that turned the current of his
conversation into a more agreeable channel, though he did not seem to
like the hint.

It is the fashion for people now-a-days to affect this cynicism, and to
expend their wit at the expense of poor human nature, which is abused
_en masse_ for the sins of those who abuse it from judging of all
others by self. How different is ----, who thinks so well of his
species, that, like our English laws, he disbelieves the existence of
guilt until it is absolutely proved,--a charity originating in a
superior nature, and a judgment formed from an involuntary
consciousness of it!

---- suspects evil on all sides, and passes his time in guarding
against it. He dares not indulge friendship, because he doubts the
possibility of its being disinterested, and feels no little