Journal of Maurice de Gurin Author:Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Maurice de Guérin, Guillaume Stanislas Trébutien Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: JOURNAL. (july, 1832—October, 1835.) Cayla, July 10, 1832. TT is now almost three months and a half that I '' have been in the country, under the parent... more »al roof, at home (delicious English expression which sums up all the che soi), in the centre of an horizon dear to me. I have seen the springtime,— the spring, exuberant, unfettered, free from all restraint, scattering flowers and verdure with wayward fancy, racing like a playful child over our hills and dales, unfolding sublime conceptions and graceful fancies, merging similarities, harmonizing contrasts, after the manner of great artists, or rather as a type for them. I have reclined in the depths of the woods, by the side of the brooks, on the brow of the hills ; again have I trodden all those paths where as a child my rapid footsteps flitted with all the carelessness of youth. To-day I have trodden them with a firmer step ; I have lingered upon the traces ofmy early footprints ; I have started anew on my pilgrimage, with thoughtfulness and devotion, —' with the thoughtfulness inspired by old memories, and with the devotion aroused in the soul by its first impressions of nature. joth.—There are books which never should be read again. I have chosen Reni to re-read on one of the most disenchanted days of my life, when my heart seems dead within me, — a day of days most profitless and waste,—to test the whole power of this book upon the soul; and I have found that its power is great. This reading has refreshed my spirit like a torrential rain. I find a limitless charm in returning to my early readings, — those passionate readings from sixteen to nineteen. I love to draw tears from the almost exhausted springs of my youth. August 4th. —To-day I complete my twenty- second year. Often have I seen in Paris little chil...« less