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.