In this second edition of the English translation of Amiel’s “Journal
Intime,” I have inserted a good many new passages, taken from the last
French edition (_Cinquiéme édition, revue et augmentée_.) But I have not
translated all the fresh material to be found in that edition nor have
I omitted certain sections of the Journal which in these two recent
volumes have been omitted by their French editors. It would be of no
interest to give my reasons for these variations at length. They depend
upon certain differences between the English and the French public,
which are more readily felt than explained. Some of the passages which I
have left untranslated seemed to me to overweight the introspective
side of the Journal, already so full--to overweight it, at any rate, for
English readers. Others which I have retained, though they often relate
to local names and books, more or less unfamiliar to the general public,
yet seemed to me valuable as supplying some of that surrounding detail,
that setting, which helps one to understand a life. Besides, we English
are in many ways more akin to Protestant and Puritan Geneva than the
French readers to whom the original Journal primarily addresses itself,
and some of the entries I have kept have probably, by the nature of
things, more savor for us than for them.