Books: Microscopic Love

AMIEL'S PHILINE—Translated by Van Wyck Brooks—Houghton Mifflin ($3.50). Henri Frederic Amiel's (1821-81) chief claim to fame is that he wrote a diary. Enough of its 16,000 pages have been published to prove its author one of the most fully confessed men in history. Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Geneva, director of Geneva's Conservatoire, author of a few volumes of bad verse, friend of women, he led a not-unmethodical life, let hardly a day pass without recording his actions microscopically in his journal. First partly published in 1882-84, Amiel's Journal...