[Here’s a snippet from Ch. IV of “The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas” by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, translated by Gregory Rabassa:]
. . . this book is written with apathy, with the apathy of a man now freed of the brevity of the century, a supinely philosophical work, of an unequal philosophy, now austere, now playful, something that neither builds nor destroys, neither inflames nor cools, and, yet, it is more than a pastime and less than an apostolate.