Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/363

338 space of a few months the two persons I loved best and by whom I was best loved. There, Sire, is the sorrowful condi- tion in which I am, my heart dejected and withered, and I myself not knowing what to do with my soul or my time.

Voltaire to d'Alemhert. June 10, 1776. This is the moment, my dear friend, when philosophy is very necessary to you. I have heard very late, and not through you, of the loss you have met with. Here is your whole life changed. It will be very difficult to accustom yourself to such a privation. They tell me that the lodging you have in the Louvre is very gloomy. I fear for your health. Courage serves for combat, but it does not serve to console us, or make us happy. . ..

D'Alemhert to Voltaire. June 24, 1776. I did not tell you of my misfortune, my very dear and worthy master, first, because I had not the strength to write, and next, because I was sure that our mutual friends would tell you of it.

I shall not feel the help of philosophy until nature succeeds in restoring to me the sleep and the appetite I have lost. My life and my soul are in the void ; the abyss of doubts in which I am seems to me bottomless. I try to shake myself, to distract myself, but hitherto without success. I have not been able to occupy my mind during the last month since this dreadful sorrow, except with a Eulogy which I read to the Academy at La Harpe's reception. . . . But that success has only increased my affliction, because it will be unknown forever to my unhappy friend, who would have taken such interest in it.