Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/95

78 dition ; I am ill, I am unhappy ; does not that solicit your goodness ? What it grants will be repaid by infinite grati- tude. Good God ! what a poor motive ! what a pitiable sentiment ! Do you not think so ?

I have just read an extract from the " Eulogy on Colbert " now competing at the French Academy. The tone of it seemed to me so firm, so noble, so lofty, so original, that I suddenly wished it were yours. I do not know if the rest is as worthy, but you would not disavow the little I have seen of it.^ I have had fever for some days; the last time I wrote to you I finished my letter while trembling in a chill. There is a certain postman who, for the past year, has given fever to my soul, but now it has attained my poor body. I feel destroyed ; and I have always been so unfortunate that something tells me I shall die at the moment when my mis- fortunes end. Eeturn, and at least I shall be sure of having tasted before I die a consolation very sweet to my soul. I reproach myself for ever having been unjust to you. Mon Dieu ! you have suffered, and you will pardon me ; there are situations which ask for so much indulgence !

I have read the long-expected book of M. Helvetius [" Of Man; his Intellectual Faculties and his Education," a post- humous work]. I was alarmed at its size ; two volumes, of six hundred pages each ! Your voracity would have made an end of it in two days ; but as for me, I can no longer read with interest ; my affections withhold my attention ; I read what I feel, and not what I see. Ah ! mon Dieu ! how the mind shrinks by loving ! it is true that the soul does not, but what can one do with a soul ? I forgot to answer you about the affair of Comte de C. . . ; it is even less advanced than at first ; you could hardly believe what a poor creature he is on whom the matter depends ; he is not stupid, but the

1 It was by M. Necker, and took the prize. — Tr. Ed.