reparable loss; a feeling the impression of which is the greater that the soul is in some sort enticed to surrender itself to it, and experiences a species of pleasure in tasting its bitterness; a feeling the very sadness of which renders it in some measure desirable, sinoe it leads us to regard death as a blessing conferred by nature, not because it puts an end to the tears which are dear to us, but because that misfortune of humanity, if to cease from suffering be a misfortune, is at least common to us with those we have tenderly loved, and affords us the consoling hope of very soon following them into that peaceful and eternal asylum, whither their shade has gone before us, and whither their voice calls us. Madame de Lambert, who survived M. de Sacy six years, continued always to cherish this feeling so dear to her heart. With this she joined a hope still more consoling, which a beneficent divinity permits virtuous minds to entertain, of being one day re-united, with the prospect of never having to lament over a separation; an expectation so well fitted to alleviate the grief of feeling hearts, and of which unhappy man was so pressingly in need, that he, so to speak, fled to it by anticipation, before the period when the Supreme and Eternal Goodness was willing fully to reveal it. A deep-seated and lively affection, deprived of a cherished object which it will never recover on earth again, and unable at the same time to bear the crushing thought of the object being for ever annihilated, inspired, interested, and enlightened the reason, so as to lead it to embrace with transport this precious trust in an immortal existence, the first desire of which must needs have sprung up, not in a cold and philosophic head, but in a heart that had loved [and lost].—D'Alemberl.
P. 198, n., c. 2, 1. 3.—The lilloges of Massillon, the Archbishop of Cambray, and of Flechier, are interesting and agreeable; but none of them contains marks of truer or more amiable sensibility than that of M. de Sacy. Its author there delineates friendship, like one who has felt it in all its charm and power. M. D'Alembert composed that eloge immediately after the loss of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse; we might suppose that this touching picture was traced on the tomb of his friend.—Grimm.
P. 208, 1. 7.—They (the inhabitants of the Ladrones Isles) believe in the immortality of the soul. They even acknowledge a paradise and a hell, of which their ideas are odd enough. They hold that it is neither virtue nor vice that leads to the one or the other; good and bad actions are alike inefficacious.—Le Gobien.
