the ardour, the activity of your soul and of your mind ! Mon
ami, you have so many ways of attaining glory that you
ought not to desire that of war. Give yourself up to your
talent, your genius ; write, and by enlightening and interest-
ing men you will acquire the most flattering of all fame to a
sensitive and virtuous soul ; by thus doing good you will enjoy
the best-deserved celebrity, — in truth, the only desirable
celebrity in this age, where the choice lies between that and
baseness and frivolity. Ah! how dreadful it would be to
me to live again the life I led for ten years. I saw vice in
action so closely, was so often the victim of the base and
petty passions of persons of society, that I still retain an in-
vincible disgust and fear, which make me prefer complete
solitude to an odious existence.
I am dying of a desire to see your play ; you must have created the subject [Anne Boleyn], for in itself it does not seem to me to admit of interest and action in more than a few scenes. You will have all the more merit in seizing and interesting attention during five acts ; Eacine had that magic art in " Bdr^nice." Your subject is grander and nobler, and well on the tone of your soul. You will not need to rise to heights, for you are always, without effort, on the level of what seems exalted to common and vulgar souls.
Yes, mon ami, my days are as usual ; but I shall soon be alone : all my friends are leaving Paris, and for the first time in my life their departure does not cost me a regret ; and, if it did not seem too ungrateful, I should tell you that I could see M. dAlembert depart with a sort of pleasure. His presence weighs on my soul ; it makes me dissatisfied with myself : I feel myself unworthy of his affection and his virtues. Judge, therefore, of my condition of mind, when that which ought to be a consolation adds to my unhappiness — but I do not want to be consoled ; my regrets, my memories are dearer
