LETTERS
FROM THE KING OF PRUSSIA, VOLTAIRE, AND D'ALEMBERT, ON THE DEATH OF MLLE. DE LESPINASSE.
From the King of Prussia to d'Alembert.
I Sympathize with your misfortune in losing a person to whom you were attached. The wounds of the heart are the keenest of all; and in spite of the fine maxims of philoso- phers, nothing but time will cure them. Man is an animal more feeling than reasonable. I have experienced, to my sorrow and only too well, what one suffers from such losses. The best remedy is to compel one's self against one's will to distract the mind from sorrowful ideas, which would other- wise root too deeply in the soul. It is well to choose a geo- metric occupation which requires application, and so put aside as best we can the dreadful ideas that ceaselessly return and must be evaded as much as possible. I propose to you the best remedy that is known to me. Cicero, to con- sole himself for the death of his dear Tullia, threw himself into composition, and wrote many treatises, some of which have come down to us. Our reason is too weak to conquer the pain of a mortal wound; we must grant something to nature, and say to ourselves, especially at your age and mine, that we ought to be comforted by the thought that it cannot be long before we rejoin the ones we regret.
I accept with pleasure the hope you give me of coming to spend some months of the following year with me. If I can.
