your fault. If that is so, you deserve neither the regret my
heart feels, nor the reproaches that it makes you. I knew
that M. d'Aguesseau had received no news of you. I in-
terest myself in you in a manner so true, so sincere, that I
should have been delighted to have heard that you had
given him the preference over me. He deserves it, doubt-
less in all respects ; but it is not justice that rules feeling.
Do you believe that if that virtue governed me I should be
uneasy at your silence, and need so many proofs of your
friendship ? Alas, no ! I cannot even explain to myself
why I am so concerned about you at this moment, for I heard
yesterday some news which engulfs my soul in sorrow; I
have passed the night in tears ; but when my head and all
my faculties were exhausted, when I gained one moment
which was not a pain, I thought of you, and it seemed to me
that had you been here I should have written you what I
suffered and perhaps you would have come to me. Tell me
if I deceive myself. When my soul suffers am I wrong to
seek consolation in yours ?
In the midst of travel and many interests so different from those that touch and affect the heart, can you still hear a language which is foreign to most men carried away by dissipation or intoxicated by vanity ? Nor is that language better known to those who, like you, are filled with the desire for knowledge and a love of fame. You are so convinced that sensibility is a sign of mediocrity that I faint with fear lest your soul should close itself wholly to this emotion. It is fifteen days since I wrote to you, and I believed yesterday that I would not write to you again until I heard from you. Suffering has softened my soul and I yield to it. At five o'clock this morning I took two grains of opium ; I obtained a calmness better than sleep ; my pain is less rending; I feel myself crushed, with less force to resist. The
