TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
Bursledon Lodge, July 23, 1818.
Mˡˡᵉ de Lespinasse’s Letters to Guibert, the great military genius whom Buonaparte acknowledges for his master in the art of war, are my present study. They are a literary curiosity, being exquisitely written, without any view to publicity; but oh! what total darkness as to religion and morality. She does not defy, despise, or renounce these: she never seems to have heard of them. Educated in a convent, and transplanted to the society of les esprits forts in Paris, appertaining to no family, being the fruit of her mother’s breach of the marriage vow, without father, brother, husband, I pity more, far more, than I blame her. You will read, but I know you will not let them be seen by the young, however guarded. They are so impassioned, and so full of the highest intellect, they must be dangerous.
As to Mad. d’Epinay, she is a clever, amusing Frenchwoman, with so little idea of candour and truth, that she cannot even assume them, so as to deceive us in telling her own story. Poor Rousseau! I never pitied him more, or blamed him less, than since I have read this work, where there is such an evident design to blacken his character.
TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.
Bursledon Lodge, Aug. 21, 1818.
Sweet Mrs. —— was very low yesterday. I think there is a Platonic affection between her and ——, which I am not at all surprised at. I see it exists at least on her side, and I think on both. You know I can conceive this to exist with perfect innocency, where there is no love, properly so called, for any other person. I mean that a woman, who has nothing more than bienveillance for her husband, may with perfect purity have a very strong wish for the conversation of a more sensible man; and where religion is, and youth is not, I do not think it very dangerous; in fact, I should not think it dangerous at all, but for the extraordinary lessons of experience.
We read Molière in the evening, and being obliged to dwell on the Avare in translating, it increases my admiration. It is the most finished, perfect, witty, humorous, pleasant, moral picture of avarice, in every point of view, admissible in comedy. F—— feels the wit and finesse of it in a manner very surprising at his age.