My romance reading concluded with the summer of 1719, the
following winter was differently employed. My mother's library being
quite exhausted, we had recourse to that part of her father's which
had devolved to us; here we happily found some valuable books, which
was by no means extraordinary, having been selected by a minister that
truly deserved that title, in whom learning (which was the rage of the
times) was but a secondary commendation, his taste and good sense
being most conspicuous. The history of the Church and Empire by Le
Sueur, Bossuett's Discourses on Universal History, Plutarch's Lives,
the History of Venice by Nani, Ovid's Metamorphoses, La Bruyere,
Fontenelle's World, his Dialogues of the Dead, and a few volumes of
Moliere, were soon ranged in my father's closet, where, during the
hours he was employed in his business, I daily read them, with an
avidity and taste uncommon, perhaps unprecedented at my age.
Plutarch presently became my greatest favorite. The satisfaction I
derived from the repeated readings I gave this author, extinguished my
passion for romances, and I shortly preferred Agesilaus, Brutus, and
Aristides, to Orondates, Artemenes, and Juba. These interesting
studies, seconded by the conversations they frequently occasioned with
my father, produced that republican spirit and love of liberty, that
haughty and invincible turn of mind, which rendered me impatient of
restraint or servitude, and became the torment of my life, as I
continually found myself in situations incompatible with these
sentiments.
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