All these things considered, I was rather embarrassed as to the form
I should give to my work. To suffer the author's visions to pass was
doing nothing useful; fully to refute them would have been unpolite,
as the care of revising and publishing his manuscripts, which I had
accepted, and even requested, had been intrusted to me; this trust had
imposed on me the obligation of treating the author honorably. I at
length concluded upon that which to me appeared the most decent,
judicious, and useful. This was to give separately my own ideas and
those of the author, and, for this purpose, to enter into his views,
to set them in a new light, to amplify, extend them, and spare nothing
which might contribute to present them in all their excellence.
My work therefore was to be composed of two parts absolutely
distinct: one, to explain, in the manner I have just mentioned, the
different projects of the author; in the other, which was not to
appear until the first had had its effect, I should have given my
opinion upon these projects which I confess might sometimes have
exposed them to the fate of the sonnet of the misanthrope. At the head
of the whole was to have been the life of the author. For this I had
collected some good materials, and which I flattered myself I should
not spoil in making use of them. I had been a little acquainted with
the Abbe de Saint-Pierre, in his old age, and the veneration I had for
his memory warranted to me, upon the whole, that the comte would not
be dissatisfied with the manner in which I should have treated his
relation.
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