What is still worse, I perceive the opinion you
give comes not from yourself. Besides my being but little disposed
to suffer myself to be led by the nose under your name by any third or
fourth person, I observe in this secondary advice certain underhand
dealing, which ill agrees with your candor, and from which you will on
your account, as well as mine, do well in future to abstain.
"You are afraid my conduct should be misinterpreted; but I defy a
heart like yours to think ill of mine. Others would perhaps speak
better of me if I resembled them more. God preserve me from gaining
their approbation! Let the vile and wicked watch over my conduct and
misinterpret my actions, Rousseau is not a man to be afraid of them,
nor is Diderot to be prevailed upon to hearken to what they say.
"If I am displeased with your letter, you wish me to throw it into
the fire, and pay no attention to the contents. Do you imagine that
anything coming from you can be forgotten in such a manner? You
hold, my dear friend, my tears as cheap in the pain you give me, as
you do my life and health, in the cares you exhort me to take. Could
you but break yourself of this, your friendship would be more pleasing
to me, and I should be less to be pitied."
* * * * *
On entering the chamber of Madam d'Epinay I found Grimm with her,
with which I was highly delighted. I read to them, in a loud and clear
voice, the two letters, with an intrepidity of which I should not have
thought myself capable, and concluded with a few observations not in
the least derogatory to it.
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