The inactive babbling of a private circle, where,
seated opposite to each other, they who speak move nothing but the
tongue, is the only thing I have ever been unable to support. When
walking and rambling about there is some satisfaction in conversation;
the feet and eyes do something; but to hear people with their arms
across speak of the weather, of the biting of flies, or what is
still worse, compliment each other, is to me an insupportable torment.
That I might not live like a savage, I took it into my head to learn
to make laces. Like the women, I carried my cushion with me when I
went to make visits, or sat down to work at my door, and chatted
with passers-by. This made me the better support the emptiness of
babbling, and enabled me to pass my time with my female neighbors
without weariness. Several of these were very amiable and not devoid
of wit. One in particular, Isabelle d'Yvernois, daughter of the
attorney-general of Neuchatel, I found so estimable as to induce me to
enter with her into terms of particular friendship, from which she
derived some advantage by the useful advice I gave her, and the
services she received from me on occasions of importance, so that
now a worthy and virtuous mother of a family, she is perhaps
indebted to me for her reason, her husband, her life, and happiness.
On my part, I received from her gentle consolation, particularly
during a melancholy winter, throughout the whole of which, when my
sufferings were most cruel, she came to pass with Theresa and me
long evenings, which she made very short to us by her agreeable
conversation, and our mutual openness of heart.
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