A great deal refuses to incorporate:
this he adds loosely, as letters, of the parties, leaves from their
journals, or the like. A great deal still is left that will not find
any place. This the bookbinder alone can give any cohesion to: and,
hence, notwithstanding the looseness of many of his works, we have
volumes of detached paragraphs, aphorisms, xenien, etc.
I suppose the worldly tone of his tales grew out of the calculations
of self-culture. It was the infirmity of an admirable scholar, who
loved the world out of gratitude; who knew where libraries, galleries,
architecture, laboratories, savants, and leisure, were to be had, and
who did not quite trust the compensations of poverty and nakedness.
Socrates loved Athens; Montaigne, Paris; and Madame de Stael said, she
was only vulnerable on that side (namely, of Paris). It has its
favorable aspect. All the geniuses are usually so ill-assorted and
sickly, that one is ever wishing them somewhere else. We seldom see
anybody who is not uneasy or afraid to live. There is a slight blush
of shame on the cheek of good men and aspiring men, and a spice of
caricature.
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