e correspondence of the time is
penetrated to an incomparable degree by a caressing spirit; it is
sometimes too elaborate and far-fetched in expression, but it marks a
vivid sociability, and even a true humanity, that softens and harmonises
the sharpness of men's egotism.

Again, though Diderot himself is not ungenerously handled in the
_Confessions_, there are passages about Madame d'Epinay and Madame
d'Houdetot which not only stamp Rousseau with ingratitude towards two
women who had treated him kindly, but which were calculated to make
practical mischief among people still living. All this was atrocious in
itself, and the atrocity seemed more black to Diderot than to others,
because he had for some years known Madame d'Epinay as a friendly
creature, and, above all, because Grimm was her lover. Perhaps we may
add among the reasons that stirred him to pen these diatribes, a
consciousness of the harm that Rousseau's sentimentalism had done to
sound and positive thinking. But this, we may be sure, would be
infinitely less potent than the motives that sprang from Diderot's own
sentimentalism. The quarrel, for all save a few foolish partisans, is
now dead, and we may leave the dust once more to settle thick upon it.
Diderot's own way of reading history is not unworthy of imitation, and
it is capable of application in spirit to private conduct no less than
to the history of great public events. "Does the narrative present me
with some fact that dishonours humanity? Then I examine it with the most
rigorous severity; whatever sagacity I may be able to command, I employ
in detecting contradictions that throw suspicion on the story. It is not
so when an action is beautiful, lofty, noble. Then I never think of
arguing against the pleasure that I feel in sharing the name of man with
one who has done such an action. I will say more; it is to my heart, and
perhaps too it is only conformable to justice, to hazard an opinion that
tends to whiten an illustrious personage, in the face of authorities
that seem to contradict the tenour of his life, of his doctrine, and of
his general repute."[186]

[186] _Oeuv._, iii. 57.

The elaborate outbreak against Rousseau is perhaps Diderot's only breach
of what ought thus to be a rule for all magnanimous men. Diderot, or his
shade, paid the penalty. La Harpe retaliated for some slight wound to
pitiful literary vanity, by a lecture on Seneca in which he raked up
all the old accusations again