ective of the golden age, fading before the
attentive eye of observation, almost eludes my sight; and, losing thus in
part my theory of a more perfect state, start not, my friend, if I bring
forward an opinion, which at the first glance seems to be levelled
against the existence of God! I am not become an Atheist, I assure you,
by residing at Paris: yet I begin to fear that vice, or, if you will,
evil, is the grand mobile of action, and that, when the passions are
justly poized, we become harmless, and in the same proportion useless.

The wants of reason are very few; and, were we to consider
dispassionately the real value of most things, we should probably rest
satisfied with the simple gratification of our physical necessities, and
be content with negative goodness: for it is frequently, only that
wanton, the Imagination, with her artful coquetry, who lures us forward,
and makes us run over a rough road, pushing aside every obstacle merely
to catch a disappointment.

The desire also of being useful to others, is continually damped by
experience; and, if the exertions of humanity were not in some measure
their own reward, who would endure misery, or struggle with care, to make
some people ungrateful, and others idle?

You will call these melancholy effusions, and guess that, fatigued by
the vivacity, which has all the bustling folly of childhood, without the
innocence which renders ignorance charming, I am too severe in my
strictures. It may be so; and I am aware that the good effects of the
revolution will be last felt at Paris; where surely the soul of Epicurus
has long been at work to root out the simple emotions of the heart,
which, being natural, are always moral. Rendered cold and artificial by
the selfish enjoyments of the senses, which the government fostered, is
it surprising that simplicity of manners, and singleness of heart, rarely
appear, to recreate me with the wild odour of nature, so passing sweet?

Seeing how deep the fibres of mischief have shot, I sometimes ask, with a
doubting accent, Whether a nation can go back to the purity of manners
which has hitherto been maintained unsullied only by the keen air of
poverty, when, emasculated by pleasure, the luxuries of prosperity are
become the wants of nature? I cannot yet give up the hope, that a fairer
day is dawning on Europe, though I must hesitatingly observe, that little
is to be expected from the narrow principle of commerce which seems every
wher