es, and showing to each party the virtue and merit which in the
other was worthy of public esteem and respect. This project, little
remarkable for its wisdom, which supported sincerity in mankind, and
whereby I fell into the error with which I reproached the Abbe de Saint
Pierre, had the success that was to be expected from it: It drew together
and united the parties for no other purpose than that of crushing the
author. Until experience made me discover my folly, I gave my attention
to it with a zeal worthy of the motive by which I was inspired; and I
imagined the two characters of Wolmar and Julia in an ecstasy, which made
me hope to render them both amiable, and, what is still more, by means of
each other.

Satisfied with having made a rough sketch of my plan, I returned to the
situations in detail, which I had marked out; and from the arrangement I
gave them resulted the first two parts of the Eloisa, which I finished
during the winter with inexpressible pleasure, procuring gilt-paper to
receive a fair copy of them, azure and silver powder to dry the writing,
and blue narrow ribbon to tack my sheets together; in a word, I thought
nothing sufficiently elegant and delicate for my two charming girls,
of whom, like another Pygmalion, I became madly enamoured. Every
evening, by the fireside, I read the two parts to the governesses. The
daughter, without saying a word, was like myself moved to tenderness,
and we mingled our sighs; her mother, finding there were no compliments,
understood nothing of the matter, remained unmoved, and at the intervals
when I was silent always repeated: "Sir, that is very fine."

Madam d'Epinay, uneasy at my being alone, in winter, in a solitary house,
in the midst of woods, often sent to inquire after my health. I never
had such real proofs of her friendship for me, to which mine never more
fully answered. It would be wrong in me were not I, among these proofs,
to make special mention of her portrait, which she sent me, at the same
time requesting instructions from me in what manner she might have mine,
painted by La Tour, and which had been shown at the exhibition. I ought
equally to speak of another proof of her attention to me, which, although
it be laughable, is a feature in the history of my character, on account
of the impression received from it. One day when it froze to an extreme
degree, in opening a packet she had sent me of several things I had
desired her to purchase for