which reason too often weighs, merely to
shift from one shoulder to the other....

"I would I could first inform you that out of the chaos of vices
and follies, prejudices and virtues, rudely jumbled together, I saw
the fair form of Liberty slowly rising, and Virtue, expanding her
wings to shelter all her children! I should then hear the account
of the barbarities that have rent the bosom of France patiently,
and bless the firm hand that lopt off the rotten limbs. But if the
aristocracy of birth is levelled with the ground, only to make
room for that of riches, I am afraid that the morals of the people
will not be much improved by the change, or the government rendered
less venial. Still it is not just to dwell on the misery produced
by the present struggle without adverting to the standing evils of
the old system. I am grieved, sorely grieved, when I think of the
blood that has stained the cause of freedom at Paris; but I also
hear the same live stream cry aloud from the highways through which
the retreating armies passed with famine and death in their rear,
and I hide my face with awe before the inscrutable ways of
Providence, sweeping in such various directions the besom of
destruction over the sons of men.

"Before I came to France, I cherished, you know, an opinion that
strong virtues might exist with the polished manners produced by
the progress of civilization; and I even anticipated the epoch,
when, in the course of improvement, men would labor to become
virtuous, without being goaded on by misery. But now the
perspective 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 poised, we become harmless, and in the same
proportion useless....

"You may think it too soon to form an opinion of the future
government, yet it is impossible to avoid hazarding some
conjectures, when everything whispers me that names, not
principle