'--criticisms which in his good-nature
he wrote for the use of his friend Grimm, on the annual exhibitions
in the Paris Salon from 1759 onward--have never been surpassed among
non-technical criticisms for brilliancy, freshness, and philosophic
suggestiveness. They reveal the man's elemental strength; which was
not in his knowledge, for he was without technical training in art
and had seen scarcely any of the world's masterpieces, but in his
sensuously sympathetic nature, which gave him quickness of insight
and delicacy in interpretation.

He had the faculty of making and keeping friends, being unaffected,
genial, amiable, enthusiastically generous and helpful to his friends,
and without vindictiveness to his foes. He needed these qualities to
counteract his almost utter lack of conscientiousness, his gush of
sentiment, his unregulated morals, his undisciplined genius, his
unbalanced thought. His style of writing, often vivid and strong,
is as often awkward and dull, and is frequently lacking in finish.
As a philosophic author and thinker his voluminous work is of little
enduring worth, for though plentiful in original power it totally
lacks organic unity; his thought rambles carelessly, his method is
confused. It has been said of him that he was a master who produced no
masterpiece. But as a talker, a converser, all witnesses testify that
he was wondrously inspiring and suggestive, speaking sometimes as from
mysterious heights of vision or out of unsearchable deeps of thought.

FROM 'RAMEAU'S NEPHEW'

Be the weather fair or foul, it is my custom in any case at five
o'clock in the afternoon to stroll in the Palais Royal. I am always to
be seen alone and meditative, on the bench D'Argenson. I hold converse
with myself on politics or love, on taste or philosophy, and yield up
my soul entirely to its own frivolity. It may follow the first idea
that presents itself, be the idea wise or foolish. In the Allee de Foi
one sees our young rakes following upon the heels of some courtesan
who passes on with shameless mien, laughing face, animated glance, and
a pug nose; but they soon leave her to follow another, teasing them
all, joining none of them. My thoughts are my courtesans.

When it is really too cold or rainy, I take refuge in the Cafe de la
Regence and amuse myself by watching the chess-players. Paris is the
place of the world and the Cafe de la Regence the place of Paris where
the best chess is played. There one