liberty. Coldness, absence of
fellow-feeling, isolation of sentiment and interests,--in these are
comprised the ordinary course and weary vexations of the world. France,
worn out with errors and strange excesses, eager once more for order and
common sense, fell back into the old track. In the midst of this general
reaction, the faithful inheritors of the literary saloons of the
eighteenth century held themselves aloof from its influence; they alone
preserved two of the noblest and most amiable propensities of their
age--a disinterested taste for pleasures of the mind, and that readiness
of sympathy, that warmth and ardour of curiosity, that necessity for
moral improvement and free discussion, which embellish the social
relations with so much variety and sweetness.

In my own case, I drew from these sources a profitable experience. Led
into the circle I have named, by an incident in my private life, I
entered amongst them very young, perfectly unknown, with no other title
than a little presumed ability, some education, and an ardent taste for
refined pleasures, letters, and good company. I carried with me no ideas
harmonizing with those I found there. I had been brought up at Geneva,
with extremely liberal notions, but in austere habits and religious
convictions entirely opposed to the philosophy of the eighteenth
century, rather than in coincidence with or in admiration of its works
and tendencies. During my residence in Paris, German metaphysics and
literature had been my favourite study; I read Kant and Klopstock,
Herder and Schiller, much more frequently than Condillac and Voltaire.
M. Suard, the Abbe Morellet, the Marquis de Boufflers, the frequenters
of the drawing-rooms of Madame d'Houdetot and of Madame de Rumford, who
received me with extreme complaisance, smiled, and sometimes grew tired
of my Christian traditions and Germanic enthusiasm; but, after all, this
difference of opinion established for me, in their circle, a plea of
interest and favour instead of producing any feeling of illwill or even
of indifference. They knew that I was as sincerely attached to liberty
and the privileges of human intelligence as they were themselves, and
they discovered something novel and independent in my turn of thought,
which inspired both esteem and attraction. At this period, they
constantly supported me with their friendship and interest, without ever
attempting to press or control me on the points on which we disagreed.
F