s fresh and
vigorous in suggestion, always instant in search. But this multiplicity
of active excitements--and with Diderot every interest rose to the
warmth of excitement--was even more hostile to masterpieces than were
the exigencies of a livelihood. It was not unpardonable in a moment of
exhaustion and chagrin to fancy that he had offered up the treasures of
his genius to the dull gods of the hearth. But if he had been childless
and unwedded, the result would have been the same. He is the munificent
prodigal of letters, always believing his substance inexhaustible, never
placing a limit to his fancies nor a bound to his outlay. "It is not
they who rob me of my life," he wrote; "it is I who give it to them. And
what can I do better than accord a portion of it to him who esteems me
enough to solicit such a gift? I shall get no praise for it, 'tis true,
either now while I am here, nor when I shall exist no longer; but I
shall esteem myself for it, and people will love me all the better for
it. 'Tis no bad exchange, that of benevolence, against a celebrity that
one does not always win, and that nobody wins without a drawback. I have
never once regretted the time that I have given to others; I can
scarcely say as much for; the time that I have used for myself."[20]
Remembering how uniformly men of letters take themselves somewhat too
seriously, we may be sorry that this unique figure among them, who was
in other respects constituted to be so considerable and so effective,
did not take himself seriously enough.

Apart from his moral inaptitude for the monumental achievements of
authorship, Diderot was endowed with the gifts of the talker rather than
with those of the writer. Like Dr. Johnson, he was a great converser
rather than the author of great books. If we turn to his writings, we
are at some loss to understand the secret of his reputation. They are
too often declamatory, ill-compacted, broken by frequent apostrophes,
ungainly, dislocated, and rambling. He has been described by a
consummate judge as the most German of all the French. And his style is
deeply marked by that want of feeling for the exquisite, that dulness of
edge, that bluntness of stroke, which is the common note of all German
literature, save a little of the very highest. In conversation we do not
insist on constant precision of phrase, nor on elaborate sustension of
argument. Apostrophe is made natural by the semi-dramatic quality of the
situation. Ev