but there reigns in it an
exquisite sensibility which transports the heart to their image, and
makes us cherish in others the pure, tender and virtuous sentiments we no
longer possess. Corruption is everywhere the same; virtue and morality
no longer exist in Europe; but if the least love of them still remains,
it is in Paris that this will be found.--[I wrote this in 1769.]

In the midst of so many prejudices and feigned passions, the real
sentiments of nature are not to be distinguished from others, unless we
well know to analyze the human heart. A very nice discrimination, not to
be acquired except by the education of the world, is necessary to feel
the finesses of the heart, if I dare use the expression, with which this
work abounds. I do not hesitate to place the fourth part of it upon an
equality with the Princess of Cleves; nor to assert that had these two
works been read nowhere but in the provinces, their merit would never
have been discovered. It must not, therefore, be considered as a matter
of astonishment, that the greatest success of my work was at court. It
abounds with lively but veiled touches of the pencil, which could not but
give pleasure there, because the persons who frequent it are more
accustomed than others to discover them. A distinction must, however, be
made. The work is by no means proper for the species of men of wit who
have nothing but cunning, who possess no other kind of discernment than
that which penetrates evil, and see nothing where good only is to be
found. If, for instance, Eloisa had been published in a certain country,
I am convinced it would not have been read through by a single person,
and the work would have been stifled in its birth.

I have collected most of the letters written to me on the subject of this
publication, and deposited them, tied up together, in the hands of Madam
de Nadillac. Should this collection ever be given to the world, very
singular things will be seen, and an opposition of opinion, which shows
what it is to have to do with the public. The thing least kept in view,
and which will ever distinguish it from every other work, is the
simplicity of the subject and the continuation of the interest, which,
confined to three persons, is kept up throughout six volumes, without
episode, romantic adventure, or anything malicious either in the persons
or actions. Diderot complimented Richardson on the prodigious variety of
his portraits and the multipli