as we have said, came back from his
expedition to Russia in the autumn of 1744, tranquilly counting on half
a score more years to make up the tale of his days. He remained in
temper and habit through this long evening of his life what he had been
in its morning and noontide--friendly, industrious, cheerful, exuberant
in conversation, keenly interested in the march of liberal and
progressive ideas. On his return his wife and daughter found him thin
and altered. A few months of absence so often suffice to reveal that our
friend has grown old, and that time is casting long shadows. Age seems
to have come in a day, like sudden winter. He was as gay and as kindly
as ever. Some of his friends had declared that he would never bethink
himself of returning at all. "Time and space in his eyes," said Galiani,
"are as in the eyes of the Almighty; he thinks that he is everywhere,
and that he is eternal."[175] They had predicted for Diderot at St.
Petersburg the fate of Descartes at the court of Queen Christina. But
the philosopher triumphantly vindicated his character. "My good wife,"
said he, when he had reached the old familiar fourth floor, "prithee,
count my things; thou wilt find no reason for scolding; I have not lost
a single handkerchief."[176]

[175] _Corresp._, ii. 180.

[176] _Oeuv._, i. 54

This cheerfulness, however, did not hide from his friends that he was
subject to a languor which had been unknown before his journey to
Russia. It was not the peevish fatigue that often brings life to an
unworthy close. He remained true to the healthy temper of his prime, and
found himself across the threshold of old age without repining. As the
veteran Cephalus said to Socrates, regrets and complaints are not in a
man's age, but in his temper; and he who is of a happy nature will
scarcely feel the burden of the years.

In 1762 Diderot had written to Mdlle. Voland a page of affecting musings
on the great pathetic theme:

"You ask me why, the more our life is filled up and busy, the less
are we attached to it? If that is true, it is because a busy life
is for the most part an innocent life. We think less about Death,
and so we fear it less. Without perceiving it, we resign ourselves
to the common lot of all the beings that we watch around us, dying
and being born again in an incessant, ever renewing circle. After
having for a season fulfilled the tasks that nature year by year
impo