he
Abbe Morellet visit her?"--"Certainly they do; not one of your friends
has dropped her acquaintance."--"If you had gained the Abbe Morellet
with a bribe of good coffee and cream, perhaps you would have
succeeded: for he is as deep a reasoner as Duns Scotus or St. Thomas:
he arranges and methodizes his arguments in such a manner that they
are almost irresistible. Or if by a fine edition of some old classic
you had gained the Abbe de la Roche to speak _against_ you, that would
have been still better; as I always observed that when he recommended
anything to her, she had a great inclination to do directly the
contrary." As he finished these words the new Madame Helvetius entered
with the nectar, and I recognized her immediately as my former
American friend Mrs. Franklin! I reclaimed her, but she answered me
coldly:--"I was a good wife to you for forty-nine years and four
months,--nearly half a century; let that content you. I have formed a
new connection here, which will last to eternity."

Indignant at this refusal of my Eurydice, I immediately resolved to
quit those ungrateful shades, and return to this good world again, to
behold the sun and you! Here I am: let us _avenge ourselves_!

THE EPHEMERA; AN EMBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE

LETTER TO MADAME BRILLON OF PASSY, WRITTEN IN 1778

You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spent that happy
day in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin Joly, I
stopped a little in one of our walks, and stayed some time behind the
company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little
fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we were told,
were bred and expired within the day. I happened to see a living
company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation.
You know I understand all the inferior animal tongues. My too great
application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give for the
little progress I have made in your charming language. I listened
through curiosity to the discourse of these little creatures; but as
they in their natural vivacity spoke three, or four together, I could
make but little of their conversation. I found however by some broken
expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on
the merit of two foreign musicians, one a _cousin_, the other a
_moscheto_; in which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as
regardless of the shortness of life as if they had been su