e is equivocal, and seems to present a double meaning; the
one true, the other false, since it is impossible that a man who is
determined to remain alone can do the least harm to anybody, and
consequently he cannot be wicked. The sentence in itself therefore
required an interpretation; the more so from an author who, when he sent
it to the press, had a friend retired from the world. It appeared to me
shocking and uncivil, either to have forgotten that solitary friend, or,
in remembering him, not to have made from the general maxim the honorable
and just exception which he owed, not only to his friend, but to so many
respectable sages, who, in all ages, have sought for peace and
tranquillity in retirement, and of whom, for the first time since the
creation of the world, a writer took it into his head indiscriminately to
make so many villains.

I had a great affection and the most sincere esteem for Diderot, and
fully depended upon his having the same sentiments for me. But tired
with his indefatigable obstinacy in continually opposing my inclinations,
taste, and manner of living, and everything which related to no person
but myself; shocked at seeing a man younger than I was wish, at all
events, to govern me like a child; disgusted with his facility in
promising, and his negligence in performing; weary of so many
appointments given by himself, and capriciously broken, while new ones
were again given only to be again broken; displeased at uselessly waiting
for him three or four times a month on the days he had assigned, and in
dining alone at night after having gone to Saint Denis to meet him, and
waited the whole day for his coming; my heart was already full of these
multiplied injuries. This last appeared to me still more serious, and
gave me infinite pain. I wrote to complain of it, but in so mild and
tender a manner that I moistened my paper with my tears, and my letter
was sufficiently affecting to have drawn others from himself. It would
be impossible to guess his answer on this subject: it was literally as
follows: "I am glad my work has pleased and affected you. You are not of
my opinion relative to hermits. Say as much good of them as you please,
you will be the only one in the world of whom I shall think well: even on
this there would be much to say were it possible to speak to you without
giving you offence. A woman eighty years of age! etc. A phrase of a
letter from the son of Madam d'Epinay which, i