e sterling interest in furthering
the affairs of others around him. He seemed to admit every claim on his
time, his purse, and his talents. A stranger called upon him one day,
and begged Diderot to write for him a puffing advertisement of a new
pomatum. Diderot with a laugh sat down and wrote what was wanted. The
graver occasions of life found him no less ready. Damilaville lost one
of his children, and his wife was inconsolable. It was Diderot who was
summoned, and who cheerfully went for days together to soothe and divert
her mind. For his correspondent and for us he makes the tedium of his
story beautiful by recalling the fine saying of a grief-stricken woman
in Metastasio, when they tried to console her by the example of Abraham,
who was ready even to slay his son at the command of God: _Ah, God would
never have given such an order to his mother!_

The abbe Le Monnier wrote the worst verses that ever were read, a play
that was instantly damned, and a translation of Terence that came into
the world dead. But bad writers are always the most shameless intruders
on the time of good critics, and we find Diderot willingly spending
hours over the abbe's handwriting, which was as wretched as what he
wrote, and then spending hours more in offering critical observations
on verses that were only fit to be thrown into the fire. The abbe, being
absent from Paris and falling short of money, requested Diderot to sell
for him his copy of the Encyclopaedia. "I have sold your Encyclopaedia,"
said Diderot, "but did not get so much as I expected, for the rumour
spread abroad by those scoundrels of Swiss booksellers, that they were
going to issue a revised edition, has done us some harm. Send for the
nine hundred and fifty livres (about L40) that belong to you, and if
that is not enough for your expenses, besides the drawer that holds your
money is another that holds mine. I don't know how much there is, but I
will count it all at your disposal."[226]

One Jodin, again, was a literary hack who had been employed on the
Encyclopaedia. He died, leaving a foolish and extravagant widow, and a
perverse and violent daughter. The latter went on to the stage, and
Diderot took as much trouble in advising her, in seeking appointments
for her, in executing her commissions, in investing her earnings, in
dealing with her relatives, as if he had been her own father. If his
counsels on her art are admirable, there is something that moves us with
more