“For several days I have not written any thing except a few answers to letters. In momentary expectation of an explosion of some kind, it is not easy to settle down to the desk for the higher kinds of composition. I could do it, to be sure, for, last summer, I wrote my drama in the very bustle of Madame la Contesse G.’s divorce, and all its process of accompaniments. At the same time, I also had the news of the loss of an important lawsuit in England. But these were only private and personal business; the present is of a different nature.
“I suppose it is this, but have some suspicion that it may be laziness, which prevents me from writing; especially as Rochefoucault says that ‘laziness often masters them all’—speaking of the passions. If this were true, it could hardly be said that ‘idleness is the root of all evil,’ since this is supposed to spring from the passions only: ergo, that which masters all the passions (laziness, to wit) would in so much be a good. Who knows?
“I have been reading Grimm’s Correspondence. He repeats
frequently, in speaking of a poet, or of a man of genius in any department, even in
music (Gretry, for instance), that he must have
‘une ame qui se tourmente, un esprit
violent.’ How far this may be true, I know not; but if it were, I
should be a poet ‘per eccellenza;’ for I have always had
‘une ame,’ which not only tormented itself but every
body else in contact with it; and an ‘esprit violent,’
which has almost left me
| 424 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1821. |
“Grimm, however, is an excellent critic and literary historian. His Correspondence form the annals of the literary part of that age of France, with much of her polities, and, still more, of her ‘way of life.’ He is as valuable, and far more entertaining than Muratori or Tiraboschi—I had almost said, than Guingené—but there we should pause. However, ’tis a great man in its line.
“Monsieur St. Lambert has
‘Et lorsqu’à ses regards la lumière est ravie, Il n’a plus, en mourant, à perdre que la vie.’
|
‘And dying, all we can resign is breath,’ |
