Never did I feel, my dear Bonstetten, to what a tedious length the few
short moments of our life may be extended by impatience and
expectation, till you had left me; nor ever knew before with so strong
a conviction how much this frail body sympathizes with the inquietude
of the mind. I am grown old in the compass of less than three weeks,
like the Sultan in the Turkish tales, that did but plunge his head
into a vessel of water and take it out again, as the standers by
affirmed, at the command of a Dervish, and found he had passed many
years in captivity, and begot a large family of children.
The strength and spirits that now enable me to write to you, are only
owing to your last letter a temporary gleam of sunshine. Heaven knows
when it may shine again! I did not conceive till now, I own, what it
was to lose you, nor felt the solitude and insipidity of my own
condition before I possest the happiness of your friendship. I must
cite another Greek writer to you, because it is much to my purpose; he
is describing the character of a genius truly inclined to philosophy.
"It includes," he says, "qualifications rarely united in one single
mind, quickness of apprehension and a retentive memory, vivacity and
application, gentleness and magnanimity"; to these he adds an
invincible love of truth, and consequently of probity and justice.
"Such a soul," continues he, "will be little inclined to sensual
pleasures, and consequently temperate; a stranger to illiberality and
avarice; being accustomed to the most extensive views of things, and
sublimest contemplations, it will contract an habitual greatness, will
look down with a kind of disregard on human life and on death;
consequently, will possess the truest fortitude. Such," says he, "is
the mind born to govern the rest of mankind."
But these very endowments, so necessary to a soul formed for
philosophy, are often its ruin, especially when joined to the external
advantages of wealth, nobility, strength, and beauty; that is, if it
light on a bad soil, and want its proper nurture, which nothing but an
excellent education can bestow. In this case he is depraved by the
public example, the assemblies of the people, the courts of justice,
the theaters, that inspire it with false opinions, terrify it with
false infamy, or elevate it with false applause; and remember, that
extraordinary vices and extraordinary virtues are equally the produce
of a vigorous mind: little souls are alike incapable of the one and
the other.
If you have ever met with the portrait sketched out by Plato, you will
know it again: for my part, to my sorrow I have had that happiness. I
see the principal features, and I foresee the dangers with a trembling
anxiety. But enough of this, I return to your letter. It proves at
least, that in the midst of your new gaieties I still hold some place
in your memory, and, what pleases me above all, it had an air of
undissembled sincerity. Go on, my best and amiable friend, to shew me
your heart simply and without the shadow of disguise, and leave me to
weep over it, as I now do, no matter whether from joy or sorrow.