Ce repos languissant ne fut jamais un bien; C'est trouver sans mouvoir l'êtat où l'on n'est rien.
('Twas never a good this languishing rest; 'Tis to find without search a state far from blest.)
I want to know about your health, your occupations, your inclinations, and let it be in a long enough letter, with moralizing and plenty of affection for your old friend.
The news here is that the Count de Grammont is dead, and it fills me with acute sorrow.
If you know Barbin, ask him why he prints so many things that are not mine, over my name? I have been guilty of enough folly without assuming the burden of others. They have made me the author of a diatribe against Père Bouhours, which I never even imagined. There is no writer whom I hold in higher esteem. Our language owes more to him than to any other author.
God grant that the rumor of Count de Grammont's death be false, and that of your health true. The Gazette de Hollande says the Count de Lauzun is to be married. If this were true he would have been summoned to Paris, besides, de Lauzun is a Duke, and the name "Count" does not fit him.
Adieu. I am the truest of your servants, who would gain much if you had no more lovers, for I would be the first of your friends despite an absence which may be called eternal.
It is sweet to remember those we have loved
I was alone in my chamber, weary of reading, when some one exclaimed: "Here is a messenger from Saint-Evremond!" You can imagine how quickly my ennui disappeared--it left me in a moment.
I have been speaking of you quite recently, and have learned many things which do not appear in your letters--about your perfect health and your occupation. The joy in my mind indicates its strength, and your letter assures me that England promises you forty years more of life, for I believe that it is only in England that they speak of men who have passed the fixed period of human life. I had hoped to pass the rest of my days with you, and if you had possessed the same desire, you would still be in France.
It is, however, pleasant to remember those we have loved, and it is, perhaps, for the embellishment of my epitaph, that this bodily separation has occurred.
I could have wished that the young ecclesiastic had found me in the midst of the glories of Nike, which could not change me, although you seem to think that I am more tenderly enchanted with him than philosophy permits.