And Diderot had delicacy and respect in his pity.  He tells a story in one of his letters of a poor woman who had suffered some wrong from a priest; she had not money enough to resort to law, until a friend of Diderot took her part.  The suit was gained; but when the moment came for execution, the priest had vanished with all his goods.  The woman came to thank her protector, and to regret the loss he had suffered.  “As she chatted, she pulled a shabby snuff-box out of her pocket, and gathered up with the tip of her finger what little snuff remained at the bottom:  her benefactor says to her ‘Ah, ah! you have no more snuff; give me your box, and I will fill it.’  He took the box and put into it a couple of louis, which he covered up with snuff.  Now there’s an action thoroughly to my taste, and to yours too!  Give, but, if you can, spare to the poor the shame of holding out a hand."[9] And the important thing, as we have said, is that Diderot was as good as his sentiment.  Unlike most of the fine talkers of that day, to him these homely and considerate emotions were the most real part of life.  Nobody in the world was ever more eager to give succour to others, nor more careless of his own ease.

One singular story of Diderot’s heedlessness about himself has often been told before, but we shall be none the worse in an egoistic world for hearing it told again.  There came to him one morning a young man, bringing a manuscript in his hand.  He begged Diderot to do him the favour of reading it, and to make any remarks he might think useful on the margin.  Diderot found it to be a bitter satire upon his own person and writings.  On the young man’s return, Diderot asked him his grounds for making such an attack.  “I am without bread,” the satirist answered, “and I hoped you might perhaps give me a few crowns not to print it.”  Diderot at once forgot everything in pity for the starving scribbler.  “I will tell you a way of making more than that by it.  The brother of the Duke of Orleans is one of the pious, and he hates me.  Dedicate your satire to him, get it bound with his arms on the cover; take it to him some fine morning, and you will certainly get assistance from him.”  “But I don’t know the prince, and the dedicatory epistle embarrasses me.”  “Sit down,” said Diderot, “and I will write one for you.”  The dedication was written, the author carried it to the prince, and received a handsome fee.[10]

Marmontel assures us that never was Diderot seen to such advantage as when an author consulted him about a work.  “You should have seen him,” he says, “take hold of the subject, pierce to the bottom of it, and at a single glance discover of what riches and of what beauty it was susceptible.  If he saw that the author missed the right track, instead of listening to the reading, he at once worked up in his head all that the author had left crude and imperfect.  Was it a play, he threw new scenes into it, new incidents, new strokes of character; and thinking that he had