Alas, all these endless debates and dialogues lacked the inspiration and the charm with which the genius of a Plato could adorn the narrowest quibble between Socrates and a Sophist.  “Diderot,” said Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, “is an extraordinary man; he is out of his place in society; he was meant for the chief of a sect, a Greek philosopher, instructing youth.  He pleases me greatly, but his manner does not touch my soul."[225] And we understand this.  People disputed what virtue is, but the dispute failed in that undefined spirit which makes men love and adore virtue.  Goodness is surrounded with no spacious beauty, it is clothed with none of the high associations of spontaneous piety.  The discussion seems close, stifling, and airless.  Yet ages of loftier speech and greater spirituality have not always been so favourable to the affections or to the attachments of life.  In amiability that society has never been surpassed; in sincerity of mutual sympathy and kindliness of mutual regard.  The common irregularity of morals was seen to be perfectly compatible not merely with a desire to please, but with an honest anxiety to serve.

Of the thorough excellence of Diderot’s heart, of his friendliness and unwearied helpfulness, time would fail us to tell.  Men’s conceptions of friendship differ as widely as their conceptions of other things.  Some look to friendship for absolute exemption from all criticism, and for a mutual admiration without limit or conditions.  Others mistake it for the right of excessive criticism, in season and out of season.

Diderot was content to take friendship as the right, the duty, or the privilege of rendering services, without thought of requiring either them, or gratitude for them, back in return.  This we must confess to be rare.  No man that ever lived showed more 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!