OF FRENCH SOCIETY. 57 of domestic virtue, all thepurposes of so- cial usefulness, were, on herpart, perfectly compatible with her being received in the first society. On the part of her asso- ciates, all the objections, insurmountable, we trust, in any other place, were there sacrificed to the reigning idol - the fondness for display in conversation, the vanity of eclipsing those who eclipsed others. We see also how little splendid talents contribute to the felicities of the life, or to the virtues of the possessor. We even see that, when not under the con- trol of sound principle, they awfully increase the present capacity for evil, and the responsibility of a future reckon- ing. Instead of promoting improvement, they carry contamination. In morals, as well as in politics, " Great power is an achievement of great ill." Some of these brilliant societies fostered in their bosoms the serpents that were so won to sting, not only their own country, D 5
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