I console myself for his superiority by frankly recognising it.

I am vain of the victory that I thus gain over my self-love, and you must not deprive me of that little advantage."[236] Grimm, however, knew better than Diderot how to unite German sentimentalism with a steady selfishness.

"I have just received from Grimm," writes good-natured Diderot, "a note that wounds my too sensitive spirit.

I had promised to write him a few lines on the exhibition of pictures in the Salon; he writes to me that if it is not ready to-morrow, it will be of no use.

I will be revenged for this kind of hardness, and in a way that becomes me.