Letter to Thomas Gray (1766) [ ]
… for them, poor souls! they are not capable of going so far into thinking. They assent to a great deal, because it is the fashion, and because they don't know how to contradict. They are ashamed to defend the Roman Catholic religion, because … my intimacy with Paris to curiosity alone. An accident unlocked the doors for me. That passe-partout, called the fashion, has made them fly open—and what do you think was that fashion?—I myself—Yes, like Queen Elinor in the ballad, I sunk at Charing Cross, and have risen in the Faubourg St …
Correspondence | Women | France | Eloquence
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