But lest you should think, from the praise I
have given you, that flattery can find a place in Elysium, allow me to
lament, with the tender sorrow of a friend, that a man so superior to all
other follies could give into the reveries of a Madame Guyon, a
distracted enthusiast. How strange was it to see the two great lights of
France, you and the Bishop of Meaux, engaged in a controversy whether a
madwoman was a heretic or a saint!
_Fenelon_.--I confess my own weakness, and the ridiculousness of the
dispute; but did not your warm imagination carry you also into some
reveries about divine love, in which you talked unintelligibly, even to
yourself?
_Plato_.--I felt something more than I was able to express.
_Fenelon_.--I had my feelings too, as fine and as lively as yours; but we
should both have done better to have avoided those subjects in which
sentiment took the place of reason.
DIALOGUE IV.
MR. ADDISON--DR. SWIFT.
_Dr. Swift_.--Surely, Addison, Fortune was exceedingly inclined to play
the fool (a humour her ladyship, as well as most other ladies of very
great quality, is frequently in) when she made you a minister of state
and me a divine!
_Addison_.
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