CHAP. VI.
That every Thing ought not to be corrected.
Book XIX.
Chap. 6, & 7.LET them but leave us as we are, said a gentleman of a nation which had a very great resemblance to that we have been describing, and nature will repair whatever is amiss. She has given us a vivacity capable of offending, and hurrying us beyond the bounds of respect: this same vivacity is corrected by the politeness it procures us, inspiring a taste for the world, and above all, for the conversation of women.
Let them leave us as we are: our indiscretions joined to our nature, would make the laws which should constrain our sociable temper, not at all proper for us.
CHAP. VII.
Of the Albenians and Lacedœmonians.
THE Athenians, this gentleman adds, were a nation that had some relation to ours. They mingled gaiety with business; a stroke of raillery was as agreeable in the senate, as in the theatre. This vivacity, which discovered itself in their councils, went along with them in the execution of their resolves. The characteristic of the Spartans was gravity, seriousness, severity, and silence. It would have been as difficult to bring over an Athenian by teazing, as it would a Spartan by diverting him.
