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Book, page 241 / 248 written, and with an excellent introduction. The lives of Priestley and Cavendish are written with so much candour towards the English philosophers that even Mr. Chenevix cannot have anything to complain of. _To_ MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH. BERNE, _August 19, 1820._ The day we set out from Pregny we breakfasted at Coppet; from some misunderstanding M. de Stael had not expected us and had breakfasted, but as he is remarkably well-bred, easy, and obliging in his manners he was not _put out_, and while our breakfast was preparing he showed us the house. All the rooms once inhabited by Madame de Stael we could not think of as common rooms--they have a classical power over the mind, and this was much heightened by the strong attachment and respect for her memory shown in every word and look, and _silence_ by her son and by her friend, Miss Randall. He is correcting for the press _Les dix Annees d'Exil._ M. de Stael after breakfast took us a delightful walk through the grounds, which he is improving with good taste and judgment. He told me that his mother never gave any work to the public in the form in which she originally composed it; she changed the arrangement and expression of her thoughts with such facility, and was so little attached to her own first views of the subject that often a work was completely remodelled by her while passing through the press. Her father disliked to see her make any formal preparation for writing when she was young, so that she used to write often on the corner of the chimney-piece, or on a pasteboard held in her hand, and always in the room with others, for her father could not bear her to be out of the room--and this habit of writing without preparation she preserved ever afterwards. M. de Stael told me of a curious interview he had with Buonaparte when he was enraged with his mother, who had published remarks on his government--concluding with "Eh! bien vous avez raison aussi. Je concois qu'un fils doit toujours faire la defense de sa mere, mais enfin, si Monsieur veut ecrire des libelles, il faut aller en Angleterre. Ou bien, s'il cherche la gloire, c'est en Angleterre qu'il faut aller. C'est
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