“It was one of Rousseau’s psychological skills to persuade people, not least his social superiors, that common-or-garden words of thanks were not in his vocabulary. Thus he wrote to the Duc de Montmorency-Luxembourg, who lent him a chateau: ‘I neither praise you nor thank you. But I live in your house. Everyone has his own language – I have said everything in mine.’ The ploy worked beautifully, the Duchess replying apologetically: ‘It is not for you to thank us – it is the Marshall and I who are in your debt.’”
—Paul Johnson, Intellectuals
BTW, do you think Johnson is unnecessarily harsh on poor Jean-Paul Sartre in Intellectuals?
Posted by: rich at August 5, 2006 04:54 PM