How deeply I feel obliged and gratified by your confidential
communication! I read repeatedly the third letter of our young plenipotentiary.
I know nothing against him but his youth—a fault which a few seasons of
experience will infallibly correct; but I have observed that the habits and
experience he has acquired as a lawyer often greatly serve him in matters of
business. His views are vast, but they are based on good sense, and he is most
determinedly serious when he sets to work. The Chevalier and M. seem to
have received him with all the open confidence of men struck by a stranger, yet
a stranger not wholly strange, and known enough to them to deserve their
confidence if he could inspire it. I flatter myself he has fully—he must,
if he has really had confidential intercourse with the Chevalier, and so
confidently impresses you with so high and favourable a character of M. On your
side, my dear Murray, no ordinary
exertions will avail. You, too, have faith and confidence to inspire in them.
You observe how the wary Northern Genius attempted to probe whether certain
friends of yours would stand together; no doubt they wish to ascertain that
point. Pardon me if I add, that in satisfying their cautious and anxious
inquiries as to your influence with these persons, it may be wise to throw a
little shade of mystery, and not to tell everything too openly at first;
because, when objects are clearly defined, they do not affect our imaginations
as when they
| 194 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
