The manner of life there was delightful to him.

There was perfect freedom, the mistress of the house neither rendering strict duties of ceremony nor exacting them.

Diderot used to rise at six or at eight, and remain in his own room until one, reading, writing, meditating.

Nobody was more exquisitely sensible than Diderot to the charm of loitering over books, "over those authors," as he said, "who ravish us from ourselves, in whose hands nature has placed a fairy wand, with which they no sooner touch us, than straightway we forget the evils of life, the darkness lifts from our souls, and we are reconciled to existence."[201] The musing suggestiveness of reading when we read only for reading's sake, and not for reproduction nor direct use, was as delightful to our laborious drudge as to others, but he could indulge himself with little of this sweet idleness.

It was in harder labour that he passed most of his mornings.