In Richardson's work, he says, as in the world, men are divided into two classes, those who enjoy and those who suffer, and it is always to the latter that he draws the mind of the reader. It is due to Richardson, he cries, "if I have loved my fellow-creatures better, and loved my duties better; if I have never felt anything but pity for the bad; if I have conceived a deeper compassion for the unfortunate, more veneration for the good, more circumspection in the use of present things, more indifference about future things, more contempt for life, more love for virtue." The works of Richardson are his touch-stone; those who do not love them, stand judged and condemned in his eyes. Yet in the midst of this tumult of admiration Diderot admits that the number of readers who will feel all their value can never be great; it requires too severe a taste, and then the variety of events is such, relations are so multiplied, the management of them is so complicated, there are so many things arranged, so many personages! "O Richardson; if thou hast not enjoyed in thy lifetime all the reputation of thy deserts, how great wilt thou be to our grandchildren when they see thee from the distance at which we now view Homer! Then who will there be with daring enough to strike out a line of thy sublime work?"[10] Yet of the very moderate number of living persons who have ever read _Clarissa Harlowe_, it would be safe to say that the large majority have read it in a certain abridgment in three volumes which appeared some years ago. [10] The _Eloge de Richardson_ is in Diderot's Works, v. 212-227.