"The truth is, my dear Moore, you live near the _stove_ of society, where you are unavoidably influenced by its heat and its vapours. I did so once--and too much--and enough to give a colour to my whole future existence. As my success in society was _not_ inconsiderable, I am surely not a prejudiced judge upon the subject, unless in its favour; but I think it, as now constituted, _fatal_ to all great original undertakings of every kind. I never courted it _then_, when I was young and high in blood, and one of its 'curled darlings;' and do you think I would do so _now_, when I am living in a clearer atmosphere? One thing _only_ might lead me back to it, and that is, to try once more if I could do any good in _politics_; but _not_ in the petty politics I see now preying upon our miserable country. "Do not let me be misunderstood, however. If you speak your _own_ opinions, they ever had, and will have, the greatest weight with _me_. But if you merely _echo_ the 'monde,' (and it is difficult not to do so, being in its favour and its ferment,) I can only regret that you should ever repeat any thing to which I cannot pay attention. "But I am prosing. The gods go with you, and as much immortality of all kinds as may suit your present and all other existence. "Yours," &c. * * * * * LETTER 483. TO MR. MOORE. "Pisa, March 6. 1822. "The enclosed letter from Murray hath melted me; though I think it is against his own interest to wish that I should continue his connection. You may, therefore, send him the packet of _Werner,_ which will save you all further trouble. And pray, _can you_ forgive me for the bore and expense I have already put upon you? At least, _say_ so--for I feel ashamed of having given you so much for such nonsense. "The fact is, I cannot _keep_ my _resentments,_ though violent enough in their onset. Besides, now that all the world are at Murray on my account, I neither can nor ought to leave him; unless, as I really thought, it were better for _him_ that I should. "I have had no other news from England, except a letter from Barry Cornwall, the bard, and my old school-fellow. Though I have sickened you with letters lately, believe me "Yours, &c. "P.S. In your last letter you say, speaking of Shelley, that you would almost prefer the 'damning bigot' to the 'annihilating infidel.'[75] Shelley believes in immortality, however--but this by the way. Do you remember Frederick the Great's answer to the remonstrance of the villagers whose curate preached against the eternity of hell's torments? It was thus:--'If my faithful subjects of Schrausenhaussen prefer being eternally damned, let them.'