The day after our return we dined at Mrs. Marcet's with M. Dumont, M. and Madame Prevost, M. de la Rive, M. Bonstettin, and M. de Candolle, the botanist, a particularly agreeable man. He told us of many experiments on the cure of goitres. In proportion as the land has been cultivated in some districts the goitres have disappeared. M. Bonstettin told us of some cretins, the lowest in the scale of human intellect, who used to assemble before a barber's shop and laugh immoderately at their own imitations of all those who came to the shop, ridiculing them in a language of their own. _To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH. PREGNY, _Aug. 10, 1820._ I wrote to my Aunt Ruxton a long--much too long an account of our Chamouni excursion, since which we have dined at Pictet's with his daughters, Madame Prevost Pictet and Madame Vernet, agreeable, sensible, and the remains of great beauty; but the grandest of all his married daughters is Madame Enard. M. Enard is building a magnificent house, the admiration, envy, and _scandal_ of Geneva; we have called it the Palais de la Republique. Dumont, tell Honora, is very kind and cordial; he seems to enjoy universal consideration here, and he loves Mont Blanc next to Bentham, above all created things: I had no idea till I saw him here how much he enjoyed the beauties of nature. He gave us a charming anecdote of Madame de Staël when she was very young. One day M. Suard, as he entered the saloon of the Hotel Necker, saw Madame Necker going out of the room, and Mademoiselle Necker standing in a melancholy attitude with tears in her eyes. Guessing that Madame Necker had been lecturing her, Suard went towards her to comfort her, and whispered, _"Un caresse du papa vous dedommagera bien de tout ça."_ She immediately, wiping the tears from her eyes, answered, _"Eh! oui, Monsieur, mon père songe à mon bonheur present, maman songe à mon avenir."_ There was more than presence of mind, there was heart and soul and greatness of mind, in this answer. Dumont speaks to me in the kindest, most tender, and affectionate manner of our _Memoirs_; he says he hears from England, and from all who have read them, that they have produced the effect we wished and hoped; the MS. had interested him, he said, so deeply that with all his efforts he could not then put himself in the place of the indifferent public. M. Vernet, Pictet's son-in-law, mentioned a compliment of a Protestant curé at Geneva to the new Catholic Bishop which French politeness might envy, and which I wish that party spirit in Ireland and all over the world could imitate. "_Monseigneur, vous êtes dans un pays où la moitié du peuple vous ouvre leurs coeurs, et l'autre moitié vous tende les bras."