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[Elizabeth Carter to Elizabeth Vesey, 9 January 1782:] 'Alas, my dear friend, it is not a reflection on the writings or conversation of a licentious profligate infidel like the Abbe R---- that can compose the astonished mind amidst the awful terrors of a midnight storm, such as you so nobly describe: you well know that from sources such as these no solid comfort can be derived, why then will you idly spend your time in reading what ought never to have been written? But you do it, you say, merely for amusement: 'tis dangerous amusement to a mind like yours, indeed to any mind.'