ffection and in everything
carrying my sincerity even to imprudence and the most incredible
disinterestedness.

I therefore in some measure took leave of the age in which I lived and my
contemporaries, and bade adieu to the world, with an intention to confine
myself for the rest of my days to that island; such was my resolution,
and it was there I hoped to execute the great project of the indolent
life to which I had until then consecrated the little activity with which
Heaven had endowed me. The island was to become to me that of Papimanie,
that happy country where the inhabitants sleep:

Ou l'on fait plus, ou l'on fait nulle chose.

[Where they do more: where they do nothing.]

This more was everything for me, for I never much regretted sleep;
indolence is sufficient to my happiness, and provided I do nothing, I had
rather dream waking than asleep. Being past the age of romantic
projects, and having been more stunned than flattered by the trumpet of
fame, my only hope was that of living at ease, and constantly at leisure.
This is the life of the blessed in the world to come, and for the rest of
mine here below I made it my supreme happiness.

They who reproach me with so many contradictions, will not fail here to
add another to the number. I have observed the indolence of great
companies made them unsupportable to me, and I am now seeking solitude
for the sole purpose of abandoning myself to inaction. This however is
my disposition; if there be in it a contradiction, it proceeds from
nature and not from me; but there is so little that it is precisely on
that account that I am always consistent. The indolence of company is
burdensome because it is forced. That of solitude is charming because it
is free, and depends upon the will. In company I suffer cruelly by
inaction, because this is of necessity. I must there remain nailed to my
chair, or stand upright like a picket, without stirring hand or foot, not
daring to run, jump, sing, exclaim, nor gesticulate when I please, not
allowed even to dream, suffering at the same time the fatigue of inaction
and all the torment of constraint; obliged to pay attention to every
foolish thing uttered, and to all the idle compliments paid, and
constantly to keep my mind upon the rack that I may not fail to introduce
in my turn my jest or my lie. And this is called idleness! It is the
labor of a galley slave.

The indolence I love is not th