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383, 384. Also vii. 53. [89] _Conf._, v. 313, 367; iv. 293; ix. 353. Also _Mem. de Mdme. d'Epinay_, ii. 151. [90] _Ib._ iii. 192, 193. [91] _Conf._, iv. 301; iii. 195. [92] _Conf._, v. 372, 373. The mistaken date assigned to the correspondence between Voltaire and Frederick is one of many instances how little we can trust the Confessions for minute accuracy, though their substantial veracity is confirmed by all the collateral evidence that we have. [93] _Ib._ iii. 188. For his debt in the way of education to Madame de Warens, see also _Ib._ vii. 46. [94] _Conf._, vi. 409. [95] _Ib._ vi. 413. He adds a suspicious-looking "_et cetera_." [96] _Conf._, vi. 414 [97] _Conf._, iv. 295. See also v. 346. [98] _Corr._, 1736, pp. 26, 27. [99] _Conf._, iv. 271, where he says further that he never found enough attraction in French poetry to make him think of pursuing it. [100] The first part of the Confessions was written in Wootton in Derbyshire, in the winter of 1766-1767. [101] _Conf._, vi. 422. [102] _Corr._, i. 43, 46, 62, etc. [103] Musset-Pathay, i. 23, _n._ CHAPTER IV. THERESA LE VASSEUR. Men like Rousseau, who are most heedless in letting their delight perish, are as often as not most loth to bury what they have slain, or even to perceive that life has gone out of it. The sight of simple hearts trying to coax back a little warm breath of former days into a present that is stiff and cold with indifference, is touching enough. But there is a certain grossness around the circumstances in which Rousseau now and too often found himself, that makes us watch his embarrassment with some composure. One cannot easily think of him as a simple heart, and we feel perhaps as much relief as he, when he resolves after making all due efforts to thrust out the intruder and bring Madame de Warens over from theories which had become too practical to be interesting, to leave Les Charmettes and accept a tutorship at Lyons. His new patron was a De Mably, elder brother of the philosophic abbe of the same name (1709-85), and of the still more notable Condillac (1714-80). The future author of the most influential treatise on education that has ever been written, was not successful in the practical and far more arduous side of that master art.[104] We have seen how little training he had ever given himself in the cardinal virtues of collectedness and self-control, and we know this to be the indis
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