pendence I seek is not immunity from work; I am firm for winning my
own bread, I take pleasure in it; but I mean not to subject myself to
any other duty, if I can help it. I will never pledge any portion of my
liberty, either for my own subsistence or that of any one else. I intend
to work, but at my own will and pleasure, and even to do nothing, if it
happens to suit me, without any one finding fault except my
stomach."[251] We may call this unamiable, if we please, but in a
frivolous world amiability can hardly go with firm resolve to live an
independent life after your own fashion. The many distasteful sides of
Rousseau's character ought not to hinder us from admiring his
steadfastness in refusing to sacrifice his existence to the first person
who spoke him civilly. We may wish there had been more of rugged
simplicity in his way of dealing with temptations to sell his birthright
for a mess of pottage; less of mere irritability. But then this
irritability is one side of soft temperament. The soft temperament is
easily agitated, and this unpleasant disturbance does not stir up true
anger nor lasting indignation, but only sends quick currents of eager
irritation along the sufferer's nerves. Rousseau, quivering from head to
foot with self-consciousness, is sufficiently unlike our plain Johnson,
the strong-armoured; yet persistent withstanding of the patron is as
worthy of our honour in one instance as in the other. Indeed, resistance
to humiliating pressure is harder for such a temper as Rousseau's, in
which deliberate endeavour is needed, than it is for the naturally
stoical spirit which asserts itself spontaneously and rises
without effort.

When our born solitary, wearied of Paris and half afraid of the too
friendly importunity of Geneva, at length determined to accept Madame
d'Epinay's offer of the Hermitage on conditions which left him an
entire sentiment of independence of movement and freedom from all sense
of pecuniary obligation, he was immediately exposed to a very copious
torrent of pleasantry and remonstrance from the highly social circle who
met round D'Holbach's dinner-table. They deemed it sheer midsummer
madness, or even a sign of secret depravity, to quit their cheerful
world for the dismal solitude of woods and fields. "Only the bad man is
alone," wrote Diderot in words which Rousseau kept resentfully in his
memory as long as he lived. The men and women of the eighteenth century
had no comprehension of