ntiments of which
I was so full. Yet in the midst of it all, the nothingness of my
chimeras sometimes broke sadly upon my mind. Even if every dream had
suddenly been transformed into reality, it would not have been enough;
I should have dreamed, imagined, yearned still." Alas, this deep
insatiableness of sense, the dreary vacuity of soul that follows fulness
of animal delight, the restless exactingness of undirected imagination,
was never recognised by Rousseau distinctly enough to modify either his
conduct or his theory of life. He filled up the void for a short space
by that sovereign aspiration, which changed the dead bones of old
theology into the living figure of a new faith. "From the surface of the
earth I raised my ideas to all the existences in nature, to the
universal system of things, to the incomprehensible Being who embraces
all. Then with mind lost in that immensity, I did not think, I did not
reason, I did not philosophise; with a sort of pleasure I felt
overwhelmed by the weight of the universe, I surrendered myself to the
ravishing confusion of these vast ideas. I loved to lose myself in
imagination in immeasurable space; within the limits of real existences
my heart was too tightly compressed; in the universe I was stifled; I
would fain have launched myself into the infinite. I believe that if I
had unveiled all the mysteries of nature, I should have found myself in
a less delicious situation than that bewildering ecstasy to which my
mind so unreservedly delivered itself, and which sometimes transported
me until I cried out, 'O mighty Being! O mighty Being!' without power of
any other word or thought."[257]

It is not wholly insignificant that though he could thus expand his
soul with ejaculatory delight in something supreme, he could not endure
the sight of one of his fellow-creatures. "If my gaiety lasted the whole
night, that showed that I had passed the day alone; I was very different
after I had seen people, for I was rarely content with others and never
with myself. Then in the evening I was sure to be in taciturn or
scolding humour." It is not in every condition that effervescent passion
for ideal forms of the religious imagination assists sympathy with the
real beings who surround us. And to this let us add that there are
natures in which all deep emotion is so entirely associated with the
ideal, that real and particular manifestations of it are repugnant to
them as something alien; and this wi