ed in him, even when the lackey had written Emilius. This
was too much for the imaginary Claire. "I have given myself three good
blows on my breast for the correspondence that I was silly enough to
open between you," she wrote to Julie, and she remained implacable.
The Julie, on the contrary, was faithful to the end of Rousseau's
life. She took his part vehemently in the quarrel with Hume, and wrote
in defence of his memory after he was dead. She is the most remarkable
of all the instances of that unreasoning passion which the New Heloisa
inflamed in the breasts of the women of that age. Madame Latour
pursued Jean Jacques with a devotion that no coldness could repulse.
She only saw him three times in all, the first time not until 1766,
when he was on his way through Paris to England. The second time, in
1772, she visited him without mentioning her name, and he did not
recognise her; she brought him some music to copy, and went away
unknown. She made another attempt, announcing herself: he gave her a
frosty welcome, and then wrote to her that she was to come no more.
With a strange fidelity she bore him no grudge, but cherished his
memory and sorrowed over his misfortunes to the day of her death. He
was not an idol of very sublime quality, but we may think kindly of
the idolatress.[38] Worshippers are ever dearer to us than their
graven images. Let us turn to the romance which touched women in this
way, and helped to give a new spirit to an epoch.

II.

As has been already said, it is the business of criticism to separate
what is accidental in form, transitory in manner, and merely local in
suggestion, from the general ideas which live under a casual and
particular literary robe. And so we have to distinguish the external
conditions under which a book like the New Heloisa is produced, from
the living qualities in the author which gave the external conditions
their hold upon him, and turned their development in one direction
rather than another. We are only encouraging poverty of spirit, when
we insist on fixing our eyes on a few of the minutiae of construction,
instead of patiently seizing larger impressions and more durable
meanings; when we stop at the fortuitous incidents of composition,
instead of advancing to the central elements of the writer's
character.

These incidents in the case of the New Heloisa we know; the sensuous
communion with nature in her summer mood in the woods of Montmorency,
the long hours a