oncern myself too little with the offence, to feel much concern about
the offender. I only think of the hurt that I have received from him,
on account of the hurt that he may still do me; and if I were sure he
would do me no more, what he had already done would be forgotten
straightway." Though he does not carry the analysis any further, we
may easily perceive that the same explanation covers what he called
his natural ingratitude. Kindness was not much more vividly understood
by him than malice. It was only one form of the troublesome
interposition of an outer world in his life; he was fain to hurry back
from it to the real world of his dreams. If any man called practical
is tempted to despise this dreaming creature, as he fares in his
chaise from stage to stage, let him remember that one making that
journey through France less than thirty years later might have seen
the castles of the great flaring in the destruction of a most
righteous vengeance, the great themselves fleeing ignobly from the
land to which their selfishness, and heedlessness, and hatred of
improvement, and inhuman pride had been a curse, while the legion of
toilers with eyes blinded by the oppression of ages were groping with
passionate uncertain hand for that divine something which they thought
of as justice and right. And this was what Rousseau both partially
foresaw and helped to prepare,[98] while the common politicians, like
Choiseul or D'Aiguillon, played their poor game--the elemental forces
rising unseen into tempest around them.

He reached the territory of the canton of Berne, and alighted at the
house of an old friend at Yverdun,[99] where native air, the beauty of
the spot, and the charms of the season, immediately repaired all
weariness and fatigue.[100] Friends at Geneva wrote letters of sincere
feeling, joyful that he had not followed the precedent of Socrates too
closely by remaining in the power of a government eager to destroy
him.[101] A post or two later brought worse news. The Council at
Geneva ordered not only Emilius, but the Social Contract also, to be
publicly burnt, and issued a warrant of arrest against their author,
if he should set foot in the territory of the republic (June
19).[102] Rousseau could hardly believe it possible that the free
Government which he had held up to the reverence of Europe, could have
condemned him unheard, but he took occasion in a highly characteristic
manner to chide severely a friend at Geneva