t happiness such as people find
in the pleasures of life, but with a happiness full,
perfect, and sufficing, that leaves in the soul no conscious
unfilled void. Such a state was many a day mine in my
solitary musings in the isle of St. Peter, either lying in
my boat as it floated on the water, or seated on the banks
of the broad lake, or in other places than the little isle
on the brink of some broad stream, or a rivulet murmuring
over a gravel bed.

What is it that one enjoys in a situation like this? Nothing
outside of one's self, nothing except one's self and one's
own existence.... But most men, tossed as they are by
unceasing passion, have little knowledge of such a state;
they taste it imperfectly for a few moments, and then retain
no more than an obscure confused idea of it, that is too
weak to let them feel its charm. It would not even be good
in the present constitution of things, that in their
eagerness for these gentle ecstasies, they should fall into
a disgust for the active life in which their duty is
prescribed to them by needs that are ever on the increase.
But a wretch cut off from human society, who can do nothing
here below that is useful and good either for himself or for
other people, may in such a state find for all lost human
felicities many recompenses, of which neither fortune nor
men can ever rob him.

'Tis true that these recompenses cannot be felt by all
souls, nor in all situations. The heart must be in peace,
nor any passion come to trouble its calm. There must be in
the surrounding objects neither absolute repose nor excess
of agitation, but a uniform and moderated movement without
shock, without interval. With no movement, life is only
lethargy. If the movement be unequal or too strong, it
awakes us; by recalling us to the objects around, it
destroys the charm of our musing, and plucks us from within
ourselves, instantly to throw us back under the yoke of
fortune and man, in a moment to restore us to all the
consciousness of misery. Absolute stillness inclines one to
gloom. It offers an image of death: then the help of a
cheerful imagination is necessary, and presents itself
naturally enough to those whom heaven has endowed with such
a gift. The movement which does not come from without t