much attached to this eminence. When I brought Theresa, with the
wife of the receiver and her sisters, to walk there, how proud was I to
be their pilot and guide! We took there rabbits to stock it. This was
another source of pleasure to Jean Jacques. These animals rendered the
island still more interesting to me. I afterwards went to it more
frequently, and with greater pleasure to observe the progress of the new
inhabitants.

To these amusements I added one which recalled to my recollection the
delightful life I led at the Charmettes, and to which the season
particularly invited me. This was assisting in the rustic labors of
gathering of roots and fruits, of which Theresa and I made it a pleasure
to partake with the wife of the receiver and his family. I remember a
Bernois, one M. Kirkeberguer, coming to see me, found me perched upon a
tree with a sack fastened to my waist, and already so full of apples that
I could not stir from the branch on which I stood. I was not sorry to be
caught in this and similar situations. I hoped the people of Berne,
witnesses to the employment of my leisure, would no longer think of
disturbing my tranquillity but leave me at peace in my solitude. I
should have preferred being confined there by their desire: this would
have rendered the continuation of my repose more certain.

This is another declaration upon which I am previously certain of the
incredulity of many of my readers, who obstinately continue to judge me
by themselves, although they cannot but have seen, in the course of my
life, a thousand internal affections which bore no resemblance to any of
theirs. But what is still more extraordinary is, that they refuse me
every sentiment, good or indifferent, which they have not, and are
constantly ready to attribute to me such bad ones as cannot enter into
the heart of man: in this case they find it easy to set me in opposition
to nature, and to make of me such a monster as cannot in reality exist.
Nothing absurd appears to them incredible, the moment it has a tendency
to blacken me, and nothing in the least extraordinary seems to them
possible, if it tends to do me honor.

But, notwithstanding what they may think or say, I will still continue
faithfully to state what J. J. Rousseau was, did, and thought; without
explaining, or justifying, the singularity of his sentiments and ideas,
or endeavoring to discover whether or not others have thought as he did.
I became so delig