g was a flash of delight at finding himself
again among men; but this gave way to the more lasting and painful
one, that even among the Alps there was no escape from his
tormentors.

Years later, when he knew that he would never revisit the spot, the
leaves in his herbarium would carry him back to it in memory.

So strong a personal attachment to Nature, solitude, and retirement
had not been known before; but it was thrown into this high relief by
the morbid dread of man and hatred of culture, which formed a
constant dark background to his mind. It was a state of mind which
naturally led to intense dislike of formal French gardens and open
admiration of the English park. He rejected all the garnish of
garden-craft, even grafted roses and fruit trees, and only admitted
indigenous plants which grew outdoors.[13] It is greatly due to his
feeling for English Park style that a healthier garden-craft gained
ground in Germany as well as France. The foremost maxim of his
philosophy and teaching, that everything is good as it comes from the
bosom of mother Nature, or rather from the hand of God, and that man
and his culture are responsible for all the evil, worked out in his
attitude towards Nature.

He placed her upon a pedestal, worshipping her, and the Creator
through her, and this made him the first to recognize the fact that
study of Nature, especially of botany, should be an important factor
in the education of children.

His _Confessions_, the truest photographs of a human character in
existence, shew at once the keenest introspection and intense love
for Nature. No one before Rousseau had been so aware of his own
individuality--that is, of himself, as a being--who in this
particular state only exists once, and has therefore not only
relative but absolute value. He gave this peculiarity its full value,
studying it as a thing outside himself, of which every detail was
important, watching with great interest his own change of moods, the
fluctuations of that double self which now lifted him to the ideal,
now cast him down to the lowest and commonest. His relation to Nature
was the best thing about him, and when he was happy, as he was for
the first time in the society of Mademoiselle de Warens, Nature
seemed lovelier than ever.

The scattered passages about Nature in the _Confessions_ have a
youthful freshness:

'The appearance of Aurora seemed so delightful one morning, that,
putting on my clothes, I hastened into