gs in quite a new
light: the inner consciousness which was determined to give feeling
its rights again, though well aware that 'a feeling heart is an
unhappy gift from heaven'; the taste for solitude, 'all noble
passions are formed in solitude'; and closely bound up with these,
the love of romantic scenery, which it described for the first time
in glowing language.

Such expressions as these of St Preux were unheard of at that time:
'I shall do my best to be free quickly, and able to wander at my ease
in the wild places that to my mind make the charm of this country.'
'I am of opinion that this unfrequented country deserves the
attention of speculative curiosity, and that it wants nothing to
excite admiration but a skilful spectator'; and 'Nature seems
desirous of hiding her real charms from the sight of men, because
they are too little sensible of them, and disfigure them when within
their reach; she flies from public places; it is on the tops of
mountains, in the midst of forests, on desert islands, that she
displays her most affecting charms.'

Rousseau certainly announced his views with all the fervour of a
prophet proclaiming a newly-discovered truth. The sketch St Preux
gives of the country that 'deserved a year's study,' in the
twenty-third letter to Julia, is very poetic. He is ascending a rocky
path when a new view breaks upon him:

One moment I beheld stupendous rocks hanging ruinous over my
head; the next, I was enveloped in a drizzling cloud, which arose
from a vast cascade that, dashing, thundered against the rocks
below my feet. On one side a perpetual torrent opened to my view
a yawning abyss, which my eyes could hardly fathom with safety;
sometimes I was lost in the obscurity of a hanging wood, and then
was greatly astonished with the sudden opening of a flowery
plain.

He was always charmed by 'a surprising mixture of wild and cultivated
Nature':

Here Nature seems to have a singular pleasure in acting
contradictory to herself, so different does she appear in the
same place in different aspects. Towards the east, the flowers of
spring; to the south, the flowers of autumn; and northwards, the
ice of winter. Add to that the illusions of vision, the tops of
the mountains variously illumined, the harmonious mixture of
light and shade....

After climbing, he reflects:

Upon the top of mountains, the air being subtle and pure, we