, in
places much resembling that in which I then was. The remembrance of
these circumstances, which the innocence that accompanied them rendered
to me still more dear, brought several others of the nature to my
recollection. I presently saw myself surrounded by all the objects
which, in my youth, had given me emotion. Mademoiselle Galley,
Mademoiselle de Graffenried, Mademoiselle de Breil, Madam Basile, Madam
de Larnage, my pretty scholars, and even the bewitching Zulietta, whom my
heart could not forget. I found myself in the midst of a seraglio of
houris of my old acquaintance, for whom the most lively inclination was
not new to me. My blood became inflamed, my head turned, notwithstanding
my hair was almost gray, and the grave citizen of Geneva, the austere
Jean Jacques, at forty-five years of age, again became the fond shepherd.
The intoxication, with which my mind was seized, although sudden and
extravagant, was so strong and lasting, that, to enable me to recover
from it, nothing less than the unforeseen and terrible crisis it brought
on was necessary.

This intoxication, to whatever degree it was carried, went not so far as
to make me forget my age and situation, to flatter me that I could still
inspire love, nor to make me attempt to communicate the devouring flame
by which ever since my youth I had felt my heart in vain consumed. For
this I did not hope; I did not even desire it. I knew the season of love
was past; I knew too well in what contempt the ridiculous pretensions of
superannuated gallants were held, ever to add one to the number, and I
was not a man to become an impudent coxcomb in the decline of life, after
having been so little such during the flower of my age. Besides, as a
friend to peace, I should have been apprehensive of domestic dissensions;
and I too sincerely loved Theresa to expose her to the mortification of
seeing me entertain for others more lively sentiments than those with
which she inspired me for herself.

What step did I take upon this occasion? My reader will already have
guessed it, if he has taken the trouble to pay the least attention to my
narrative. The impossibility of attaining real beings threw me into the
regions of chimera, and seeing nothing in existence worthy of my
delirium, I sought food for it in the ideal world, which my imagination
quickly peopled with beings after my own heart. This resource never came
more apropos, nor was it ever so fertile. In my