es of former gayeties,
that I repaired; on the contrary, I hired a house by one of the most
sequestered of the Swiss lakes, and, avoiding the living, I surrendered
myself without interruption or control to commune with the dead. I
surrounded myself with books and pored with a curious and searching eye
into those works which treat particularly upon "man." My passions were
over, my love of pleasure and society was dried up, and I had now
no longer the obstacles which forbid us to be wise; I unlearned
the precepts my manhood had acquired, and in my old age I commenced
philosopher; Religion lent me her aid, and by her holy lamp my studies
were conned and my hermitage illumined.

There are certain characters which in the world are evil, and in
seclusion are good: Rousseau, whom I knew well, is one of them. These
persons are of a morbid sensitiveness, which is perpetually galled by
collision with others. In short, they are under the dominion of VANITY;
and that vanity, never satisfied and always restless in the various
competitions of society, produces "envy, hatred, malice, and
all uncharitableness!" but, in solitude, the good and benevolent
dispositions with which our self-love no longer interferes have room to
expand and ripen without being cramped by opposing interests: this will
account for many seeming discrepancies in character. There are also
some men in whom old age supplies the place of solitude, and Rousseau's
antagonist and mental antipodes, Voltaire, is of this order. The pert,
the malignant, the arrogant, the lampooning author in his youth and
manhood, has become in his old age the mild, the benevolent, and the
venerable philosopher. Nothing is more absurd than to receive the
characters of great men so implicitly upon the word of a biographer;
and nothing can be less surprising than our eternal disputes upon
individuals: for no man throughout life is the same being, and each
season of our existence contradicts the characteristics of the last.

And now in my solitude and my old age, a new spirit entered within me:
the game in which I had engaged so vehemently was over for me; and I
joined to my experience as a player my coolness as a spectator; I no
longer struggled with my species, and I began insensibly to love them.
I established schools and founded charities; and, in secret but active
services to mankind, I employed my exertions and lavished my desires.

From this amendment I date the peace of mind and elas