osophers were. Nay, one would say, of an earnestness too
great for his otherwise sensitive, rather feeble nature; and which
indeed in the end drove him into the strangest incoherences, almost
delirations. There had come, at last, to be a kind of madness in him:
his Ideas _possessed_ him like demons; hurried him so about, drove him
over steep places--!

The fault and misery of Rousseau was what we easily name by a single
word, _Egoism_; which is indeed the source and summary of all faults and
miseries whatsoever. He had not perfected himself into victory over mere
Desire; a mean Hunger, in many sorts, was still the motive principle of
him. I am afraid he was a very vain man; hungry for the praises of men.
You remember Genlis's experience of him. She took Jean Jacques to the
Theatre; he bargaining for a strict incognito,--"He would not be seen
there for the world!" The curtain did happen nevertheless to be drawn
aside: the Pit recognized Jean Jacques, but took no great notice of him!
He expressed the bitterest indignation; gloomed all evening, spake no
other than surly words. The glib Countess remained entirely convinced
that his anger was not at being seen, but at not being applauded
when seen. How the whole nature of the man is poisoned; nothing but
suspicion, self-isolation, fierce moody ways! He could not live with
anybody. A man of some rank from the country, who visited him often, and
used to sit with him, expressing all reverence and affection for him,
comes one day; finds Jean Jacques full of the sourest unintelligible
humor. "Monsieur," said Jean Jacques, with flaming eyes, "I know why you
come here. You come to see what a poor life I lead; how little is in my
poor pot that is boiling there. Well, look into the pot! There is half a
pound of meat, one carrot and three onions; that is all: go and tell the
whole world that, if you like, Monsieur!"--A man of this sort was far
gone. The whole world got itself supplied with anecdotes, for light
laughter, for a certain theatrical interest, from these perversions and
contortions of poor Jean Jacques. Alas, to him they were not laughing or
theatrical; too real to him! The contortions of a dying gladiator: the
crowded amphitheatre looks on with entertainment; but the gladiator is
in agonies and dying.

And yet this Rousseau, as we say, with his passionate appeals to
Mothers, with his _contrat-social_, with his celebrations of Nature,
even of savage life in Nature, did onc