But do not be in a hurry to judge young people by this standard,
more especially those who have been educated rightly, who have no
idea of the moral sufferings they have never had to endure; for
once again they can only pity the ills they know, and this apparent
insensibility is soon transformed into pity when they begin to feel
that there are in human life a thousand ills of which they know
nothing. As for Emile, if in childhood he was distinguished by
simplicity and good sense, in his youth he will show a warm and
tender heart; for the reality of the feelings depends to a great
extent on the accuracy of the ideas.
But why call him hither? More than one reader will reproach me
no doubt for departing from my first intention and forgetting the
lasting happiness I promised my pupil. The sorrowful, the dying,
such sights of pain and woe, what happiness, what delight is this
for a young heart on the threshold of life? His gloomy tutor, who
proposed to give him such a pleasant education, only introduces him
to life that he may suffer. This is what they will say, but what
care I? I promised to make him happy, not to make him seem happy.
Am I to blame if, deceived as usual by the outward appearances,
you take them for the reality?
Let us take two young men at the close of their early education,
and let them enter the world by opposite doors. The one mounts at
once to Olympus, and moves in the smartest society; he is taken
to court, he is presented in the houses of the great, of the rich,
of the pretty women. I assume that he is everywhere made much of,
and I do not regard too closely the effect of this reception on his
reason; I assume it can stand it. Pleasures fly before him, every
day provides him with fresh amusements; he flings himself into
everything with an eagerness which carries you away. You find him
busy, eager, and curious; his first wonder makes a great impression
on you; you think him happy; but behold the state of his heart;
you think he is rejoicing, I think he suffers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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