unusual buoyancy of spirits to endure the thought that the world is a scene of misery; and the belief in its happiness is sometimes the attempt of the miserable man to reconcile himself to his lot. Anyhow, Rousseau had learnt this dangerous lesson. He suffered from a morbid appetite for happiness; his intense longing for enjoyment stimulated an effeminate shrinking from the possibility of the crumpled rose-leaf. He identified himself with the man who left his mistress in order to write letters to her. The absent—in this sense—have no blemishes. And this is true of the past as of the distant. Foresight, he says, always spoilt his enjoyment; the future is pure loss to him; for to look forward is always to anticipate possibilities of evil. He lives entirely, as he says elsewhere, in the present; but in a present which includes the enjoyment of the past pleasures. 'Not heaven itself upon the past has power,' and we can nowhere be absolutely safe except in brooding over the moments of happiness which have survived by reason of their pleasantness. This is part of the charm of the 'Confessions.' Finding no pure enjoyment in the present, he says, he returned by fits to the serene days of his youth. He chewed the cud of past delight, and lived again his life at the Charmettes. Hence sprang the 'Nouvelle Héloïse,' placed amongst the scenery of his early youth and constantly reviving real experiences. He apologises for giving us the details of his youth; but the apology is clearly needless. He gives what he delights in. His youthful memories grow brighter as the latter become effaced; the least facts of that time please him, because they are of that time. He remembers the place, the people, the time; the servant moving in the room, the swallow entering the window, the fly settling on his hand whilst he writes his lesson; he trembles with pleasure as he recalls the minutest details—and we feel the reflection of his delight. Indeed, this is one secret of most autobiography. There is something touching in those introductory fragments which are so common in autobiographies. The old man, we see, has been enticed to write a book by the charm of the first chapter. He tells us with eager interest the story of his early days; he remembers the village school and his initiation into the alphabet, or calls up the sacred vision of the mother whose figure still stands out amidst the mists of memory; but as he reaches the point where the light of common day blends with the romantic colouring of childhood, his hand fails, and he sums up the remainder of his history, if he has the courage to continue, in a few barren facts and dates. The phenomenon recurs again and again and leaves us to infer, according to our tastes, that infancy is the time of real happiness, or that the appearance of happiness always belongs to the distant. Rousseau tries to explain it in his own case. He long remained a child, he says; objects always made less impression upon