But to proceed in my narrative. Mr Rousseau came to Paris, provided with a passport which his friends had obtained for him. I conducted him to England. For upwards of two months after our arrival, I employed myself and my friends in looking out for some agreeable situation for him. We gave way to all his caprices; excused all his singularities; indulged him in all his humours; in short, neither time nor trouble was spared to procure him what he desired;[2] and, notwithstanding he rejected several of the projects which I had laid out for him, yet I thought myself sufficiently recompensed for my trouble by the gratitude and even affection with which he appeared to repay my solicitude. At length his present settlement was proposed and approved. Mr Davenport, a gentleman of family, fortune and worth, offered him his house at Wooton, in the county of Derby, where he himself seldom resides, and at which Mr Rousseau and his housekeeper are boarded at a very moderate expense. When Mr Rousseau arrived at Wooton, he wrote me the following letter. [2] It is probably to this excessive and ill-judged complaisance Mr Hume may in a great degree impute the disagreeable consequences that have followed. There is no end in indulging caprice, nor any prudence in doing it, when it is known to be such. It may be thought humane to indulge the weak of body or mind, the decrepitude of age, and imbecility of childhood; but even here it too often proves cruelty to the very parties indulged. How much more inexcusable, therefore, is it to cherish the absurdities of whim and singularity in men of genius and abilities! How is it possible to make a man easy or happy in a world, to whose customs and maxims he is determined to run retrograde? No. Capricious men, like forward children, should be left to kick against the pricks, and vent their spleen unnoticed. To humour, is only to spoil them.--_English Translator_. MR ROUSSEAU TO MR HUME. _Wooton_, _March_ 22, 1766.