“What is your favorite book?” said Mr. Emerson to Miss Evans, somewhat abruptly. “Rousseau’s _Confessions_,” said the young woman instantly. “And so it is mine,” answered Mr. Emerson. All of which is related by Moncure D. Conway in a volume entitled _Emerson at Home and Abroad_. A copy of Conway’s book was sent to Walt Whitman, and when he read the passage to which I have just referred he remarked, “And so it is mine.” Emerson and Whitman are probably the two strongest names in American letters, and George Eliot stands first among women writers of all time; and as they in common with many Lesser Wits stand side by side and salute Jean Jacques Rousseau, it may be worth our while to take just a glance at M. Rousseau’s book in order, if we can, to know why it appeals to people of worth. The first thing about the volume that attracts is the title. There is something charmingly alluring and sweetly seductive in a confession. Mr. Henry James has said: “The sweetest experience that can come to a man on his pilgrimage through this vale of tears is to have a lovely woman ‘confess’ to him; and it is said that while neither argument, threat, plea of justification, nor gold can fully placate a woman who believes she has been wronged by a man, yet she speedily produces, not only a branch, but a whole olive tree when he comes humbly home and confesses.” Now here is a man about to ’fess to the world, and we take up the volume, glance around to see if any one is looking, and begin at the first paragraph to read: “I purpose an undertaking that never had an example and the execution of which will never have an imitation. I would exhibit myself to all men as I am—a man.... “Let the last trumpet sound when it will, I will come, with this book in my hand, and present myself before the Sovereign Judge. I will boldly proclaim: Thus have I acted, thus have I thought, such was I. With equal frankness have I disclosed the good and the evil. I have omitted nothing bad, added nothing good. I have exhibited myself, despisable and vile when so; virtuous, generous, sublime when so. I have unveiled my interior being as Thou, Eternal One, hast seen it.” Now where is the man or woman who could stop there, even though the cows were in the corn? And as we read further we find things that are “unfit for publication” and confessions of sensations that are so universal to healthy men that they are irrelevant, and straightway we arise and lock the door so as to finish the chapter undisturbed. For as superfluous things are the things we cannot do without, so is the irrelevant in literature the necessary. Having finished this chapter, oblivious to calls that dinner is waiting, we begin the next; and finding items so interesting that they are disgusting, and others so indecent that they are entertaining, we forget the dinner that is getting cold and read on.