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caused my eyes to flash, and gave expression to myvoice.. One day, as I was relating at table the historyof Sc :8evola, the listeners were frightened to see me ad-vance' and hold my hand above a brazier to representhis ac-tion.”
Thiese happy days, which, had they continued, mighthave blotted many pages of error and suffering fromRousseau ’s life, ended too soon. The darling of all,he lived in an atmosphere of love. He had one elderbrother,who, treated with negligence, ran away, and tookrefuge in Germany . Not long after, his father had a quar-rel wi th a French officer ; and rather than submit to theshort, hut, as it appeared to him, unjust, imprisonmentwith which he was menaced in consequence, expatriatedhimself, leaving his little son with his sister, who hadmarried his wife’s brother ; and the family was thusdoubly related. Jean Jaques was now sent, togetherwith a young cousin, to board at Bossey, with a mi-nister named Lambercier. His life here was morepleasurable than generally falls to the lot of child-hood - — the boys had their hours of tuition, and theirhours of play — they quarrelled and made it up —they had their childish schemes, their holidays,— theywere happy. Rousseau , in his “ Confessions,” well de-scribes how these days of innocence and childish enjoy-ment were disturbed by an unjust punishment. Theinjustice sunk deep into the children’s minds,— it de-spoiled their country home of all its charm; and thiscircumstance deserves mention, as it will always befound that the more children are treated with kindnessand familiarity, the more necessary it is to guard againstthe slightest show of injustice. At a great school, ac-cusation and punishment are often the effect of accident,and the boys lay less store by them ; they are notpregnant with disgrace or shame,—many others, likethemselves, are subject to the like, and it appears simplyas one of the common hardships of life. But in domesticeducation they feel themselves to be a portion of the whole;and if that whole be harmonious, a discord, an act of
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