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much of the excess of labour and poor living to which theinferior classes in our manufacturing towns are subject.
Rousseau , timid of heart, hut with an imaginationthat warmed him to daring, was led into mischievousscrapes: the very ardour of his disposition occasionedhis faults : he was treated like a vulgar apprentice, andhe fell into the vices of such a position, without at thesame time blunting that eagerness and romance thatformed the essence of his character. In the midst ofdisgraceful scrapes, his love of reading returned. Hehad none of those fixed principles which would leadhim to give due time to the work required of him byhis master, and his leisure to his books ; a new volumein hand, every other occupation was sacrificed to it - —he was beaten and ill-treated for his negligence ; he be-came obstinate and taciturn, but never gave up hispoint. His books, and the day-dreams founded on them,which fabricated and painted a thousand romanticscenes, filled his heart in solitude ; real life was repletewith indignity and suffering; in reverie, he was enter-prising, noble, and free.
Sunday — the day of leisure and liberty — was spentin rambles and games with his comrades. It is the lawof Geneva to shut the gates early in the evening, andthey are not opened on any pretence for any one till thefollowing morning. The lad, once or twice too late, waspunished severely for his negligence. On the third oc-casion he resolved rather to run away than to encounterthe menaced chastisement. His last act was to send forhis cousin Bernard, to take leave of him : the boy didnot press him to stay—did not offer to mediate for him;he returned to his parents, while Rousseau turned hissteps from his native city—a vagrant and a beggar.
No such aspect of things presented itself to thewanderer himself; — he was in his own eyes a hero insearch of adver.tures ; — he dreamt of all of brilliant andfestive of which he had read in his romances, and whilehe slept under the roofs of peasants with whom he wasacquainted, anl who received him with cordial hospita-i 2