ROUSSEAU. 139

then offered Rousseau the dwelling with all the grace awoman puts into an obligation she confers ; she was■ desirous, at the same time, of adding to his income ; buthe at once refused the latter proposition, while he ac-cepted the first. He could not help being deeply. touched by so kind and tender a mark of affection.

S The active attention she paid to the details of his re-'moval, when all was arranged, taking him and his twoI gouvernantes in her carriage, and herself giving them'( possession, were marks of real attachment and sym-pathy.

Rousseau found the spot exactly calculated to please 2 756.Ihim : however much the society of Paris might he neces- iEtatsary at times to entertain, he had been bred in the coun_

“try ; his young and happy days had been passed there,and he could not view a secluded abode in the midst offorest glades, and the advance of spring, as it clothedthe landscape with verdure, without a burst of trans-port. The house was small, but neat and comfortable ■and that all was the gift of friendship rendered it in-estimable in his eyes.

It is difficult not to dwell, as he has done, on the delighthe experienced during the commencement of his abode atthe Hermitage. At first he could only enjoy the woodlandwalks ; the budding of the trees ; the balmy winds ofopening spring; the aspect of nature. He deliberated asto his occupations ; he arranged his papers. He stillconsidered copying music as the calling by which hewas to gain his bread ; but he revolved many literaryprojects. The editing the manuscripts of the Abbe deSaint Pierre ; an original work he named “ Les Insti-tutions Politiquesa metaphysical discussion on theeffects of external circumstances on the human mind;and, to crown all, a system of education, on which he hadbeen requested to occupy himself, by a lady to ■whose| sons he had atone time acted as tutor ; — such were his{scheme? — the subject of his meditations during his! walks. These meditations were, however, soon mergedinto reveries and day-dreams, that absorbed his heart