



Produced by David Widger





THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
(In 12 books)

Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society

London, 1903



BOOK I.


CONTENTS:
     Introduction--S.W. Orson
     Book I.



INTRODUCTION.

Among the notable books of later times-we may say, without exaggeration,
of all time--must be reckoned The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
It deals with leading personages and transactions of a momentous epoch,
when absolutism and feudalism were rallying for their last struggle
against the modern spirit, chiefly represented by Voltaire, the
Encyclopedists, and Rousseau himself--a struggle to which, after many
fierce intestine quarrels and sanguinary wars throughout Europe and
America, has succeeded the prevalence of those more tolerant and rational
principles by which the statesmen of our own day are actuated.

On these matters, however, it is not our province to enlarge; nor is it
necessary to furnish any detailed account of our author's political,
religious, and philosophic axioms and systems, his paradoxes and his
errors in logic: these have been so long and so exhaustively disputed
over by contending factions that little is left for even the most
assiduous gleaner in the field.  The inquirer will find, in Mr. John
Money's excellent work, the opinions of Rousseau reviewed succinctly and
impartially.  The 'Contrat Social', the 'Lattres Ecrites de la Montagne',
and other treatises that once aroused fierce controversy, may therefore
be left in the repose to which they have long been consigned, so far as
the mass of mankind is concerned, though they must always form part of
the library of the politician and the historian.  One prefers to turn to
the man Rousseau as he paints himself in the remarkable work before us.

That the task which he undertook in offering to show himself--as Persius
puts it--'Intus et in cute', to posterity, exceeded his powers, is a
trite criticism; like all human enterprises, his purpose was only
imperfectly fulfilled; but this circumstance in no way lessens the
attractive qualities of his book, not only for the student of history or
psychology, but for the intelligent man of the world.  Its startling
frankness gives it a peculiar interest wanting in most other
autobiographies.

Many censors have elected to sit in judgment on the failings of this
strangely constituted being, and some have pronounced upon him very
severe sentences.  Let it be said once for all that his faults and
mistakes were generally due to causes over which he had but little
control, such as a defective education, a too acute sensitiveness, which
engendered suspicion of his fellows, irresolution, an overstrained sense
of honour and independence, and an obstinate refusal to take advice from
those who really wished to befriend him; nor should it be forgotten that
he was afflicted during the greater part of his life with an incurable
disease.

Lord Byron had a soul near akin to Rousseau's, whose writings naturally
made a deep impression on the poet's mind, and probably had an influence
on his conduct and modes of thought: In some stanzas of 'Childe Harold'
this sympathy is expressed with truth and power; especially is the
weakness of the Swiss philosopher's character summed up in the following
admirable lines:

         "Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,
          The apostle of affliction, he who threw
          Enchantment over passion, and from woe
          Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew
          The breath which made him wretched; yet he knew
          How to make madness beautiful, and cast
          O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue
          Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they passed
          The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.

         "His life was one long war with self-sought foes,
          Or friends by him self-banished; for his mind
          Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose,
          For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind,
          'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind.
          But he was frenzied,-wherefore, who may know?
          Since cause might be which skill could never find;
          But he was frenzied by disease or woe
          To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show."

One would rather, however, dwell on the brighter hues of the picture than
on its shadows and blemishes; let us not, then, seek to "draw his
frailties from their dread abode."  His greatest fault was his
renunciation of a father's duty to his offspring; but this crime he
expiated by a long and bitter repentance.  We cannot, perhaps, very
readily excuse the way in which he has occasionally treated the memory of
his mistress and benefactress.  That he loved Madame de Warens--his
'Mamma'--deeply and sincerely is undeniable, notwithstanding which he now
and then dwells on her improvidence and her feminine indiscretions with
an unnecessary and unbecoming lack of delicacy that has an unpleasant
effect on the reader, almost seeming to justify the remark of one of his
most lenient critics--that, after all, Rousseau had the soul of a lackey.
He possessed, however, many amiable and charming qualities, both as a man
and a writer, which were evident to those amidst whom he lived, and will
be equally so to the unprejudiced reader of the Confessions.  He had a
profound sense of justice and a real desire for the improvement and
advancement of the race.  Owing to these excellences he was beloved to
the last even by persons whom he tried to repel, looking upon them as
members of a band of conspirators, bent upon destroying his domestic
peace and depriving him of the means of subsistence.

Those of his writings that are most nearly allied in tone and spirit to
the 'Confessions' are the 'Reveries d'un Promeneur Solitaire' and
'La Nouvelle Heloise'.  His correspondence throws much light on his life
and character, as do also parts of 'Emile'.  It is not easy in our day to
realize the effect wrought upon the public mind by the advent of
'La Nouvelle Heloise'.  Julie and Saint-Preux became names to conjure
with; their ill-starred amours were everywhere sighed and wept over by
the tender-hearted fair; indeed, in composing this work, Rousseau may be
said to have done for Switzerland what the author of the Waverly Novels
did for Scotland, turning its mountains, lakes and islands, formerly
regarded with aversion, into a fairyland peopled with creatures whose
joys and sorrows appealed irresistibly to every breast.  Shortly after
its publication began to flow that stream of tourists and travellers
which tends to make Switzerland not only more celebrated but more opulent
every year.  It, is one of the few romances written in the epistolary
form that do not oppress the reader with a sense of languor and
unreality; for its creator poured into its pages a tide of passion
unknown to his frigid and stilted predecessors, and dared to depict
Nature as she really is, not as she was misrepresented by the modish
authors and artists of the age.  Some persons seem shy of owning an
acquaintance with this work; indeed, it has been made the butt of
ridicule by the disciples of a decadent school.  Its faults and its
beauties are on the surface; Rousseau's own estimate is freely expressed
at the beginning of the eleventh book of the Confessions and elsewhere.
It might be wished that the preface had been differently conceived and
worded; for the assertion made therein that the book may prove dangerous
has caused it to be inscribed on a sort of Index, and good folk who never
read a line of it blush at its name.  Its "sensibility," too, is a little
overdone, and has supplied the wits with opportunities for satire; for
example, Canning, in his 'New Morality':

              "Sweet Sensibility, who dwells enshrined
               In the fine foldins of the feeling mind....
               Sweet child of sickly Fancy!-her of yore
               From her loved France Rousseau to exile bore;
               And while'midst lakes and mountains wild he ran,
               Full of himself, and shunned the haunts of man,
               Taught her o'er each lone vale and Alpine, steep
               To lisp the story of his wrongs and weep."

As might be imagined, Voltaire had slight sympathy with our social
reformer's notions and ways of promulgating them, and accordingly took
up his wonted weapons--sarcasm and ridicule--against poor Jean-Jacques.
The quarrels of these two great men cannot be described in this place;
but they constitute an important chapter in the literary and social
history of the time.  In the work with which we are immediately
concerned, the author seems to