Spring, 1848.

Hermann’s beautiful sister, she who turned my head so many years ago, is coming here to seek refuge from the troubles in town, where they are building barricades.  I must see that everything is made pleasant and comfortable for her.

June, 1848.

To-day she gave a dinner party, and invited the parson and the innkeeper.  And I was sent a piece of meat and a glass of wine.  I gave it to a beggar.  So two beggars have received alms to-day.  I hear they spoke of me during dinner.  She said I received charity from her father when I was a poor student; then I ran away from school and returned as a vagabond.  So you know it now, Andreas Erdmann!

Christmas Eve, 1864.

I have not left the forest for fifty years.  If I could only see the sea.  They say on a clear day you can see it from the “Grey Tooth.”  To-morrow——­

Here the diary broke off abruptly.  The next day being bright and sunny, I engaged a lad to guide me on the deferred ascent.  It was glorious.  And whilst my eyes were searching the far distance, my companion gave a sudden scream, and pointed—­at a human head protruding from the snow.  He recognised the schoolmaster.  We dug him out of the hard snow and found in his pocket a paper on which a shaky hand had written in pencil:  “Christmas Day.  At sunset I beheld the sea and lost my eyesight”

* * * * *

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

The New Heloise

Jean Jacques Rousseau, born at Geneva on June 28, 1712, tells the story of his own life in the “Confessions” (see LIVES AND LETTERS, Vol.  X).  All his dreams of felicity having been shattered, he took up his abode in Paris, where he made a poor living by copying music.  Hither, again, he returned after a short stay in Venice, where he acted as secretary in the Embassy.  He now secured work on the great Encyclopaedia, and became known, in 1749, by an essay on the arts and sciences, in which he attacked all culture as an evidence and cause of social degeneration.  A successful opera followed in 1753; and to the same year belongs his “Essay on Inequality among Men” ("Discours sur l’inegalite parmi les Hommes"), in which he came forward as the apostle of the state of nature, and of anarchy.  His revolutionary ideas were viewed with great displeasure by the authorities, and he fled in 1764 to Switzerland; and in 1766, under the auspices of David Hume, to England.  Rousseau wrote “The New Heloise” ("La Nouvelle Heloise”) in 1756-7, while residing at the Hermitage at Montmorency—­an abode where, in spite of certain quarrels and emotional episodes, he passed some of the most placid days of his life.  This book, the title of which was founded on the historic love of Abelard and Heloise (see Vol.  IX), was published in 1760.  Rousseau’s primary intention was to reveal the effect of passion upon persons of simple but lofty