rests. All forms and colours and sounds
and scents impressed themselves on his brain, and were transferred
to his collection of notes. When, on returning to Paris, he published
(1773) his _Voyage a l'Ile de France_, the literature of picturesque
description may be said to have been founded. Already in this volume
his feeling for nature is inspired by an emotional theism, and is
burdened by his sentimental science, which would exhibit a fantastic
array of evidences of the designs for human welfare of an amiable
and ingenious Author of nature. Before the book appeared, Bernardin
had made the acquaintance of Rousseau, then living in retirement,
tormented by his diseased suspicions and cloudy indignations. To his
new disciple Rousseau was in general gracious, and they rambled
together, botanising in the environs of Paris.

For a time Bernardin himself was in a condition bordering upon
insanity; but the crisis passed, and he employed himself on the
_Etudes de la Nature_, which appeared in three volumes in 1784. The
tale of _Paul et Virginie_ was not included; for when the author had
read it aloud, though ladies wept, the sterner auditors had been
contemptuous; Thomas slumbered, and Buffon called for his carriage.
The _Etudes_ accumulate the grotesque notions of Bernardin with
reference to final causes in nature: nature is benevolent and
harmonious; society is corrupt and harsh; scientific truth is to be
discovered by sentiment, and not by reason; the whole universe is
planned for the happiness of man; the melon is large because it was
designed for the family; the pumpkin is larger, because Providence
intended that it should be shared with our neighbours. Providence,
indeed, in a sceptical and mocking generation, suffered cruelly at
the hands of its advocate. Yet Bernardin conveyed into his book a
feeling of the rich and obscure life and energy of nature; his
descriptive power is admirable. "He desired," says M. Barine, "to
open the door for Providence to enter; in fact he opened the door
for the great Pan," and in this he was a precursor of much that followed
in literature.

Bernardin's fame was now established. In the sentimental reaction
against the dryness of sceptical philosophy, in the return to a
feeling for the poetical aspect of things, he was looked upon as a
leader. In the fourth volume of _Etudes_ (1788) he had courage to
print the tale of _Paul et Virginie_. It is an idyll of the tropics,
written with the mora