ond, where he
helped me to wash my fingers and to staunch the blood with moss. He
entreated me with tears not to accuse him; I promised him that I would
not, and I kept my word so well that twenty years after no one knew the
origin of the scar. I was kept in bed for more than three weeks, and for
more than two months was unable to use my hand. But I persisted that a
large stone had fallen and crushed my fingers."[16]

The other story is of the same tenour, though there is a new touch of
sensibility in its concluding words. "I was playing at ball at Plain
Palais, with one of my comrades named Plince. We began to quarrel over
the game; we fought, and in the fight he dealt me on my bare head a
stroke so well directed, that with a stronger arm it would have dashed
my brains out. I fell to the ground, and there never was agitation like
that of this poor lad, as he saw the blood in my hair. He thought he had
killed me. He threw himself upon me, and clasped me eagerly in his arms,
while his tears poured down his cheeks, and he uttered shrill cries. I
returned his embrace with all my force, weeping like him, in a state of
confused emotion which was not without a kind of sweetness. Then he
tried to stop the blood which kept flowing, and seeing that our two
handkerchiefs were not enough, he dragged me off to his mother's; she
had a small garden hard by. The good woman nearly fell sick at sight of
me in this condition; she kept strength enough to dress my wound, and
after bathing it well, she applied flower-de-luce macerated in brandy,
an excellent remedy much used in our country. Her tears and those of her
son, went to my very heart, so that I looked upon them for a long while
as my mother and my brother."[17]

If it were enough that our early instincts should be thus amiable and
easy, then doubtless the dismal sloughs in which men and women lie
floundering would occupy a very much more insignificant space in the
field of human experience. The problem, as we know, lies in the
discipline of this primitive goodness. For character in a state of
society is not a tree that grows into uprightness by the law of its own
strength, though an adorable instance here and there of rectitude and
moral loveliness that seem intuitive may sometimes tempt us into a
moment's belief in a contrary doctrine. In Rousseau's case this serious
problem was never solved; there was no deliberate preparation of his
impulses, prepossessions, notions; no foresi