acity of understanding and of
purpose, the student of the eighteenth century would probably have
been spared the not perfectly agreeable task of threading a way along
the sinuosities of the character and work of Rousseau. But Rousseau
had what Diderot lacked--sustained ecstatic moods, and fervid trances;
his literary gesture was so commanding, his apparel so glistening, his
voice so rich in long-drawn notes of plangent vibration. His words
are the words of a prophet; a prophet, it is understood, who had lived
in Paris, and belonged to the eighteenth century, and wrote in French
instead of Hebrew. The mischief of his work lay in this, that he
raised feeling, now passionate, now quietest, into the supreme place
which it was to occupy alone, and not on an equal throne and in equal
alliance with understanding. Instead of supplementing reason, he
placed emotion as its substitute. And he made this evil doctrine come
from the lips of a fictitious character, who stimulated fancy and
fascinated imagination. Voltaire laughed at the _baisers acres_ of
Madame de Wolmar, and declared that a criticism of the Marquis of
Ximenes had crushed the wretched romance.[50] But Madame de Wolmar was
so far from crushed, that she turned the flood of feeling which her
own charms, passion, remorse, and conversion had raised, in a
direction that Voltaire abhorred, and abhorred in vain.

It is after the marriage of Julie to Wolmar that the action of the
story takes the turn which sensible men like Voltaire found laughable.
Saint Preux is absent with Admiral Anson for some years. On his return
to Europe he is speedily invited by the sage Wolmar, who knows his
past history perfectly well, to pay them a visit. They all meet with
leapings on the neck and hearty kisses, the unprejudiced Wolmar
preserving an open, serene, and smiling air. He takes his young friend
to a chamber, which is to be reserved for him and for him only. In a
few days he takes an opportunity of visiting some distant property,
leaving his wife and Saint Preux together, with the sublime of
magnanimity. At the same time he confides to Claire his intention of
entrusting to Saint Preux the education of his children. All goes
perfectly well, and the household presents a picture of contentment,
prosperity, moderation, affection, and evenly diffused happiness,
which in spite of the disagreeableness of the situation is even now
extremely charming. There is only one cloud. Julie is devoured b