ept,
nor perhaps the rest, which I have not yet offered him."[109] When the
offer of the flour, wine, and firewood was at length made in as
delicate terms as possible, Rousseau declined the gift on grounds
which may raise a smile, but which are not without a rather touching
simplicity.[110] "I have enough to live on for two or three years," he
said, "but if I were dying of hunger, I would rather in the present
condition of your good prince, and not being of any service to him, go
and eat grass and grub up roots, than accept a morsel of bread from
him."[111] Hume might well call this a phenomenon in the world of
letters, and one very honourable for the person concerned.[112] And we
recognise its dignity the more when we contrast it with the baseness
of Voltaire, who drew his pension from the King of Prussia while
Frederick was in his most urgent straits, and while the poet was
sportively exulting to all his correspondents in the malicious
expectation that he would one day have to allow the King of Prussia
himself a pension.[113] And Rousseau was a poor man, living among the
poor and in their style. His annual outlay at this time was covered by
the modest sum of sixty louis.[114] What stamps his refusal of
Frederick's gifts as true dignity, is the fact that he not only did
not refuse money for any work done, but expected and asked for it.
Malesherbes at this very time begged him to collect plants for him.
Joyfully, replied Rousseau, "but as I cannot subsist without the aid
of my own labour, I never meant, in spite of the pleasure that it
might otherwise have been to me, to offer you the use of my time for
nothing."[115] In the same year, we may add, when the tremendous
struggle of the Seven Years' War was closing, the philosopher wrote a
second terse epistle to the king, and with this their direct
communication came to an end. "Sire, you are my protector and my
benefactor; I would fain repay you if I can. You wish to give me
bread; is there none of your own subjects in want of it? Take that
sword away from my sight, it dazzles and pains me. It has done its
work only too well; the sceptre is abandoned. Great is the career for
kings of your stuff, and you are still far from the term; time
presses, you have not a moment to lose. Fathom well your heart, O
Frederick! Can you dare to die without having been the greatest of
men? Would that I could see Frederick, the just and the redoubtable,
covering his states with multitudes o