, a spectator of his own struggles, his own waverings
between an ideal of simple duty and the imperious demands of a
selfish and sensuous ego. His passion for Nature partially atoned for
his unamiable and doubtful character; he was false in many ways; but
that feeling rang true--it was the best part of him, and of that
'idealism of the heart' whose right of rule he asserted in an age of
artificiality and petty formalism. Those were no empty words in his
third letter to Malesherbes:

'Which time of my life do you suppose I recall most often and most
willingly in my dreams? Not the pleasures of youth; they were too
few, too much mixed with bitterness, and they are too far away now.
It is the time of my retreat, of my solitary walks--those fast-flying
delicious days that I passed all alone by myself, with my good and
simple Therese, my beloved dog, my old cat, with the wild birds and
the roes of the forest, with all Nature and her inconceivable Maker.

'When I got up early to go and watch the sunrise from my garden, when
I saw a fine day begin, my first wish was that neither letters nor
visitors might come to break its charm....

'Then I would seek out some wild place in the forest, some desert
spot where there was nothing to shew the hand of man, and so tell of
servitude and rule--some refuge which I could fancy I was the first
to discover, and where no importunate third party came between Nature
and me....

'The gold broom and the purple heather touched my heart; the majestic
trees that shaded me, the delicate shrubs around, the astonishing
variety of plants and flowers that I trod under foot, kept me
alternately admiring and observing.'

His writings shew that with him return to Nature was no mere theory,
but real earnest; they condemned the popular garden-craft and carpet
fashions, and set up in their place the rights of the heart, and free
enjoyment of Nature in her wild state, undisturbed by the hand of
man.

It was Rousseau who first discovered that the Alps were beautiful.
But to see this fact in its true light, we must glance back at the
opinions of preceding periods.[1]

Though the Alpine countries were the arena of all sorts of
enterprise, warlike and peaceful, in the fifteenth century, most of
the interest excited by foreign parts was absorbed by the great
voyages of discovery; the Alps themselves were almost entirely
omitted from the maps.

To be just to the time, it must be conceded that security a