hteenth century was a lay figure, and, as has been excellently said
by De Quincey in another matter, nothing can be wrong which conforms to
the principles of its own ideal. As for Julie and Claire, they once more

Answer the ends of their being created.

Even the "talking-book" is here hardly excessive, and comes legitimately
under the excuse of showing how the relations between the hero and
heroine originally got themselves established.[369]

[Sidenote: But little probability of more good work in novel from its
author.]

Are we, then, from the excellence of the "Confessions" _in pari materia_
and _in ipsa_ of _Julie_, to lament that Rousseau did not take to
novel-writing as a special and serious occupation? Probably not. The
extreme weakness and almost _fadeur_ of the strictly novel part of
_Emile_, and the going-off of _Julie_ itself, are very open warnings;
the mere absence of any other attempts worth mentioning[370] is evidence
of a kind; and the character of all the rest of the work, and of all
this part of the work but the opening of _Julie_, and even of that
opening itself, counsel abstention, here as everywhere, from quarrelling
with Providence. Rousseau's superhuman concentration on himself, while
it has inspired the relevant parts of the _Confessions_ and of _Julie_,
has spoilt a good deal else that we have, and would assuredly have
spoilt other things that we have not. It has been observed, by all acute
students of the novel, that the egotistic variety will not bear heavy
crops of fruit by itself; and that it is incapable, or capable with very
great difficulty, of letting the observed and so far altruistic kind
grow from the same stool. Of what is sometimes called the dramatic
faculty (though, in fact, it is only one side of that),--the faculty
which in different guise and with different means the general novelist
must also possess,--Rousseau had nothing. He could put himself in no
other man's skin, being so absolutely wrapped up in his own, which was
itself much too sensitive to be disturbed, much less shed. Anything or
anybody that was (to use Mill's language) a permanent or even a
temporary possibility of sensation to him was within his power; anything
out of immediate or closely impending contact was not. Now some of the
great novelists have the external power--or at least the will to use
that power--alone, others have had both; but Rousseau had the internal
only, and so was, except by miracle of i