of our fine little gentlemen, and may these men at fifteen not turn out
children at thirty."[15]

Two incidents of this period remain to us, described in Rousseau's own
words, and as they reveal a certain sweetness in which his life
unhappily did not afterwards greatly abound, it may help our equitable
balance of impressions about him to reproduce them. Every Sunday he used
to spend the day at Pâquis at Mr. Fazy's, who had married one of his
aunts, and who carried on the production of printed calicoes. "One day I
was in the drying-room, watching the rollers of the hot press; their
brightness pleased my eye; I was tempted to lay my fingers on them, and
I was moving them up and down with much satisfaction along the smooth
cylinder, when young Fazy placed himself in the wheel and gave it a
half-quarter turn so adroitly, that I had just the ends of my two
longest fingers caught, but this was enough to crush the tips and tear
the nails. I raised a piercing cry; Fazy instantly turned back the
wheel, and the blood gushed from my fingers. In the extremity of
consternation he hastened to me, embraced me, and besought me to cease
my cries, or he would be undone. In the height of my own pain, I was
touched by his; I instantly fell silent, we ran to the pond, 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 Ï 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