THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
(In 12 books)

Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society

London, 1903



BOOK III.


Leaving the service of Madam de Vercellis nearly as I had entered it,
I returned to my former hostess, and remained there five or six weeks;
during which time health, youth, and laziness, frequently rendered my
temperament importunate. I was restless, absent, and thoughtful: I wept
and sighed for a happiness I had no idea of, though at the same time
highly sensible of some deficiency. This situation is indescribable,
few men can even form any conception of it, because, in general, they
have prevented that plenitude of life, at once tormenting and delicious.
My thoughts were incessantly occupied with girls and women, but in a
manner peculiar to myself: these ideas kept my senses in a perpetual and
disagreeable activity, though, fortunately, they did not point out the
means of deliverance. I would have given my life to have met with a Miss
Goton, but the time was past in which the play of infancy predominated;
increase of years had introduced shame, the inseparable companion of a
conscious deviation from rectitude, which so confirmed my natural
timidity as to render it invincible; and never, either at that time or
since, could I prevail on myself to offer a proposition favorable to my
wishes (unless in a manner constrained to it by previous advances) even