rather than in my manner. The contempt with which my profound
meditations had inspired me for the manners, maxims and prejudices of the
age in which I lived, rendered me proof against the raillery of those by
whom they were possessed, and I crushed their little pleasantries with a
sentence, as I would have crushed an insect with my fingers.

What a change! All Paris repeated the severe and acute sarcasms of the
same man who, two years before, and ten years afterwards, knew not how to
find what he had to say, nor the word he ought to employ. Let the
situation in the world the most contrary to my natural disposition be
sought after, and this will be found. Let one of the short moments of my
life in which I became another man, and ceased to be myself, be
recollected, this also will be found in the time of which I speak; but,
instead of continuing only six days, or six weeks, it lasted almost six
years, and would perhaps still continue, but for the particular
circumstances which caused it to cease, and restored me to nature, above
which I had, wished to soar.

The beginning of this change took place as soon as I had quitted Paris,
and the sight of the vices of that city no longer kept up the indignation
with which it had inspired me. I no sooner had lost sight of men than I
ceased to despise them, and once removed from those who designed me evil,
my hatred against them no longer existed. My heart, little fitted for
hatred, pitied their misery, and even their wickedness. This situation,
more pleasing but less sublime, soon allayed the ardent enthusiasm by
which I had so long been transported; and I insensibly, almost to myself
even, again became fearful, complaisant and timid; in a word, the same
Jean Jacques I before had been.

Had this resolution gone no further than restoring me to myself, all