reveries without object, and which were not the less agreeable for their
stupidity. I sometimes exclaimed, "O nature! O my mother! I am here
under thy guardianship alone; here is no deceitful and cunning mortal to
interfere between thee and me." In this manner I withdrew half a league
from land; I could have wished the lake had been the ocean. However, to
please my poor dog, who was not so fond as I was of such a long stay on
the water, I commonly followed one constant course; this was going to
land at the little island where I walked an hour or two, or laid myself
down on the grass on the summit of the hill, there to satiate myself with
the pleasure of admiring the lake and its environs, to examine and
dissect all the herbs within my reach, and, like another Robinson Crusoe,
built myself an imaginary place of residence in the island. I became
very much attached to this eminence. When I brought Theresa, with the
wife of the receiver and her sisters, to walk there, how proud was I to
be their pilot and guide! We took there rabbits to stock it. This was
another source of pleasure to Jean Jacques. These animals rendered the
island still more interesting to me. I afterwards went to it more
frequently, and with greater pleasure to observe the progress of the new
inhabitants.

To these amusements I added one which recalled to my recollection the
delightful life I led at the Charmettes, and to which the season
particularly invited me. This was assisting in the rustic labors of
gathering of roots and fruits, of which Theresa and I made it a pleasure
to partake with the wife of the receiver and his family. I remember a
Bernois, one M. Kirkeberguer, coming to see me, found me perched upon a
tree with a sack fastened to my waist, and already so full of apples that
I could not stir from the branch on which I stood. I was not sorry to be
caught in this and similar situations. I hoped the people of Berne,
witnesses to the employment of my leisure, would no longer think of