a stillness faintly broken by the timid lapping of the water in the sedge, or the rustling of swift lizards across the heated sand, while the Bernese snow giants line a distant horizon with mysterious solitary shapes, it is easy to know what solace life in such a scene might bring to a man distracted by pain of body and pain and weariness of soul.  Rousseau has commemorated his too short sojourn here in the most perfect of all his compositions.[169]

“I found my existence so charming, and led a life so agreeable to my humour, that I resolved here to end my days.  My only source of disquiet was whether I should be allowed to carry my project out.  In the midst of the presentiments that disturbed me, I would fain have had them make a perpetual prison of my refuge, to confine me in it for all the rest of my life.  I longed for them to cut off all chance and all hope of leaving it; to forbid me holding any communication with the mainland, so that, knowing nothing of what was going on in the world, I might have forgotten the world’s existence, and people might have forgotten mine too.  They only suffered me to pass two months in the island, but I could have passed two years, two centuries, and all eternity, without a moment’s weariness, though I had not, with my companion, any other society than that of the steward, his wife, and their servants.  They were in truth honest souls and nothing more, but that was just what I wanted....  Carried thither in a violent hurry, alone and without a thing, I afterwards sent for my housekeeper, my books, and my scanty possessions, of which I had the delight of unpacking nothing, leaving my boxes and chests just as they had come, and dwelling in the house where I counted on ending my days, exactly as if it were an inn whence I must needs set forth on the morrow.  All things went so well, just as they were, that to think of ordering them better were to spoil them.  One of my greatest joys was to leave my books safely fastened up in their boxes, and to be without even a case for writing.  When any luckless letter forced me to take up a pen for an answer, I grumblingly borrowed the steward’s inkstand, and hurried to give it back to him with all the haste I could, in the vain hope that I should never have need of the loan any more.  Instead of meddling with those weary quires and reams and piles of old books, I filled my chamber with flowers and grasses, for I was then in my first fervour for botany.  Having given up employment that would be a task to me, I needed one that would be an amusement, nor cause me more pains than a sluggard might choose to take.  I undertook to make the Flora petrinsularis, and to describe every single plant on the island, in detail enough to occupy me for the rest of my days.  In consequence of this fine scheme, every morning after breakfast, which we all took in company, I used to go with a magnifying glass in my hand and my Systema Naturae under my arm, to visit some district of the island.