sense of privation or delight, of pleasure or pain, of desire or apprehension, than this single sense of existence—­so long as such a state endures, he who finds himself in it may talk of bliss, not with a poor, relative, and imperfect happiness such as people find in the pleasures of life, but with a happiness full, perfect, and sufficing, that leaves in the soul no conscious unfilled void.  Such a state was many a day mine in my solitary musings in the isle of St. Peter, either lying in my boat as it floated on the water, or seated on the banks of the broad lake, or in other places than the little isle on the brink of some broad stream, or a rivulet murmuring over a gravel bed.

What is it that one enjoys in a situation like this?  Nothing outside of one’s self, nothing except one’s self and one’s own existence....  But most men, tossed as they are by unceasing passion, have little knowledge of such a state; they taste it imperfectly for a few moments, and then retain no more than an obscure confused idea of it, that is too weak to let them feel its charm.  It would not even be good in the present constitution of things, that in their eagerness for these gentle ecstasies, they should fall into a disgust for the active life in which their duty is prescribed to them by needs that are ever on the increase.  But a wretch cut off from human society, who can do nothing here below that is useful and good either for himself or for other people, may in such a state find for all lost human felicities many recompenses, of which neither fortune nor men can ever rob him.

’Tis true that these recompenses cannot be felt by all souls, nor in all situations.  The heart must be in peace, nor any passion come to trouble its calm.  There must be in the surrounding objects neither absolute repose nor excess of agitation, but a uniform and moderated movement without shock, without interval.  With no movement, life is only lethargy.  If the movement be unequal or too strong, it awakes us; by recalling us to the objects around, it destroys the charm of our musing, and plucks us from within ourselves, instantly to throw us back under the yoke of fortune and man, in a moment to restore us to all the consciousness of misery.  Absolute stillness inclines one to gloom.  It offers an image of death:  then the help of a cheerful imagination is necessary, and presents itself naturally enough to those whom heaven has endowed with such a gift.  The movement which does not come from without then stirs within us.  The repose is less complete, it is true; but it is also more agreeable when light and gentle ideas, without agitating the depths of the soul, only softly skim the surface.  This sort of musing we may taste whenever there is tranquillity about us, and I have thought that in the Bastile, and even in a dungeon where no object struck my sight, I could have dreamed away many a thrice pleasurable day.

But it must be said that all this came