Style, however, in which he ultimately became such a proficient, and which wrought such marvels as only style backed by passion can work, already engaged his serious attention.  We have already seen how Voltaire implanted in him the first root idea, which so many of us never perceive at all, that there is such a quality of writing as style.  He evidently took pains with the form of expression and thought about it, in obedience to some inborn harmonious predisposition which is the source of all veritable eloquence, though there is no strong trace now nor for many years to come of any irresistible inclination for literary composition.  We find him, indeed, in 1736 showing consciousness of a slight skill in writing,[98] but he only thought of it as a possible recommendation for a secretaryship to some great person.  He also appears to have practised verses, not for their own sake, for he always most justly thought his own verses mediocre, and they are even worse; but on the ground that verse-making is a rather good exercise for breaking one’s self to elegant inversions, and learning a greater ease in prose.[99] At the age of one and twenty he composed a comedy, long afterwards damned as Narcisse.  Such prelusions, however, were of small importance compared with the fact of his being surrounded by a moral atmosphere in which his whole mind was steeped.  It is not in the study of Voltaire or another, but in the deep soft soil of constant mood and old habit that such a style as Rousseau’s has its growth.

It was the custom to return to Chamberi for the winter, and the day of their departure from Les Charmettes was always a day blurred and tearful for Rousseau; he never left it without kissing the ground, the trees, the flowers; he had to be torn away from it as from a loved companion.  At the first melting of the winter snows they left their dungeon in Chamberi, and they never missed the earliest song of the nightingale.  Many a joyful day of summer peace remained vivid in Rousseau’s memory, and made a mixed heaven and hell for him long years after in the stifling dingy Paris street, and the raw and cheerless air of a Derbyshire winter.[100] “We started early in the morning,” he says, describing one of these simple excursions on the day of St. Lewis, who was the very unconscious patron saint of Madame de Warens, “together and alone; I proposed that we should go and ramble about the side of the valley opposite to our own, which we had not yet visited.  We sent our provisions on before us, for we were to be out all day.  We went from hill to hill and wood to wood, sometimes in the sun and often in the shade, resting from time to time and forgetting ourselves for whole hours; chatting about ourselves, our union, our dear lot, and offering unheard prayers that it might last.  All seemed to conspire for the bliss of this day.  Rain had fallen a short time before; there was no dust, and the little streams were full; a light fresh breeze