Had this manner of life been to my taste, I should have been consoled for a heavy expense, which I dedicated to my pleasures; but to ruin myself at the same time that I fatigued my mind, was insupportable, and I had so felt the weight of this, that, profiting by the interval of liberty I then had, I was determined to perpetuate it, and entirely to renounce great companies, the composition of books, and all literary concerns, and for the remainder of my days to confine myself to the narrow and peaceful sphere in which I felt I was born to move.

The produce of this letter to D’Alembert, and of the New Elosia, had a little improved the state of my finances, which had been considerably exhausted at the Hermitage.  Emilius, to which, after I had finished Eloisa, I had given great application, was in forwardness, and the produce of this could not be less than the sum of which I was already in possession.  I intended to place this money in such a manner as to produce me a little annual income, which, with my copying, might be sufficient to my wants without writing any more.  I had two other works upon the stocks.  The first of these was my ‘Institutions Politiques’.  I examined the state of this work, and found it required several years’ labor.  I had not courage enough to continue it, and to wait until it was finished before I carried my intentions into execution.  Therefore, laying the book aside, I determined to take from it all I could, and to burn the rest; and continuing this with zeal without interrupting Emilius, I finished the ‘Contrat Social’.

The dictionary of music now remained.  This was mechanical, and might be taken up at any time; the object of it was entirely pecuniary.  I reserved to myself the liberty of laying it aside, or of finishing it at my ease, according as my other resources collected should render this necessary or superfluous.  With respect to the ‘Morale Sensitive’, of which I had made nothing more than a sketch, I entirely gave it up.

As my last project, if I found I could not entirely do without copying, was that of removing from Paris, where the affluence of my visitors rendered my housekeeping expensive, and deprived me of the time I should have turned to advantage to provide for it; to prevent in my retirement the state of lassitude into which an author is said to fall when he has laid down his pen, I reserved to myself an occupation which might fill up the void in my solitude without tempting me to print anything more.  I know not for what reason they had long tormented me to write the memoirs of my life.  Although these were not until that time interesting as to the facts, I felt they might become so by the candor with which I was capable of giving them, and I determined to make of these the only work of the kind, by an unexampled veracity, that, for once at least, the world might see a man such as he internally was.  I had always laughed at the false ingenuousness of Montaigne, who, feigning to confess his faults,