“So long as we do not know what to do, wisdom consists in doing nothing.  Of all rules there is none so greatly needed by man, and none which he is less able to obey.  In seeking happiness when we know not where it is, we are perhaps getting further and further from it, we are running as many risks as there are roads to choose from.  But it is not every one that can keep still.  Our passion for our own well-being makes us so uneasy, that we would rather deceive ourselves in the search for happiness than sit still and do nothing; and when once we have left the place where we might have known happiness, we can never return.

“In ignorance like this I tried to avoid a similar fault.  When I took charge of you I decided to take no useless steps and to prevent you from doing so too.  I kept to the path of nature, until she should show me the path of happiness.  And lo! their paths were the same, and without knowing it this was the path I trod.

“Be at once my witness and my judge; I will never refuse to accept your decision.  Your early years have not been sacrificed to those that were to follow, you have enjoyed all the good gifts which nature bestowed upon you.  Of the ills to which you were by nature subject, and from which I could shelter you, you have only experienced such as would harden you to bear others.  You have never suffered any evil, except to escape a greater.  You have known neither hatred nor servitude.  Free and happy, you have remained just and kindly; for suffering and vice are inseparable, and no man ever became bad until he was unhappy.  May the memory of your childhood remain with you to old age!  I am not afraid that your kind heart will ever recall the hand that trained it without a blessing upon it.

“When you reached the age of reason, I secured you from the influence of human prejudice; when your heart awoke I preserved you from the sway of passion.  Had I been able to prolong this inner tranquillity till your life’s end, my work would have been secure, and you would have been as happy as man can be; but, my dear Emile, in vain did I dip you in the waters of Styx, I could not make you everywhere invulnerable; a fresh enemy has appeared, whom you have not yet learnt to conquer, and from whom I cannot save you.  That enemy is yourself.  Nature and fortune had left you free.  You could face poverty, you could bear bodily pain; the sufferings of the heart were unknown to you; you were then dependent on nothing but your position as a human being; now you depend on all the ties you have formed for yourself; you have learnt to desire, and you are now the slave of your desires.  Without any change in yourself, without any insult, any injury to yourself, what sorrows may attack your soul, what pains may you suffer without sickness, how many deaths may you die and yet live!  A lie, an error, a suspicion, may plunge you in despair.