the substantial quality of his mind and without this quality he could never have written as he did more surely and unmistakably than in controversy. He had such gravity, such austere selfcommand, such closeness of grip." "We feel the ever-inspiring breath of seriousness and sincerity. This was because Rousseau's ideas lived in him, and were truly rooted in him. He did not merely say that he craved reality in human relationships. These ideas were actually his mind."

These appreciations of Mr. Morley's are undoubtedly true. Contrast them, and all they imply, with the other picture of the mean. deceitful poltroon. The contradiction is irreconcilable within the limits of human nature.

In truth, however, this flat contradiction is an optical delusion. It does not reside in the character itself, but in the portrait. It is a case of false perspective. Rousseau had these infirmities, as every one else has them, in a way, but not in the proportions suggested by the picture. And this falsity of suggestion is due to the "thumping" power of the nude.

For it is to be observed that the nude does not only "thump" the reader's mind, it thumps the author's as well. In disclosing it he will be self-conscious, and the higher his character is, the baser such flaws will seem to him, and the blacker he will paint them. So that, in this instance, the better a man is, the worse he will appear. Compare St. Augustine's Confessions with Casanova's Mémoires. What is a mote to the latter is a mountain to the saint. These are extreme cases, and we may be ready to discount the self-accusations of a St. Augustine. But let the haloless beware of too humble a candor! Even the few who perceive your exaggerations may refrain from pointing them out to the vulgar through fear of condoning evil or of being suspected of like infirmities themselves. Such has been Rousseau's fate. He continually exaggerates against himself, but very few critics allow for this.

Lord Brougham admits the general tendency in a paltry and dubious instance: Rousseau says he never had a thorough knowledge of Latin; whereas, cries Lord Brougham, he made an excellent translation of Tacitus's Histories! The inference is very disputable. But when it comes to moral shortcomings, Lord Brougham forgets his general admission that Rousseau magnifies his defects as much as his qualities. Worse than that, when Rousseau himself tries, as he sometimes does, to modify his own exaggerations, Lord Brougham sternly rules the modifications out. And in this attitude he is probably typical of nine readers out of ten. Confess a crime, and you will be believed. Palliate your share in it, and your plea, though true, will be rejected. Thereby again the nude is likely to mislead.

Rousseau, in fact, puts in the charges against himself in the heaviest type. His "self-slanders," as Lord Brougham inconsistently calls them, are massed in damning patches. He shouts his confessions to make sure of our hearing, and to reassure himself that he is not afraid to tell. Such modifications as he has to offer he whispers afterwards. He sifts them in scatteringly, after the mass has chained the eye. Many readers overlook them, or at all events do not trouble to collect them and see "what kind of being they compose." Thus, to return to the illustration given above, his "almost sordid avarice" proves on closer scrutiny to have been merely a prudent attention to expenditure. "Abhorring dependence above all things, and money being the instrument of independence, I was careful of what I had, though not coveting more." "I consider money as so valueless that, when I have none, I never seek to get any, and when I have some, let a convenient opportunity arise, and I empty my purse with the utmost freedom." By his own choice he seldom had more than was necessary for bare subsistence. But avarice does not begin till the subsistence-line has been passed.

His thievishness, again, so alarmingly asserted, must be regarded in the light of the following modifications: (1) "My thefts were confined to trifles which it was easier to take than to ask for;" (2) "I never remember having robbed any one of a coin in my life;" (3) "I do not recollect ever casting a wishful glance at any money or valuables within my reach."

And how distorting are his disclosures on the score of gallantry! Here the falsification arises not so much through the author exaggerating, as through the reader's sensibilities being "thumped." In these matters one touch of nude makes the whole world shocked, and Rousseau's account of, for instance, his freedom from licentiousness in Venice has done his reputation far more harm than a discreet suggestion of the opposite has done in some other men's cases. He was an affluent talker of sentiment and disagreeably vain as a philanderer. When that has been said, the foundation (excepting one other matter) of his notoriety on this side has been indicated. He passes in popular esteem for a Don Juan. Never was a vainer legend! He is included in disreputable "Galleries of Celebrated Lovers." He might as well be included in a gallery of celebrated misers. In his central relation towards the other sex, his union with Thérèse Le Vasseur, he behaved well. And this is how he comments self-defensively, be it remarked

on one of his sporadic courtships: "Those who read this will not fail to laugh at my gallantries, and to observe that after the most promising preliminaries my most forward adventures ended with a kiss on the hand. But be not deceived, O reader, in your estimate of my enjoyments! I have perhaps tasted more real pleasure in my affairs which ended thus, than you will ever do in yours which at least begin there." The fashion of the times almost requiring a man to cut some figure in this direction, Rousseau has to apologize more than once, not for having been so gallant, but for not having been more so. If we keep to

his acts, and bear in mind the difference between French and Anglo-Saxon standards and between those days and these, we shall find no closer resemblance in him to a Don Juan than to a Saint Anthony.

The matter excepted above is this: Rousseau gives some physiological details about himself, which are perhaps as "thumping" as anything in his book. The insertion of them has been praised by Mr. Morley on the grounds that we want all the facts, and that an autobiography should be a history of a body as well as of a mind. Doubtless, an autobiography which presented a full, scientific history of a body parallel to that of a mind, and demonstrated the correlation between the two at every step, would be of supreme utility. But how far from such an ideal are a few mentions of physical phenomena, observed on himself by an amateur in pathology, with what exactness may be imagined, and which neither he nor any one else can correlate definitely with his moral life! It may elucidate a man's character for us to know that he was consumptive; but further details of the disease would not increase our insight into his qualities. The comprehension of psycho-physical contacts has not yet reached that stage of minuteness; far from it. All we can say of such details at present is that they are very apt to mislead us, as they have surely done in Rousseau's case.

Well then, what compensation is there to offset the risk, attendant on the introduction of the nude, of distorting the total effect of the picture? Will these disclosures really throw much light on particular portions of it?

It is natural of course to expect a great deal from such unusual openness. But there may be something delusive about the expectation. Because a thing is only exceptionally revealed, it does not follow that it is exceptionally significant. The parts of the body usually covered are not the most significant, but the face, which is bare. And hidden things are not

necessarily unknown. There are secrets de Polichinelle." The general form of the draped part of one's body is familiar to everyone, and even of its details people can guess far more than they could of the face's, were that veiled and the rest revealed. The bodily analogy may be pertinent in another way. Where our human nature approaches our animal side, individuality diminishes rapidly. Rousseau has been praised as one "who did not dissemble his kinship with the four-footed." In fact, some of his "nudes" carry us away from the individual to the species, and beyond that to the genus, informing us about man as animal, but not at all about Jean Jacques as Jean Jacques.

But, apart from this, do even the more personal "nudes" yield very much information as to Jean Jacques? Less than might be expected, perhaps, for the following reason. Legally there are abstract actions, but not morally. If a man tells me, "I have committed murder," the bare statement will not enable me to estimate his character. All men are, or should be, capable of killing in some conditions. I must know the concrete circumstances, the motive, provocation, and so on. But when these data are supplied by the agent, they are subject to doubt. In matters involving their own interest or shame the sincerest cannot be trusted to judge accurately. Involuntary delusions interfere. So, if the agent himself speaks, we shall be uncertain; and if he says nothing, what does the abstract deed tell us? It may be said, we shall interpret it for ourselves by the rest of his character. But is this really practicable in detail, where the case is at all complex? Let me take an illustration from Rousseau.

One of his most celebrated "nudes" is the false charge he made when, as a wandering lad, he was a domestic servant at Turin. His mistress died, and in the confusion attending the break-up of the household he took a "little, old piece of pink-and-silver ribbon," which pleased

his fancy, and, thinking no harm of the act, did not try to conceal it. The ribbon belonged to a person who probably had sentimental associations with it and therefore raised a hue and cry. The culprit was quickly detected. Asked before a crowd of people how he came by it, he said it had been given him by a fellowservant, Marion, a young innocent girl. Brought to confront him, Marion denied the charge, but Rousseau stuck to it. At last, the person questioning them, too busy to reach the bottom of the matter, sent the pair off without deciding which was guilty.

Rousseau says he does not know what became of Marion, and it is not certain that she suffered any material damage through his lie. But he very properly vituperates himself violently for this ugly deed. He even says that it was largely the desire of relieving his conscience in some measure of this burden which prompted him to write his autobiography. These penitential floods forty years after the event tell us nothing about Rousseau at sixteen. At last, however, he adds some account of his contemporary state of mind. "When I accused the unhappy girl, it is strange but strictly true that my friendship for her was the cause of it. She was present to my thoughts, and I took my excuse from the first idea which occurred to me. I accused her of doing what I meant to have done. Having meant to give her the ribbon, I said she had given it to me. Then I was in an agony, but the presence of so many people kept me from recanting. I did not fear punishment; but I dreaded the shame of exposure worse than death. . . . Had I been taken aside by myself, I am convinced I should have told the truth in a moment."

This explanation has produced reams of comment, mostly unfavorable to Rousseau. It is not inconsistent with the rest of his character as given in his book. Yet Lord Brougham, while accepting the sin of course, rejects the explanation as "refined, false and absurd," and ad

vances another of his own, contradicting it flatly in its two main points. Rousseau pleads that he did not accuse the girl deliberately, but by a lapse of thought, and that it was not fear of punishment, but dread of shame before so many people, which kept him from correcting the lapse. Lord Brougham says that he did accuse her deliberately, and that it was physical cowardice which prompted him. What ground has Lord Brougham for this charge? Rousseau's general character is certainly against it on the first point at least. The fact is, Lord Brougham is palpably "thumped" by the nude all through the Confessions. Such revelations shock him, apart from the intrinsic shockingness of the things revealed, and his judgment succumbs to the blows. When he wrote his own autobiography he was careful to exclude anything of the kind from it. To say the least, we cannot accept his interpretation as certain; nor yet Rousseau's, nor any other. And yet the uninterpreted deed has no definite signifi

cance.

Then is it worth while introducing these "nudes," if they cause so much confusion and, on the other hand, yield so little compensating information? Sainte Beuve remarks on Rousseau's feat "singular perhaps but not useful." It

can hardly be doubted that, if the nude were altogether omitted from the Confessions, our idea of the author would be far clearer and truer than it is now.

These objections imply, no doubt, something further a distrust of autobiography altogether as a means of revealing a personality. In life we do not get our clearest insight into a man when he is telling us about himself, but when we see him acting without any thought of us. More can be learned in this kind by overhearing than by hearing. When Rousseau is writing about other people, he throws a light on his personality, which is turned off when he is writing about himself. Dryden's epigram is almost true about the autobiographer: "Every word a man says about himself is a word too much." And it is hardly a paradox to say that he who is least autobiographical will be most so.

Believers in direct self-revelation seem to imagine a man's personality as a well from which he alone can draw up the contents in a confessional bucket. A truer simile might be that of a blind man holding a biased bowl. No one else can handle it; he alone can feel it; surely he must be the best judge of its bias? No, that will be seen by others, not by him, as soon as he acts and sends the bowl careering along the turf.

THE dusk was wiping out the colors of the world, spreading over the tender greens and pale pinks an indefinite nameless color more beautiful than any we know. The apple-trees loomed up, great masses of bloom, and their sweetness drifted to Katherine mingled with the smell of young leaves and spring, it was as if all the souls of the myriad growing things had breathed themselves forth into the night.

The dusk deepened and then grew blonder; the moon was coming up. One could see again that the trees were green, one could see the small flowers in the lawn. The white trees cast deep shadows on the young grass. Everything was very still; Katherine thought that the beating of her own heart was too loud for the miracle of the night. Everything-the trees and sky and hills gave her the sense that something wonderful was about to happen; surely they were only the setting for some greater miracle. Then there came over her an appalling sense of desolation. It was terrible that on this most lovely night she must be so alone; that there should be no kind hand anywhere to meet hers. Katherine's need of companionship grew more poignant; the beauty of the night weighed on her as too great a burden to be borne alone; but she listened in vain for the sound of a human voice mingled with the voices of the night. The neighboring houses turned blank, unlighted faces to her; Katherine was as solitary as if she had been adrift on some unknown

sea.

Then, in the garden on the slope of the hill below a white shadow moved; it flitted about, unsubstantial, unreal, now stopping as if to look at the night, now moving on slowly, then lost to sight

among the flower-laden shrubs. At last it stood out in a little open space, attentive, even reverent, in its attitude. Without realizing what she did, Katherine trailed through the wet grass toward the motionless figure, her shawl hanging loose around her; it was as if one white spirit went forth to meet another like itself. She made her way through the loosely planted shrubbery which divided one garden from the other, and was near the other woman before she turned her head toward Katherine. She greeted Katherine quietly as if she had been waiting for her. They stood a moment in silence, then the woman said:

"I could not have stayed out here alone" she stopped shyly and turned toward Katherine to see if she were understood, and Katherine wondered if here was some one as terribly alone as herself, as in need as she of sympathy. They looked at the night together, as silent as old friends who do not need to talk to one another; they did not know each other's names, and yet already they had ceased to be strangers; the fellowship of spring had brought them together.

A voice called from somewhere beyond a screen of white apple-trees, a man's voice, gay, mocking, jovial:

"Mother! mother! Where are you? Mother, you'll be moonstruck."

The woman turned gravely to Katherine.

"My son is calling me," she told her. "Good-night, I am glad you came.' Then she added wistfully, "This is the first time in many years that I have had a friend by me as I looked at the night.”

With the sound of the man's voice and his gay, chaffing "Mother, you'll be moonstruck," the mirage of the night had vanished; the frail, subtle tie that a mo