To the actually so-called Chamber of Deputies, I was indebted for a
sight of the manuscripts of Rousseau treasured in their library. I saw
them and touched them,--those manuscripts just as he has celebrated
them, written on the fine white paper, tied with ribbon. Yellow and
faded age has made them, yet at their touch I seemed to feel the fire
of youth, immortally glowing, more and more expansive, with which his
soul has pervaded this century. He was the precursor of all we most
prize. True, his blood was mixed with madness, and the course of his
actual life made some _detours_ through villanous places; but his
spirit was intimate with the fundamental truths of human nature, and
fraught with prophecy. There is none who has given birth to more life
for this age; his gifts are yet untold; they are too present with us;
but he who thinks really must often think with Rousseau, and learn him
ever more and more. Such is the method of genius,--to ripen fruit for
the crowd by those rays of whose heat they complain.