ABSTRACT
THE wife of Jean Jacques Rousseau is a native of Orléans, where her family now live. This woman, though certainly no congenial spirit with Jean Jacques, has, I am told, caught from him much elevation of sentiment, and pride of independence. You can, in short, perceive that she has been the companion of a great man. I heard lately an incident characteristic enough of Rousseau. At a friend’s house, at dinner, ne praised the wine; his friend sent him fifty bottles, Rousseau felt himself offended; but as the present was offered by an old friend, he determined to accept ten bottles, and returned forty. A short time after he invited his friend and his family to supper. When they arrived they found Rousseau very busy turning the spit.“How extraordinary is it,” exclaimed his friend, “to fee the first genius of Europe employed in turning a spit!” “Why,” answered Rousseau, with great simplicity and fang-froid, “if I were not to turn the spit, you would certainly lose your supper: my’ wife is gone to buy a fallad, and the spit must be turned.” At supper Rousseau produced, for the first time, the wine which his friend had sent him: but no sooner had he tasted it, than he suddenly put the glass from his lips, exclaiming with the most violent emotion, that it was not the fame wine he had drank at his 155friend’s house, who he perceived had a design to poison him. In vain his friend protested his innocence: Rousseau’s imagination, once possessed by this idea, —“displaced the mirth; broke the good Meeting with most admir’d disorder.” Shakspeare.
