Ralph Waldo Emerson on Henry Thoreau “Henry Thoreau is like the woodgod who solicits the wandering poet & draws him into antres vast & desarts idle, & bereaves him of his memory. Rene Descartes on Blaise Pascal “Monsieur Pascal has too much vacuum in his brain.” Ģ8. Nevertheless, as it is more than sixty years since I lost the habit, I feel, unfortunately, that it is impossible for me to resume it.” Ģ9. A desire seizes us to walk on four paws when we read your work.

No one has ever used so much intellect to prove us beasts. Voltaire on Jean-Jacques Rousseau “I have read, monsieur, your new book against the human race. The modest converse of the shepherd girls of these hamlets and the care of my goats are my recreations my desires are bounded by these mountains, and if they ever wander hence it is to contemplate the beauty of the heavens, steps by which the soul travels to its primeval abode.30. If Chrysostom's impatience and violent passion killed him, why should my modest behaviour and circumspection be blamed? If I preserve my purity in the society of the trees, why should he who would have me preserve it among men, seek to rob me of it? I have, as you know, wealth of my own, and I covet not that of others my taste is for freedom, and I have no relish for constraint I neither love nor hate anyone I do not deceive this one or court that, or trifle with one or play with another. Let him who calls me wild beast and basilisk, leave me alone as something noxious and evil let him who calls me ungrateful, withhold his service who calls me wayward, seek not my acquaintance who calls me cruel, pursue me not for this wild beast, this basilisk, this ungrateful, cruel, wayward being has no kind of desire to seek, serve, know, or follow them. Let this general declaration serve for each of my suitors on his own account, and let it be understood from this time forth that if anyone dies for me it is not of jealousy or misery he dies, for she who loves no one can give no cause for jealousy to any, and candour is not to be confounded with scorn. It has not been so far the will of Heaven that I should love by fate, and to expect me to love by choice is idle. Let him who has been deceived complain, let him give way to despair whose encouraged hopes have proved vain, let him flatter himself whom I shall entice, let him boast whom I shall receive but let not him call me cruel or homicide to whom I make no promise, upon whom I practise no deception, whom I neither entice nor receive. Bethink you now if it be reasonable that his suffering should be laid to my charge.

He was persistent in spite of warning, he despaired without being hated. Those whom I have inspired with love by letting them see me, I have by words undeceived, and if their longings live on hope-and I have given none to Chrysostom or to any other-it cannot justly be said that the death of any is my doing, for it was rather his own obstinacy than my cruelty that killed him and if it be made a charge against me that his wishes were honourable, and that therefore I was bound to yield to them, I answer that when on this very spot where now his grave is made he declared to me his purity of purpose, I told him that mine was to live in perpetual solitude, and that the earth alone should enjoy the fruits of my retirement and the spoils of my beauty and if, after this open avowal, he chose to persist against hope and steer against the wind, what wonder is it that he should sink in the depths of his infatuation? If I had encouraged him, I should be false if I had gratified him, I should have acted against my own better resolution and purpose. I am a fire afar off, a sword laid aside. “I was born free, and that I might live in freedom I chose the solitude of the fields in the trees of the mountains I find society, the clear waters of the brooks are my mirrors, and to the trees and waters I make known my thoughts and charms.

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