Confessions

"What is your favorite book?" asked Emerson.

"Rousseau's Confessions," answered Mary instantly.

It was Emerson's favorite, too, but such honesty from a young woman, it was queer.

Mr. Emerson never forgot Miss Evans of Coventry, and ten years after, when a zealous reviewer proclaimed her the greatest novelist in England, the sage of Concord said something that sounded like, "I told you so." End of section 4.

And if, as is argued, the character of Julie is immoral on account of her lax notions on the subject of marriage, we must also remember that and that she would appear almost as a saint to the readers of the Pucelle and other such abominations.

Émile, which is more of a treatise on the education of children than a novel, is chiefly remembered for the confessions of a Savoyard vicar contained in it, which some have thought to be the expressions of Rousseau's own religious opinions.

But it was the publication of Rousseau's Confessions, written after he had attained manhood, that probably has done more harm to his character as a man in the eyes of posterity than any other of his works, or even of his doings.

though perhaps hardly enough consideration is ever given to the fact that he was a highly neurotic and emotional boy given to much morbid introspection which a healthier body and a better trained mind would have enabled him to shake off also that he wrote these confessions as a duty with the idea of leaving nothing to tell to God, and that possibly some of our own confessions written with that idea honestly and faithfully carried out, with our innermost thoughts and feelings put down in uncompromising print, might not make always very pleasant or very edifying reading.

It is by his Contra Social, however, that he will be longest remembered, a work which will still live when its author may be forgotten.

Welcome to Textbook Sleep, the maximum strength sleep aid, where we read aloud boring public domain textbooks to help you fall asleep.

Tonight, it's The Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau.

Don't get excited by the word confessions.

If, like me, you were expecting a big tell-all about eighteenth-century shenanigans, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

Listen now at ipc.on.ca or wherever you get your podcasts.

Section 1 of Confessions Volumes 3 and 4 This is a LibriVox recording.

All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. recording by martin giessen confessions volumes three and four by jean jacques rousseau anonymously translated volume three leaving the service of madame de vercellys nearly as i had entered it i returned to my former hostess and remained there five or six weeks during which time health youth and laziness frequently rendered my temperament importunate i was restless absent and thoughtful i wept and sighed for a happiness i had no idea of though at the same time highly sensible of some deficiency this situation is indescribable few men

End of section 1.

Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere, Surrey.

Section 2 of Confessions, Volumes 3 and 4.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Footnote, Rousseau has been undeservedly blamed for feeling and expressing this.

In the opening of his Confessions, he says, "I feel my heart, and I know men.

I'm not made like any that I have seen.

And I venture to think that I am not made like any that exist." If I'm not better, I'm at least different.

Meanwhile his ambitious rival Voltaire was making skeptics.

In treating of the life of Rousseau it will be sufficient for the present purpose to consider only those events and experiences which in a marked degree contributed to form his character and through it to make his writings what they are.

Persons desirous of knowing more will find ample details in his Confessions, perhaps the most recklessly impartial biography that ever was written, his Reverie, Letters, etc.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the second son of Isaac Rousseau and of his wife Suzanne, née Bernard, was born at Geneva on the 28th of June, 1712.