"We are too poor to keep a servant, sir," replied Rousseau, "and I presume that my good Therese has gone out on some errand. How can I serve you!"
"I came to visit Jean Jacques Rousseau, the poet and philosopher."
"I am the one, but scarcely the other two. Life has gone so roughly with me, that poetry has vanished long ago from my domicile, and men have deceived me so often, that have fled from the world in disgust. You see, then, that I have no claim to the title of philosopher."
"And thus speaks Jean Jacques Rousseau, who once taught that mankind were naturally good?"
"I still believe in my own teachings, sir," cried Rousseau warmly. "Man is the vinculum that connects the Creator with His creation, and light from heaven illumes his birth and infancy. But the world, sir, is evil, and is swayed by two demons—selfishness and falsehood. [Footnote: This is not very philosophical. If the fraction man be intrinsically good, how is it that the whole (the world which is made up of nothing but men) is so evil? Is there a demiurge responsible for the introduction of these two demons?] These demons poison the heart of man, and influence him to actions whose sole object is to advance himself and prejudice his neighbor."
"I fear that your two demons were coeval with the creation of the world," said the stranger, with a smile.
"No, no; they were not in Paradise. And what is Paradise but the primitive condition of man—that happy state when in sweet harmony with Nature, he lay upon the bosom of his mother earth, and inhaled health and peace from her life-giving breath? Let us return to a state of nature, and we shall find that the gates of Paradise have reopened."
"Never! We have tasted of the tree of knowledge, and are for ever exiled from Eden."
"Woe to us all, if what you say is true; for then the world is but a vale of misery, and the wise man has but one resource— self-destruction! But pardon me, I have not offered you a chair."
The stranger accepted a seat, and glanced at the heaps of papers that covered the rickety old table.