He boasts of his increasing love for Nature:
“The glories of the landscape I have always enjoyed; but Deyverdun has almost given me a taste for minute observation, and I can now dwell with pleasure on the shape and color of the leaves, the various hues of the blossoms, and the successive progress of vegetation. These pleasures are not without cares; and there is a white acacia just under the windows of my library which, in my opinion, was too closely pruned last Autumn, and whose recovery is the daily subject of anxiety and conversation.
“My romantic wishes led sometimes to an idea which was impracticable in England, the possession of an house and garden, which should unite the society of town with the beauties and freedom of the country. This idea is now realized in a degree of perfection to which I never aspired, and if I could convey in words a just picture of my library, apartments, terrace, wilderness, vineyard, with the prospect of land and water terminated by the mountains; and this position at the gate of a populous and lively town where I have some friends and many acquaintances, you would envy or rather applaud the singular propriety of my choice.”
He says further on in the same letter:
“The habits of female conversation have sometimes tempted me to acquire the piece of furniture, a wife, and could I unite in a single woman, the virtues and accomplishments of half a dozen of my acquaintance, I would instantly pay my addresses to the Constellations.”
The requirements were that one should be as a mistress; the second, a lively entertaining acquaintance; the third, a sincere good-natured friend; the fourth should preside with grace and dignity at the head of his table and family; the fifth, an excellent economist and housekeeper; the sixth, a very useful nurse!
It was suggested to him by Madame Necker that he might do well to marry, though she assured him, with, perhaps a bit of malice, that to marry happily one must marry young. He thus expressed himself regarding the state of celibacy:—
“I am not in love with any of the hyaenas of Lausanne, though there are some who keep their claws tolerably well pared. Sometimes, in a solitary mood, I have fancied myself married to one or another of those whose society and conversation are the most pleasing to me; but when I have painted in my fancy all the probable consequences of such a union, I have started from my dream, rejoiced in my escape, and ejaculated a thanksgiving that I was still in possession of my natural freedom.”