It is pathetic—Rousseau's attempted contrast following, between the paternal neglect of his older brother and the paternal indulgence of himself:—
If this poor lad was carelessly brought up, it was quite otherwise with his brother.... My desires were so little excited, and so little crossed, that it never came into my head to have any. I can solemnly aver, that, till the time when I was bound to a master, I never knew what it was to have a whim.
Poor lad! "Never knew what it was to have a whim!" It well might be, however—his boy's life all one whim uncrossed, unchecked; no contrast of saving restraint, to make him know that he was living by whim alone! The "Confessions" truly say:—
Thus commenced the formation or the manifestation in me of that heart at once so haughty and so tender, of that effeminate and yet unconquerable character which, ever vacillating between courage and weakness, between virtue and yielding to temptation, has all along set me in contradiction to myself, and has resulted in my failing both of abstinence and enjoyment, both of prudence and pleasure.
The half-orphan becomes orphan entire, not by the death, but by the withdrawing, of the father. That father, having been accused of a misdemeanor, "preferred," Rousseau somewhat vaguely says, "to quit Geneva for the remainder of his life, rather than give up a point wherein honor and liberty appeared to him compromised." Jean Jacques was sent to board with a parson, who taught him Latin, and, along with Latin, supplied, Rousseau scornfully says, "all the accompanying mass of paltry rubbish styled education." He adds:—
The country was so entirely new to me, that I could never grow weary in my enjoyment of it; and I acquired so strong a liking for it, that it has never become extinguished.
Young Jean Jacques was at length apprenticed to an engraver. He describes the contrast of his new situation and the effect of the contrast upon his own character and career:—
I learned to covet in silence, to dissemble, to dissimulate, to lie, and at last to steal,—a propensity for which I had never hitherto had the slightest inclination, and of which I have never since been able quite to cure myself....
My first theft was the result of complaisance, but it opened the door to others which had not so laudable a motive.
My master had a journeyman named M. Verrat.... [He] took it into his head to rob his mother of some of her early asparagus and sell it, converting the proceeds into some extra good breakfasts. As he did not wish to expose himself, and not being very nimble, he selected me for this expedition.... Long did I stickle, but he persisted. I never could resist kindness, so I consented. I went every morning to the garden, gathered the best of the asparagus, and took it to "the Molard," where some good creature, perceiving that I had just been stealing it, would insinuate that little fact, so as to get it the cheaper. In my terror I took whatever she chose to give me, and carried it to M. Verrat.