In the above quote Rousseau is considering an encounter he had with a priest. When treated with kindness, it is natural to feel an attachment for the person who confers the obligation we do not acquiesce because we wish to deceive, but from dread of giving uneasiness, or because we wish to avoid the ingratitude of rendering evil for good” (Rousseau). In the second book, Rousseau writes, “Flattery, or rather condescension, is not always a vice in young people 'tis oftener a virtue. While the above quote considers the nature of the self directly, other aspects of Rousseau’s text consider elements of emotion and interiority. This is a significant occurrence as it indicates that he has internalized the elements of the self that constitute an identity and then worked towards expressing them in the narrative form of the autobiography specifically, his foregrounding of the autobiography as a form of written expression demonstrates a re-imagining of what it means to be a person. In the above quote Rousseau is considering the interrelation between the self and its textual articulation in his autobiography form.
I mean to present my fellow-mortals with a man in all the integrity of nature and this man shall be myself…I know my heart, and have studied mankind I am not made like any one I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence if not better, I at least claim originality” (Rousseau).
He writes, “I have entered upon a performance which is without example, whose accomplishment will have no imitator. From the very opening lines of the ‘Confessions’ Rousseau considers the nature of the self. Additionally, the essay considers why Rousseau is the first author in the section titled ‘Romanticism’.
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