# Quote — Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile; or On Education

> Supper was hurried forward on our account. When we went into the dining-room there were five places laid; we took our seats and the fifth chair remained empty. Presently a young girl entered, made a deep courtesy, and modestly took her place without a word. Emile was busy with his supper or considering how to reply to what was said to him; he bowed to her and continued talking and eating. The main object of his journey was as far from his thoughts as he believed himself to be from the end of his journey. The conversation turned upon our losing our way. "Sir," said the master of the house to Emile, "you seem to be a pleasant well-behaved young gentleman, and that reminds me that your tutor and you arrived wet and weary like Telemachus and Mentor in the island of Calypso." "Indeed," said Emile, "we have found the hospitality of Calypso." His Mentor added, "And the charms of Eucharis." But Emile knew the Odyssey and he had not read Telemachus, so he knew nothing of Eucharis. As for the young girl, I saw she blushed up to her eyebrows, fixed her eyes on her plate, and hardly dared to breathe. Her mother, noticing her confusion, made a sign to her father to turn the conversation. When he talked of his lonely life, he unconsciously began to relate the circumstances which brought him into it; his misfortunes, his wife's fidelity, the consolations they found in their marriage, their quiet, peaceful life in their retirement, and all this without a word of the young girl; it is a pleasing and a touching story, which cannot fail to interest. Emile, interested and sympathetic, leaves off eating and listens. When finally this best of men discourses with delight of the affection of the best of women, the young traveller, carried away by his feelings, stretches one hand to the husband, and taking the wife's hand with the other, he kisses it rapturously and bathes it with his tears. Everybody is charmed with the simple enthusiasm of the young man; but the daughter, more deeply touched than the rest by this evidence of his kindly heart, is reminded of Telemachus weeping for the woes of Philoctetus. She looks at him shyly, the better to study his countenance; there is nothing in it to give the lie to her comparison.

- Author: [Jean Jacques Rousseau](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau.md)
- Book: [Emile; or On Education](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_V) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/supper-was-hurried