My cousin, Rousseau, in his Armenian Get-up
Self-proclaimed "lone wolf"
It bears recounting that my cousin, the so-called "persecuted celebrity" has confided to me in the strictest of confidences that the immorality which he ascribed to his life was a deliberate attempt to gain popularity with sympathetic supporters who have nothing better to do with their meagre lives than prey on the misfortunes of others.
He cared not for the affairs of the common man but for the ideals the common man represented. He was discontent to spend more than a quarter of an evening in the company of men and women below his rank, claiming that he had to retire to his writings and contemplations, or some other wild tale of fears on his safety and need to procure it.
Of the inequality of men he told to me, "I am enthralled by the enthusiastic manner by which ordinary men and women conduct themselves. Their fervor for passing fancies, libel tales, and underlings is extraordinary and could make comfortable any person so inclined to make fortune from its veridical reality."
In practice, my cousin would no sooner hesitate to wake a milkmaid in the middle of the night to fetch him a bite of bread and a cup of wine than to let her rest from the days labors. The only true contract to which he has ascribed himself to keep is that of profiting from the discontent of others.
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