Here, too, he loved to read, and to converse with Madame St.
Aubert; or to play with his children, resigning himself to the influence of those sweet affections, which are ever attendant on simplicity and nature.

He has often said, while tears of pleasure trembled in his eyes, that these were moments infinitely more delightful than any passed amid the brilliant and tumultuous scenes that are courted by the world.

His heart was occupied; it had, what can be so rarely said, no wish for a happiness beyond what it experienced.

The consciousness of acting right diffused a serenity over his manners, which nothing else could impart to a man of moral perceptions like his, and which refined his sense of every surrounding blessing.
The deepest shade of twilight did not send him from his favourite plane-tree.

He loved the soothing hour, when the last tints of light die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through aether, and are reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour, which, of all others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, and often elevates it to sublime contemplation.