One day, amusing himself in a characteristic manner by throwing stones at trees, he began to be tormented by fear of the eternal pit.

He resolved to test his doom by throwing a stone at a particular tree; if he hit, then salvation; if he missed, then perdition.

With a trembling hand and beating heart he threw; as he had chosen a large tree and was careful not to place himself too far away, all was well.[83] As a rule, however, in spite of the ugly phantoms of theology, he passed his days in a state of calm.

Even when illness brought it into his head that he should soon know the future lot by more assured experiment, he still preserved a tranquillity which he justly qualifies as sensual.
In thinking of Rousseau's peculiar feeling for nature, which acquired such a decisive place in his character during his life at Les Charmettes, it is to be remembered that it was entirely devoid of that stormy and boisterous quality which has grown up in more modern literature, out of the violent attempt to press nature in her most awful moods into the service of the great revolt against a social and religious tradition that can no longer be endured.

Of this revolt Rousseau was a chief, and his passion for natural aspects was connected with this attitude, but he did not seize those of them which the poet of _Manfred_, for example, forced into an imputed sympathy with his own rebellion.