Note 15 — Chapter II · WRITERS IN DEFENCE OF SUICIDE.
Reading edition
It is generally believed that Rousseau killed himself by taking arsenic; but this has been denied. Judging from the character and disposition of the man, we should feel disposed to credit the statement respecting his voluntary death. Rousseau always maintained that the following stanza of Tasso had a direct application to him, and accurately described his feelings and position in the world—
“Still, still ’tis mine with grief and shame to rove, A dire example of disastrous love; While keen remorse for ever breaks my rest, And raging furies haunt my conscious breast, The lonely shades with terror must I view, The shades shall every dreadful thought renew: The rising sun shall equal horrors yield, The sun that first the dire event revealed; Still must I view myself with hateful eye, And seek, though vainly, from myself to fly.”