But it is as a literary man pure and simple—that is to say, as an exponent rather than as an originator of ideas—that Rousseau is most noteworthy, and that he has exercised most influence.
The first thing noticeable about him is that he defies all customary and mechanical classification. He is not a dramatist—his work as such is insignificant—nor a novelist, for, though his two chief works except the Confessions are called novels, Emile is one only in name, and La Nouvelle Heloise is as a story diffuse, prosy and awkward to a degree. He was without command of poetic form, and he could only be called a philosopher in an age when the term was used with such meaningless laxity as was customary in the 18th century. If he must be classed, he was before all things a describer—a describer of the passions of the human heart and of the beauties of nature. In the first part of his vocation the novel ists of his own youth, such as Marivaux, Richardson and Prevost.
may be said to have shown him the way ; in the second he was almost a creator. In combining the two and expressing the effect of nature on the feelings and of the feelings on the aspect of nature he was absolutely without a forerunner or a model. And, as literature since his time has been chiefly differentiated from literature before it by the colour and tone resulting from this combination, Rousseau may be said to hold, as an influence, a place almost unrivalled in literary history. The defects of all sentimental writing are noticeable in him, but they are palliated by his wonderful feeling, and by the passionate sincerity even of his insincere passages.