Book VII

After two years' silence and patience, and notwithstanding my
resolutions, I again take up my pen: Reader, suspend your judgment
as to the reasons which force me to such a step: of these you can be no
judge until you shall have read my book.

My peaceful youth has been seen to pass away calmly and agreeably without
any great disappointments or remarkable prosperity. This mediocrity was
mostly owing to my ardent yet feeble nature, less prompt in undertaking
than easy to discourage; quitting repose for violent agitations, but
returning to it from lassitude and inclinations, and which, placing me in
an idle and tranquil state for which alone I felt I was born, at a
distance from the paths of great virtues and still further from those of
great vices, never permitted me to arrive at anything great, either good
or bad. What a different account will I soon have to give of myself!
Fate, which for thirty years forced my inclinations, for thirty others
has seemed to oppose them; and this continued opposition, between my
situation and inclinations, will appear to have been the source of
enormous faults, unheard of misfortunes, and every virtue except that
fortitude which alone can do honor to adversity.

The history of the first part of my life was written from memory, and is
consequently full of errors. As I am obliged to write the second part
from memory also, the errors in it will probably be still more numerous.
The agreeable remembrance of the finest portion of my years, passed with
so much tranquillity and innocence, has left in my heart a thousand
charming impressions which I love incessantly to call to my recollection.
It will soon appear how different from these those of the rest of my life
have been. To recall them to my mind would be to renew their bitterness.
Far from increasing that of my situation by these sorrowful reflections,
I repel them as much as possible, and in this endeavor often succeed so
well as to be unable to find them at will. This facility of forgetting
my misfortunes is a consolation which Heaven has reserved to me in the
midst of those which fate has one day to accumulate upon my head. My
memory, which presents to me no objects but such as are agreeable, is the
happy counterpoise of my terrified imagination, by which I foresee
nothing but a cruel futurity.

All the papers I had collected to aid my recollection, and guide me in
this undertaking, are no longer in my possession, nor can I ever again
hope to regain them.

I have but one faithful guide on which I can depend: this is the chain of
the sentiments by which the succession of my existence has been marked,
and by these the events which have been either the cause or the effect of
the manner of it. I easily forget my