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.
You have seen my youth pass away calmly without any great disappointments or remarkable prosperity.This was mostly owing to my ardent yet feeble nature, less prompt in undertaking than easy to discourage: quitting repose by 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.
The first part of my confessions was written entirely 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 remembrance of the finest portion of my years, passed with so much tranquility and innocence, has left in my heart a thousand charming impressions which I love to call to my recollection.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 misfortunes, but I cannot forget my faults, and still less my virtuous sentiments.The remembrance of these is too dear to me ever to suffer them to be effaced from my mind.I may omit facts, transpose events, and fall into some errors of dates; but I cannot be deceived in what I have felt, nor in that which from sentiment I have done; and to relate this is the chief end of my present work.The real object of my confessions is to communicate an exact knowledge of what Iinteriorly am and have been in every situation of my life.I have promised the history of my mind, and to write it faithfully I have no need of other memoirs: to enter into my own heart, as I have hitherto done, will alone be sufficient.
There is, however, and very happily, an interval of six or seven years, relative to which I have exact references, in a collection of letters copied from the originals, in the hands of M.du Peyrou.
This collection, which concludes in 1760, comprehends the whole time of my residence at the hermitage, and my great quarrel with those who called themselves my friends; that memorable epocha of my life, and the source of all my other misfortunes.With respect to more recent original letters which may remain in my possession, and are but few in number, instead of transcribing them at the end of this collection, too voluminous to enable me to deceive the vigilance of my Arguses, I will copy them into the work whenever they appear to furnish any explanation, be this either for or against myself; for Iam not under the least apprehension lest the reader should forget Imake my confession, and be induced to believe I make my apology; but he cannot expect I shall conceal the truth when it testifies in my favor.
This second part, it is likewise to be remembered, contains nothing in common with the first, except truth; nor has any other advantage over it, but the importance of the facts; in everything else, it is inferior to the former.I wrote the first with pleasure, with satisfaction, and at my ease, at Wootton, or in the castle of Trye: everything I had to recollect was a new enjoyment.I returned to my closet with an increased pleasure, and, without constraint, gave that turn to my descriptions which most flatters my imagination.
At present my head and memory are become so weak as to render me almost incapable of every kind of application: my present undertaking is the result of constraint, and a heart full of sorrow.Ihave nothing to treat of but misfortunes, treacheries, perfidies, and circumstances equally afflicting.I would give the world, could I bury in the obscurity of time, everything I have to say, and which, in spite of myself, I am obliged to relate.I am, at the same time, under the necessity of being mysterious and subtle, of endeavoring to impose and of descending to things the most foreign to my nature.The ceiling under which I write has eyes; the walls of my chamber have ears.Surrounded by spies and by vigilant and malevolent inspectors, disturbed, and my attention diverted, I hastily commit to paper a few broken sentences, which I have scarcely time to read, and still less to correct.I know that, notwithstanding the barriers which are multiplied around me, my enemies are afraid truth should escape by some little opening.What means can I take to introduce it to the world? This, however, I attempt with but few hopes of success.The reader will judge whether or not such a situation furnishes the means of agreeable descriptions, or of giving them a seductive coloring! I therefore inform such as may undertake to read this work, that nothing can secure them from weariness in the prosecution of their task, unless it be the desire of becoming more fully acquainted with a man whom they already know, and a sincere love of justice and truth.