Chapter XL

This account of my youth I have for the present put aside to be considered later, whether to destroy it or not.

I discover in writing these remembrances that I have found pleasure in recalling many small circumstances which I had forgot. I also observe that, as I have written very little but letters in my life, the habit of writing as if for another’s eyes than my own has prevailed, without intention on my part; but this can do no harm, seeing that all this has been set down only in order that I may for my own satisfaction consider as an old man what judgment I should pass on my acts as a young one.

As I shall retain for a season what I have written, I desire that, in case of accident to me, these pages should not for a long time be allowed to come to the general eye. The letters left among these leaves I intend to restore to their proper files.

DIARY――DECEMBER 7, 1799

Rainy morning; mercury at 37. Afternoon clear and pleasant. Dined with Lord Fairfax at Belvoir.

In the evening felt somewhat a lowness of mind, and am reminded, as I write, that I have never had the inclination to set down in my diary other than practical matters. To distract my thoughts, I began to run over what was wrote last year and to consider of what has passed since I wrote, and of what must be done with what was written. My late brother Charles dying in September, I am the only male left of the second marriage. We are no long-lived people, and when I shall be called to follow them is known only to the Giver of Life. When the summons comes, I shall endeavour to obey it with a good grace.

I have had much anxiety during the past two years concerning my country, and especially as to the indignities inflicted on us by the French, and a certain relief not to be again called, at my age, into the field. I may have been too anxious, but a bystander sees more of the game than they who are playing, and I believe I have had cause to feel uneasy. But the Ship of State is afloat, or very nearly so, and, considering myself as a passenger only, I shall trust to Heaven and the mariners, whose duty it is to steer us into a safe port of peace and prosperity.

[The general died on December fourteenth of this year, seventeen hundred and ninety-nine.]

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Transcriber’s Notes:

――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

――Archaic and variable spelling, and misspellings in correspondence,
have been preserved.

――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.