At length I conceived the plan of Political Justice. I was convinced
that my object of building to myself a name would never be attained by
merely repeating and refining a little upon what other men had said,
even though I should imagine that I delivered things of this sort with a
more than usual point and elegance. The world, I believed, would accept
nothing from me with distinguishing favour that did not bear upon the
face of it the undoubted stamp of originality. Having long ruminated
upon the principles of Political Justice, I persuaded myself that I
could offer to the public, in a treatise on this subject, things at once
new, true, and important. In the progress of the work I became more
sanguine and confident. I talked over my ideas with a few familiar
friends during its progress, and they gave me every generous
encouragement. It happened that the fame of my book, in some
inconsiderable degree, got before its publication, and a certain number
of persons were prepared to receive it with favour. It would be false
modesty in me to say that its acceptance, when published, did not nearly
come up to everything that could soberly have been expected by me. In
consequence of this, the tone of my mind, both during the period in
which I was engaged in the work and afterwards, acquired a certain
elevation, and made me now unwilling to stoop to what was insignificant.

I formed a conception of a book of fictitious adventure that should in
some way be distinguished by a very powerful interest. Pursuing this
idea, I invented first the third volume of my tale, then the second, and
last of all the first. I bent myself to the conception of a series of
adventures of flight and pursuit; the fugitive in perpetual apprehension
of being overwhelmed with the worst calamities, and the pursuer, by his
ingenuity and resources, keeping his victim in a state of the most
fearful alarm. This was the project of my third volume. I was next