private articles, which will spend their use amongst the men that are now
living, and that concern the particular knowledge of some who will see
further into them than every common reader. I will not, after all, as I
often hear dead men spoken of, that men should say of me: "He judged, he
lived so and so; he would have done this or that; could he have spoken
when he was dying, he would have said so or so, and have given this thing
or t'other; I knew him better than any." Now, as much as decency
permits, I here discover my inclinations and affections; but I do more
willingly and freely by word of mouth to any one who desires to be
informed. So it is that in these memoirs, if any one observe, he will
find that I have either told or designed to tell all; what I cannot
express, I point out with my finger:

"Verum animo satis haec vestigia parva sagaci
Sunt, per quae possis cognoscere caetera tute"

["By these footsteps a sagacious mind many easily find all other
matters (are sufficient to enable one to learn the rest well.)"
--Lucretius, i. 403.]

I leave nothing to be desired or to be guessed at concerning me. If
people must be talking of me, I would have it to be justly and truly; I
would come again, with all my heart, from the other world to give any one
the lie who should report me other than I was, though he did it to honour
me. I perceive that people represent, even living men, quite another
thing than what they really are; and had I not stoutly defended a friend
whom I have lost,--[De la Boetie.]--they would have torn him into a
thousand contrary pieces.

To conclude the account of my poor humours, I confess that in my travels