in a very weakly and infirm state; my birth cost my mother her life, and
was the first of my misfortunes. I am ignorant how my father supported
her loss at that time, but I know he was ever after inconsolable. In me
he still thought he saw her he so tenderly lamented, but could never
forget I had been the innocent cause of his misfortune, nor did he ever
embrace me, but his sighs, the convulsive pressure of his arms, witnessed
that a bitter regret mingled itself with his caresses, though, as may be
supposed, they were not on this account less ardent. When he said to me,
"Jean Jacques, let us talk of your mother," my usual reply was, "Yes,
father, but then, you know, we shall cry," and immediately the tears
started from his eyes. "Ah!" exclaimed he, with agitation, "Give me back
my wife; at least console me for her loss; fill up, dear boy, the void
she has left in my soul. Could I love thee thus wert thou only my son?"
Forty years after this loss he expired in the arms of his second wife,
but the name of the first still vibrated on his lips, still was her image
engraved on his heart.

Such were the authors of my being: of all the gifts it had pleased Heaven
to bestow on them, a feeling heart was the only one that descended to me;
this had been the source of their felicity, it was the foundation of all
my misfortunes.

I came into the world with so few signs of life, that they entertained
but little hope of preserving me, with the seeds of a disorder that has
gathered strength with years, and from which I am now relieved at
intervals, only to suffer a different, though more intolerable evil.
I owed my preservation to one of my father's sisters, an amiable and
virtuous girl, who took the most tender care of me; she is yet living,
nursing, at the age of four--score, a husband younger than herself, but
worn out with excessive drinking. Dear aunt! I freely forgive your