or five times before it went to press. Never could I do anything when
placed at a table, pen in hand; it must be walking among the rocks, or in
the woods; it is at night in my bed, during my wakeful hours, that I
compose; it may be judged how slowly, particularly for a man who has not
the advantage of verbal memory, and never in his life could retain by
heart six verses. Some of my periods I have turned and returned in my
head five or six nights before they were fit to be put to paper: thus it
is that I succeed better in works that require laborious attention, than
those that appear more trivial, such as letters, in which I could never
succeed, and being obliged to write one is to me a serious punishment;
nor can I express my thoughts on the most trivial subjects without it
costing me hours of fatigue. If I write immediately what strikes me, my
letter is a long, confused, unconnected string of expressions, which,
when read, can hardly be understood.

It is not only painful to me to give language to my ideas but even to
receive them. I have studied mankind, and think myself a tolerable
observer, yet I know nothing from what I see, but all from what I
remember, nor have I understanding except in my recollections. From all
that is said, from all that passes in my presence, I feel nothing,
conceive nothing, the exterior sign being all that strikes me; afterwards
it returns to my remembrance; I recollect the place, the time, the
manner, the look, and gesture, not a circumstance escapes me; it is then,
from what has been done or said, that I imagine what has been thought,
and I have rarely found myself mistaken.

So little master of my understanding when alone, let any one judge what I
must be in conversation, where to speak with any degree of ease you must
think of a thousand things at the same time: the bare idea that I should
forget something material would be sufficient to intimidate me. Nor can