now write.

But these memories must be calmed and disciplined. I must be collected
and impartial over my narrative--if it be only to make that narrative
show fairly and truly, without suppression or exaggeration, all that I
have owed to her.

Not merely all that I _have_ owed to her; but all that I owe to her
now. Though I may never see her again, but in my thoughts; still she
influences, comforts, cheers me on to hope, as if she were already the
guardian spirit of the cottage where I live. Even in my worst moments
of despair, I can still remember that Clara is thinking of me and
sorrowing for me: I can still feel that remembrance, as an invisible
hand of mercy which supports me, sinking; which raises me, fallen;
which may yet lead me safely and tenderly to my hard journey's end.

VI.

I have now completed all the preliminary notices of my near relatives,
which it is necessary to present in these pages; and may proceed at
once to the more immediate subject of my narrative.

Imagine to yourself that my father and my sister have been living for
some months at our London residence; and that I have recently joined
them, after having enjoyed a short tour on the continent.

My father is engaged in his parliamentary duties. We see very little
of him. Committees absorb his mornings--debates his evenings. When he
has a day of leisure occasionally, he passes it in his study, devoted
to his own affairs. He goes very little into society--a political