passions lead us to follow our own course, and, in order not to swerve
from it, we impatiently repel the demands of others; so, in our later
days, it becomes highly advantageous to us, should any sympathy excite
and determine us, cordially, to new activity. I therefore instantly
undertook the preparatory labor of separating the poems, both great and
small, of my twelve volumes, and of arranging them according to years. I
strove to recall the times and circumstances under which each had been
produced. But the task soon grew more difficult, as full explanatory
notes and illustrations were necessary to fill up the chasms between
those which had already been given to the world. For, in the first
place, all on which I had originally exercised myself were wanting, many
that had been begun and not finished were also wanting, and of many that
were finished even the external form had completely disappeared, having
since been entirely reworked and cast into a different shape. Besides, I
had also to call to mind how I had labored in the sciences and other
arts, and what, in such apparently foreign departments, both
individually and in conjunction with friends, I had practised in
silence, or had laid before the public.

All this I wished to introduce by degrees for the satisfaction of my
well-wishers, but my efforts and reflections always led me farther on;
since while I was anxious to comply with that very considerate request,
and labored to set forth in succession my internal emotions, external
influences, and the steps which, theoretically and practically, I had
trod, I was carried out of my narrow private sphere into the wide world.
The images of a hundred important men, who either directly or indirectly
had influenced me, presented themselves to my view; and even the
prodigious movements of the great political world, which had operated
most extensively upon me, as well as upon the whole mass of my
contemporaries, had to be particularly considered. For this seems to be