so soon. Men seldom reject an opportunity to talk of
themselves; and I am not unwilling to re-examine the past, to re-connect
it with the present, and to gather from a consideration of each what
hopes and expectations are still left to me for the future.

But my detail must be rather of thought than of action; most of those
whose fate has been connected with mine are now living, and I would not,
even to you, break that tacit confidence which much of my history would
require. After all, you will have no loss. The actions of another may
interest--but, for the most part, it is only his reflections which come
home to us; for few have acted, nearly all of us have thought.

My own vanity too would be unwilling to enter upon incidents which had
their origin either in folly or in error. It is true that those follies
and errors have ceased, but their effects remain. With years our faults
diminish, but our vices increase.

You know that my mother was Spanish, and that my father was one of
that old race of which so few scions remain, who, living in a distant
country, have been little influenced by the changes of fashion, and,
priding themselves on the antiquity of their names, have looked with
contempt upon the modern distinctions and the mushroom nobles which have
sprung up to discountenance and eclipse the plainness of more venerable
and solid respectability. In his youth my father had served in the army.
He had known much of men and more of books; but his knowledge, instead
of rooting out, had rather been engrafted on his prejudices. He was one
of that class (and I say it with a private reverence, though a public
regret), who, with the best intentions, have made the worst citizens,
and who think it a duty to perpetuate whatever is pernicious by having
learnt to consider it as sacred. He was a great country gentleman, a
great sportsman, and a great Tory; perhaps the three worst enemies which
a country can have. Though beneficent to the poor, he gave but a cold
reception to the rich; for he was too refined to associate with his
inferiors, and too proud to like the competition of his equals. One ball
and two dinners a-year constituted all the aristocratic portion of
our hospitality, and at the age of twelve, the noblest and youngest
companions that I possessed were a large Danish dog and a wild mountain
pony, as unbroken and as lawless as myself. It is only in later years
that we can perceive the immeasurable importance of the ea