My head, (if I may use the simile) screwed up to the pitch of an instrument it did not naturally accord with, had lost its diapason; in time it returned to it again, when I discontinued my follies, or at least gave in to those more consonant to my disposition.

This epoch of my youth I am least able to recollect, nothing having passed sufficiently interesting to influence my heart, to make me clearly retrace the remembrance.

In so many successive changes, it is difficult not to make some transpositions of time or place.

I write absolutely from memory, without notes or materials to help my recollection.

Some events are as fresh in my idea as if they had recently happened, but there are certain chasms which I cannot fill up but by the aid of recital, as confused as the remaining traces of those to which they refer.