My tasks increase upon my hands; one begets another; and I am dismayed when I look at what I have undertaken to accomplish in so short a space as the remainder of my life.

* * * My health is good; my body is so robust that neither ripe years, nor grave occupations, nor abstinence, nor penance, can totally subdue that _kicking ass_ on whom I am constantly making war.

I count upon the grace of Heaven, without which I should infallibly fall, as I fell in other times.

All my reliance is on Christ.

With regard to my fortune, I am exactly in a just mediocrity, equally distant from the two extremes * * * * "I inhabit a retired corner of the city towards the west.