Notes taken in sixty years

"Ben. Franklin, Sol. Smith and Horace Greeley have written of themselves and their times. So have Argo, Lamartine, and many others. Abler men than I, no doubt; but because Jupiter is a great planet, do we say the little star shall not twinkle? And why, then, may not I write modestly of myself and times? As it would make the book too big for any writer to tell all the truth about himself, I need not tell distasteful things. It is therefore a safe business to write a memoir, as anything one would rather not tell can be left out; and if I think of any dubious things in my own life, I can pass them over. Great slices of the actual life of any man must be thrown aside, whether he or another tells the tale; but if the reader hankers after the untold, thinking it might be savory with peccadillos or the like, let him imagine the void filled with his own shortcomings, and he need not care to feast on those of men no better than himself."--From page [1].