by a natural giddiness; I take it as it is at the instant I consider it; I do not paint its being, I paint its passage; not a passing from one age to another, or, as the people say, from seven to seven years, but from day to day, from minute to minute, I must accommodate my history to the hour:  I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.  ’Tis a counterpart of various and changeable accidents, and of irresolute imaginations, and, as it falls out, sometimes contrary:  whether it be that I am then another self, or that I take subjects by other circumstances and considerations:  so it is that I may peradventure contradict myself, but, as Demades said, I never contradict the truth.  Could my soul once take footing, I would not essay but resolve:  but it is always learning and making trial.

I propose a life ordinary and without lustre:  ’tis all one; all moral philosophy may as well be applied to a common and private life, as to one of richer composition:  every man carries the entire form of human condition.  Authors communicate themselves to the people by some especial and extrinsic mark; I, the first of any, by my universal being; as Michel de Montaigne, not as a grammarian, a poet, or a lawyer.  If the world find fault that I speak too much of myself, I find fault that they do not so much as think of themselves.  But is it reason that, being so particular in my way of living, I should pretend to recommend myself to the public knowledge?  And is it also reason that I should produce to the world, where art and handling have so much credit and authority, crude and simple effects of nature, and of a weak nature to boot?  Is it not to build a wall without stone or brick, or some such thing, to write books without learning and without art?  The fancies of music are carried on by art; mine by chance.  I have this, at least, according to discipline, that never any man treated of a subject he better understood and knew than I what I have undertaken, and that in this I am the most understanding man alive:  secondly, that never any man penetrated farther into his matter, nor better and more distinctly sifted the parts and sequences of it, nor ever more exactly and fully arrived at the end he proposed to himself.  To perfect it, I need bring nothing but fidelity to the work; and that is there, and the most pure and sincere that is anywhere to be found.  I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more, as I grow older; for, methinks, custom allows to age more liberty of prating, and more indiscretion of talking of a man’s self.  That cannot fall out here, which I often see elsewhere, that the work and the artificer contradict one another:  “Can a man of such sober conversation have written so foolish a book?” Or “Do so learned writings proceed from a man of so weak conversation?” He who talks at a very ordinary rate, and writes rare matter, ’tis to say that his capacity is borrowed