It is difficult to be
more detached from life than I am at present.
"To conclude historically with my own character, I am, or rather
was (for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself,
which emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments); I was, I say,
a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open,
social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little
susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions.
Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my
temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was
not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the
studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the
company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the
reception I met with from them. In a word, though most men any wise
eminent, have found reason to complain of calumny, I never was
touched or even attacked by her baleful tooth; and though I
wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious
factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their wonted
fury. My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one
circumstance of my character and conduct; not but that the zealots,
we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate
any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find any which
they thought would wear the face of probability.
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