Note 20 — Volume II

Without anticipating the judgment which the reader, or, Eloisa may pass on the following narratives, it may not be improper to observe, that, if I had written them myself, though I might not have made them better, I should have done it in a different manner. I was several times going to cancel them, and substitute others written in my own way in their place; but I have at length ventured to insert them as they are. I bethought myself that a young man of four and twenty ought not to see things in the same light as a man of fifty, whom experience had too well instructed to place them in a proper point of view. I reflected also, that, without having played any great part in life, I was not however, in a situation to speak with absolute impartiality. Let these letters pass then as they were originally written. The common place remarks or trivial observations that may be found in them, are but small faults, and import little. But it is of the greatest importance to a lover of truth, that to the end of his life his passions should never affect the impartiality of his writings.