Note 26 — Chapter XXIII
Reading edition
The rough journal from which I have with much trouble compiled this copy is here so confused and imperfect as to be of little or no use; and my great auxiliaries—letters to my wife, from which I was enabled to correct or confirm dates, and to make more circumstantial many subjects only mentioned in the journal—I have unwittingly destroyed. During my stay at Stain, too, I wrote by fits and starts. Amongst new scenes of every kind, and new people, the excitement was too great to admit of shutting one’s self up for study or writing. Thus, from the period I have now reached, my means are so few, that it is quite impossible to bring my journal (as I wished) down to our final departure from France—as complete as it might have been.