PART V PARIS—ITALY—PARIS (1847-1852)

As I begin to publish yet another part of My Past and Thoughts, I pause in hesitation at the fragmentariness of my narratives, my pictures, and the running commentary of my reflections. There is less external unity about them than about those of the earlier parts. I cannot weld them into one. In filling in the gaps, it is very easy to give the whole thing a different background and a different lighting—the truth of the period would be lost. My Past and Thoughts is not an historical monograph, but the reflection of historical events on a man who has accidentally been thrown into contact with them. That is why I have decided to leave my disconnected chapters as they were, stringing them together like the mosaic pictures in Italian bracelets—all of which refer to one subject but are only held together by the setting.

My Letters from France and Italy are essential for completing this part, especially in regard to the year 1848; I had meant to make extracts from them, but that would have involved so much reprinting that I did not attempt it.

Many things that have not appeared in The Polar Star have been put into this edition, but I cannot give everything to my readers yet, for reasons both personal and public. The time is not far off when not only the pages and chapters here omitted, but the whole volume, which is most precious to me, will be published.

Geneva, 29th July 1866.