Retrospect Of A Long Life

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Excerpt from Retrospect of a Long Life: From 1815 to 1883 In this "Retrospect of a Long Life," I submit to my readers the history of a career that has been full and varied, as well as long. I have lived in eventful times: rather, perhaps, as an observer than an actor. I am like the waiter who, at a well-furnished table, will take better note of the guests than he who is numbered among them. I have matter to record that would have been passed by unheeded of those who enjoyed scats of honor at the feast. I write almost entirely from memory - I have kept no journal of any kind; the undestroyed letters that remain to me are few; and for dates I shall generally have to refer to publications of the period I am dealing with. These pages will therefore be, in all strictness, "Recollections." At no period of my life, until one comparatively recent, did I foresee a time when, by writing of the events I had witnessed and the people I have known, I could produce a work that might be of benefit to the world. If I think otherwise now, it is because the conviction has been, in a measure, forced upon me; and should the reader derive either pleasure or profit from the perusal of these pages, he will owe it to the suggestion and liberality of Mr. Appleton, of New York. At the beginning of my task, I am warned by a knowledge of numerous failures in the forms of "Reminiscences," "Memoirs," and "Autobiographies" - "Diaries" more especially - of the errors into which writers of such works are so liable to fall. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.