But not a word more on all this.
All summer last, my one solacement in the form of work was
writing, and sorting of old documents and recollections;
summoning out again into clearness old scenes that had now closed
on me without return. Sad, and in a sense sacred; it was like a
kind of _worship;_ the only _devout_ time I had had for a great
while past. These things I have half or wholly the intention to
burn out of the way before I myself die:--but such continues
still mainly my employment,--so many hours every forenoon; what
I call the "work" of my day;--to me, if to no other, it is
useful; to reduce matters to writing means that you shall know
them, see them in their origins and sequences, in their essential
lineaments, considerably better than you ever did before. To set
about writing my own _Life_ would be no less than horrible to me;
and shall of a certainty never be done. The common impious
vulgar of this earth, what has it to do with my life or me? Let
dignified oblivion, silence, and the vacant azure of Eternity
swallow _me;_ for my share of it, that, verily, is the
handsomest, or one handsome way, of settling my poor account with
the _canaille_ of mankind extant and to come.
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