The great difficulty which I find in this record of my eventful existence is, that I have too much to say. The sensations of my life will not distribute themselves properly. It is quite impossible for me to cram all that I think, say, and do every month into the limited space at my disposal. Thus I am positively overwhelmed with the brilliant dialogues, the elevating reflections, and the thrilling incidents, all of which I desire to relate. No one who has not tried this sort of thing can imagine the chronological, to say nothing of the crinological, difficulties in which I find myself. For instance, the incidents which occupied the whole of my last chapter took place in twenty-four hours, and yet how could I have left out either the poison-scene, or my interview with Grandon, or Spiffy's interesting social projects? Much better have left out the poison-scene, say some of my critical friends. It was not natural--too grotesque; but is that my fault? If nature has jammed me into a most unnatural and uncomfortable niche in that single step which is said to lead from the sublime to the ridiculous, am I responsible for it? If, instead of taking merely a serio-comic view of life, like some of my acquaintances, I regard it from a tragic-burlesque aspect, how can I help it? I did not put my ideas into my own head, nor invent the extraordinary things that happen to me,--and this is the reflection which renders me so profoundly indifferent to criticism. I shall have reviewers finding out that I am inconsistent with myself, and not true to nature here--as, for instance, when I fell violently in love with Ursula in one evening; or to the first principles of art there--as when I wrote to propose to her next morning: as if both art and nature could not take care of themselves without my bothering my head about them. Once for all, then, my difficulties do not arise from this source at all; they are, as I have said before, of the most simple character. In fact, they resolve themselves into Kant's two great _a priori_ ideas, time and space. Now I could quite easily run on in the moral reflective vein to the end of the chapter, but then what should I do with the conversations which I ought to record, but to which I shall not be able to do justice, because I am so bound and fettered by the chain of my narrative? What an idea of weakness it conveys of an author who talks of "the thread of his narrative!" I even used to feel it when I was in the diplomatic service, and received a severe "wigging" once for writing in one of my despatches, "My lord, I have the honour to resume the 'tape' of my narrative"--so wedded is the Foreign Office to the traditions of its own peculiar style. I was glad afterwards they kept me to "the thread," as when I wanted finally to break it I found no difficulty. By the way, after I have done with society, I am going to take up the departments of the public service. If I let them alone just now, it is