That George Sand’s “Histoire de Ma Vie” afforded its author more than her proper share of contentment is evidenced by its length, and by the relish which is stamped on every page. Sir Leslie Stephen pronounced it the best autobiography he had ever read. It seems to have delighted him as Rousseau’s “Confessions” delighted Emerson; which goes to prove that intellectual kinship need not necessarily be accompanied by any similarity of taste. “If we would really know our hearts,” says Bishop Wilson, “let us impartially review our actions.” George Sand and Rousseau reviewed their actions with the fondest solicitude; but were biased in their own favour. Gibbon reviewed his actions, and such emotions as he was aware of, with an impartiality that staggers us; but his heart, at no time an intrusive organ, gave him little concern. Franklin, with whom truth-telling was never an “ecstasy,” but a natural process like breathing and eating, reviewed his actions candidly, if not altogether impartially, and left the record without boast, or apology, or the reticence dictated by taste, to the judgment of coming generations. He was a busy man, engaged, like Sully, in making history on a large scale. It pleased him, not only to write his recollections, but to bequeath them, as he bequeathed so much else, to the young nation that he loved. He never sought to patent his inventions. He never sought to publish his autobiography. His large outlook embraced the future, and America was his residuary legatee. John Wesley kept a journal for fifty-five years. This is one of the most amazing facts in the history of letters. He was beyond comparison the hardest worker of his day. John Stuart Mill, who knew too much and did too much for any one man, also wrote an autobiography, which the reading world has been content to ignore. But Mill’s failing health compelled him sometimes to rest. Wesley never rested. It is estimated that for over thirty years he rode, on an average, eight thousand miles a year. He preached in his lifetime full thirty thousand sermons--an overwhelming and relentless figure. He wrestled with lagging Churchmen of the Establishment no less than with zealous Antinomians, Swedenborgians, Necessitarians, Anabaptists and Quakers. Other records of human endeavour read like the idling of a summer day alongside of his supernatural activities. Yet so great is the compulsion of the born diarist to confide to the world the history of his thoughts and deeds that Wesley found time--or took time--to write, in a minute, cryptic short-hand, a diary which fills seven large volumes. He not only wanted to do this; he _had_ to do it. The narrative, now bald and itemized, now stirring and spirited, now poignant and terrible, was part of himself. He might have said of it more truly than Walt Whitman said of “Leaves of Grass,” that whoever laid hold upon the book laid hold upon a man.