I should have relished my condition, perhaps have been an honor to it, and after having passed a life of happy obscurity, surrounded by my family, I should have died at peace.

Soon it may be forgotten, but while remembered it would have been with tenderness and regret.
Instead of this--what a picture am I about to draw!--Alas! why should I anticipate the miseries I have endured?
The reader will have but too much of the melancholy subject.
THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU (In 12 books) Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society London, 1903.