I said at the beginning of the last chapter, that during the period, some of the recollections of which I had been chronicling, the two greatest sorrows I had ever known had befallen me.

A third came subsequently.

But that belonged to a period of my life which does not fall within the limits I have assigned to these reminiscences.

Of the first, the death of my mother, I have spoken.

The other, the death of my wife, followed it at no great distance, and was of course a far more terrible one.