And to this habit (after
my character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I
had early so much weight with my fellow-citizens when I proposed
new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence
in public councils when I became a member; for I was but a bad speaker,
never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words,
hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my points.
In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions
so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it,
beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is
still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself;
you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I
could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably
be proud of my humility.
[Thus far written at Passy, 1784.]
["I am now about to write at home, August, 1788, but can not have
the help expected from my papers, many of them being lost in the war.
I have, however, found the following."]<8>
<8>This is a marginal memorandum.--B.
HAVING mentioned a great and extensive project which I had
conceiv'd, it seems proper that some account should be here
given of that project and its object. Its first rise in my
mind appears in the following little paper, accidentally preserv'd, viz.:
Observations on my reading history, in Library, May 19th, 1731.
"That the great affairs of the world, the wars, revolutions,
etc.
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