– DRAWN FROM LIFE –

let him give me tasks which require vigour and frankness, as well as straightforward, brief and hazardous execution. I could do something then. But if it needs to be subtle, toilsome, clever and tortuous, better ask somebody else.

Not all important commissions are difficult. I would have been prepared to work a little harder had that been very necessary: I am capable of doing somewhat more than I do or like to do. To the best of my knowledge I never left undone any action that duty seriously required of me; but I readily overlooked those where ambition mingles with duty and uses it as a pretext it is those which, more often than not, fill men’s eyes and ears and please them; they are satisfied not with realities but appearances. If they do not hear a sound they think you are asleep! My own humours are opposed to noisy ones: I could certainly remain undisturbed while quelling a disturbance, and could punish a riot without losing my temper. Should I need a little choler and fire, then I borrow some to mask me. My manners are unabrasive, more insipid than sharp: I do not bring actions against an official who dozes, provided that those whom he administers can doze quietly with him. That is the way the laws doze.

Personally I favour an obscure mute life which slips by: ‘neque submissam et abjectam, neque se efferentem’ [neither submissive and mean nor puffed up]. That is how my Fortune wills it: I was born into a family which has flowed on without brilliance or turbulence, one

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