Oh! with
what different feelings, with what a sharp and sudden emotion did I
re-peruse the same question yester-morning, having by accident opened
the book at the page upon which it was written. I was moved; for it
was Admiral Sir Alexander Ball who first proposed the question to me,
and the particular satisfaction which he expressed had occasioned me
to note down the substance of my reply. I was moved; because to this
conversation I was indebted for the friendship and confidence with
which he afterwards honoured me, and because it recalled the memory
of one of the most delightful mornings I ever passed; when, as we
were riding together, the same person related to me the principal
events of his own life, and introduced them by adverting to this
conversation. It recalled too the deep impression left on my mind by
that narrative--the impression that I had never known any analogous
instance, in which a man so successful had been so little indebted to
fortune, or lucky accidents, or so exclusively both the architect and
builder of his own success.
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