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TO

What could excite in you any curiosity
as to my affairs? You once knew me a simple lad,
plying the file and tweezers at the bench of a watchmaker,
with no prospect before me but of laboring, for a
few years at least, as a petty and obscure journeyman,
at the same bench where I worked five years as an apprentice.
I was sprung from obscurity, destitute of property,
of parents, of paternal friends; was full of that
rustic diffidence, that inveterate humility, which are alone
sufficient to divert from us the stream of fortune's favors.

Such was I three years ago! Now am I rich, happy,
crowned with every terrestrial felicity, in possession of
that most exquisite of all blessings, a wife, endowed with
youth, grace, dignity, discretion.

I do not, on second thoughts, wonder at your curiosity.
It was impossible for me to have foreseen, absurd to

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have hoped for such a destiny. All that has happened,
was equally beyond my expectations and deservings.

You ask me, how all these surprising things came
about? The enclosed letters, which I have put into a
regular series, contain all the information you wish. The
packet is a precious one; you will find in it a more
lively and exact picture of my life, than it is possible,
by any other means, to communicate. Preserve it, therefore,
with care, and return it safely and entire, as soon
as you have have read it.