False Evidence: Large Print

Fortune is the strangest mistress a man ever wooed. Who courts her she shuns, who deservesher she passes over, and on him who defies her and takes no pains to secure her she lavishes herfavours. I am one of those to whom she has shown herself most kind. Many years ago I vowedmy life away to one purpose, and that partly an immoral one. It was a purpose which held mylife. I swore to seek no end apart from it, and I put away from my thoughts all joys that were notincluded in its accomplishment. And yet, having kept my oath, I still possess in the prime of lifeeverything which a man could wish for. I am rich, and well thought of amongst my fellows. I ammarried to the woman whom I love, and life is flowing on with me as calmly and peacefully asthe murmuring waters of a woodland stream in the middle of summer. And, above all, my heartis at ease, for I have kept my vow.She is a strange mistress, indeed Nothing have I sought or deserved of her, yet everything Ihave. Whilst he who was far above me in his deservings, and whose sufferings none save myselfthoroughly understood, passed through a gloomy life, buffeted by every wind, stranded by everytide of fortune; misunderstood, wronged, falsely accused, and narrowly escaped remaining inmen's minds only as a prototype of a passionate, unforgiving, Quixotic man.