Had I continued in the station I was now in, I had room for all the happy things to have yet befallen me for which my father so earnestly recommended a quiet, retired life, and of which he had so sensibly described the middle station of life to be full of; but other things attended me, and I was still to be the wilful agent of all my own miseries; and particularly, to increase my fault, and double the reflections upon myself, which in my future sorrows I should have leisure to make, all these miscarriages were procured by my apparent obstinate adhering to my foolish inclination of wandering abroad, and pursuing that inclination, in contradiction to the clearest views of doing myself good in a fair and plain pursuit of those prospects, and those measures of life, which nature and Providence concurred to present me with, and to make my duty.
Mais ce n'était pas là mon sort; je devais être derechef l'agent obstiné de mes propres misères; je devais accroître ma faute, et doubler les reproches que dans mes afflictions futures j'aurais le loisir de me faire. Toutes ces infortunes prirent leur source dans mon attachement manifeste et opiniâtre à ma folle inclination de courir le monde, et dans mon abandon à cette passion, contrairement à la plus évidente perspective d'arriver à bien par l'honnête et simple poursuite de ce but et de ce genre de vie, que la nature et la Providence concouraient à m'offrir pour l'accomplissement de mes devoirs.