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CHAPTER XXXVII
OF THE RESEMBLANCE BETWEENE CHILDREN AND
FATHERS
THIS hudling up of so much trash, or packing of so
many severall pieces, is done so strangely, as I never
lay hands on it but when an over lazie idlenesse urgeth
me, and nowhere but in mine owne house. So has it
beene compact at sundry pauses, and contrived at severall
intervalls, as occasions have sometime for many
months together, here and there in other places detained
me. Besides, I never correct my first imaginations
by the second, it may happen I now and then
alter some word rather to divcrsifie then take any thing
away. My purpose is to represent the progress of my
humours, that every part be seen or member distinguished
as it was produced. I would to God I had
begunne sooner, and knew the tracke of my changes
and course of my variations. A boy whom I employed
to write for me supposed he had gotten a rich bootie
when he stole some parts which he best liked; but one
thing comforts me, that he shall gaine no more than I
lost by them. I am growne elder by seven or eight
yeares since I beganne them ; nor hath it beene without
some new purchase. I have by the liberality of
years acquainted my selfe with the stone-chollike.
Their commerce and long conversation is not easily
past over without some such-like fruite. I would be
glad that of many other presents they have ever in
store, to bestow upon such as waite upon them long,
they had made choice of some one that had beene
more acceptable unto me : for they could never possess
me with any that, even from my infancy, I hated more.