Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of what has taken place during the day, and will pass the time. I rarely sleep till two o'clock, so I will employ myself, as Angelique says, en faisant mes memoires. This sounds very grand, and so much more ambitious than just scribbling, which is what these little reminiscences really are. I trust I am no poseur: merely a plain man writing everyday happenings in time of War. October 20. Even an old bachelor has his worries. People always put us down as selfish beasts, and perhaps we are, but at any rate we only render ourselves miserable. I personally take life as I find it and try and extract some of its sweetness. May I add that I have not been altogether unsuccessful. For years I had a rooted objection to standing godfather, partly from a dislike of forming ties and also because I frankly consider the whole thing humbug. I do not feel myself fit to guide any young person in the right path. Who is to decide which is the right path ? I have my own private and fixed ideas on the subject, while most of my friends hold other views. The picture presents itself of the aforesaid young person being pulled in different directions by his or her parents and myself. When, at length, in a moment of weakness, I consented to stand sponsor for the daughter of an old friend, I mentally decided that beyond the inevitable cup and something in the nature of a cheque the day she married I would have nothing more to do with her. How astonished I should have been could I have foreseen events; but then life is always like that, and tramples ruthlessly on our most cherished plans. First I must go back a little. Some years ago, during one of those passing fits of acquisitiveness which seize us all at times, I bought a small country house near Blois. I bought it very cheap, and at di...