I think, like the biographer of ancient history, Plutarch, I am enaged in writing lives--or a life--more than I am history. Sadly, too, like Plutarch, I am only too conscious that “the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.” Often a matter of much less significance, an expression or a jest will tell more of a person’s character and inclinations than one’s great achievements, the major events or the principle failures in life. And so it is that in this autobiographical work I give my particular attention to the friction of anecdote, the arresting detail, the turn of phrase, the inner life and private character, to elicit a certain moral bearing, to bring a life and a time into a moral theatre and recapitulate some of the events for the edification of others. Like Plutarch, I do not eagerly or gratuitously display my defects or whatever misdeeds of wickedness I displayed in my life. In this regard I show restraint in both the display of virtuous character, which others may not want to emulate or imitate, and the display of what is not so virtuous.