IN spite
           of the apparent diversity
         of the amusements
         that seem to attract me,
           my life has
             but one object.

    It is wholly
          bent upon the
             accomplishment
                of one great scheme.

    I am
          writing the history
               of the Penguins.

    I labour sedulously
           at this task
         without allowing myself
              to be
                  repelled by its frequent difficulties
         although at times these
              seem insuperable.

    I have
          delved into the ground
               in order
          to discover the buried
               remains of that people.

    Men's first books were stones,
           and I
              have studied the stones
             that can be regarded
                   as the primitive annals
                       of the Penguins.

    On the shore
           of the ocean
         I have ransacked
               a previously untouched tumulus,
           and in it I found,
         as usually happens,
           flint axes,
         bronze swords,
           Roman coins,
         and a twenty-sou piece
               bearing the effigy
                   of Louis-Philippe I.,
           King of the French.

    For historical times,
           the chronicle of Johannes Talpa,
         a monk
               of the monastery of Beargarden,
           has been
               of great assistance to me.

    I steeped myself the more
          thoroughly in this author
               as no other source
                   for the Penguin history
                       of the Early Middle Ages
        has yet been discovered.

    We are richer
           for the period
         that begins
               with the thirteenth century,
           richer but not better off.

    It is extremely difficult
          to write history.

    We do not know exactly
         how things have happened,
           and the historian's
             embarrassment
                increases
               with the abundance of documents
             at his disposal.

    When a fact
        is known
               through the evidence
                   of a single person,
           it is admitted
             without much hesitation.

    Our perplexities begin
         when events
            are related by two
                  or by several witnesses,
           for their evidence
            is always contradictory
                   and always irreconcilable.

    It is true
         that the scientific
             reasons for
                  preferring one piece of evidence
                       to another
            are sometimes very strong,
           but they
            are never strong enough
                   to outweigh our passions,
         our prejudices,
           our interests,
         or to overcome
             that levity of mind common
                   to all grave men.

    It follows
         that we continually
              present the facts
                   in a prejudiced
                  or frivolous manner.

    I have confided the difficulties
         that I experienced
               in writing the history
                   of the Penguins to
                  several learned archaeologists
                       and palaeographers
                   both of my own
                       and foreign countries.

    I endured their contempt.

    They looked
           at me
         with a pitying smile
          which seemed to say:
         "Do we write history?

    Do you imagine
         that we attempt
               to extract the least parcel
                   of life
                  or truth from a text
                or a document?

  We publish texts
    purely and simply.

    We keep
           to their exact letter.

    The letter alone
        is definite and perceptible.

    It is not so
           with the spirit;
        ideas are crotchets.

    A man
        must be very vain
              to write history,
           for to do so
            requires imagination."

    All this
        was in the glances
               and smiles of our masters
                   in palaeography,
           and their behaviour
              discouraged me deeply.

    One day
          after a conversation
               with an eminent sigillographer,
           I was
             even more depressed than usual,
         when I suddenly thought:

    "After all,
           there are historians;
        the race
            has not entirely disappeared.

    Some five
          or six of them
        have been
              preserved at the Academy
                   of Moral Sciences.

    They do not publish texts;
        they write history.

    They will not tell me
         that one
            must be a vain fellow
                  to take up