Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/403



“to a certain extent mistaken in anything,—my fault was not precipitancy.

“In the same circumstances I should do againyet a little quickerexactly, exactly the same.

“Even if it happened that a higher power than yours disapproved anything which I did,-(except perhaps the peculiarity of my style, which is a part of myself, a defect for which I am as little responsible as a stammerer for defect;)—even if that happened but no, that cannot be, even if it were so I have done my.

“Certainly I am sorry—yet without being astonished,—that you judge differently of this; and as far as regards myself, I should rely upon what appears to me to be a slightbut there is a question about, and I have conscientious reasons which require that it shall be decided which opinion is correct, or.

“Serve otherwise than I served at Lebak, I cannot.

“If the Government desires to be served otherwise, then I shall be obliged as an honest man to ask the Government to discharge me;—then I must endeavour, at the age of thirty-six years, to commence a new career;—then I, after seventeen years, after seventeen heavy difficult years of service as a functionary, after having devoted the best of my lifetime to what I considered to be my duty, then I must again ask society for bread, if if will give me bread, for my wife and child—bread in exchange