“My own amusement during idle hours was my only motivation when I began to write “Darling”; and then the general favorable opinion of the people of the same earth about the taste of my amusements forced me to send this work to print, corrected as much as possible. Then I had time to correct it even more, being prompted to do so by the printed and written praise given to my work. Receiving them with due gratitude, I do not feed on my pride so much that I could not feel my insufficiency in the expressions of one unknown person, who, in his polite verses, was pleased to call his essay, “Darling”, the creation of Darling herself. My ancestors, serving with faith and truth to the sovereign and the fatherland, with a good name simple among the nobility, did not leave me an example of elevating myself above the ordinary corruption of man. I, not being one of the established writers, feel how much I owe many people to the complacency with which they replace errors that may appear in my writings..."