michelangelo painting

I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances)
was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have
never recovered the right course since: but I might have been very
different; I might have been as good as you- wiser- almost as
stainless. I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience,
your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory without blot or
contamination must be an exquisite treasure- an inexhaustible source
of pure refreshment: is it not?'
'How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?'
'All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had
turned it to fetid puddle. I was your equal at eighteen- quite your
equal. Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one
of the better kind, and you see I am not so. You would say you don't
see it; at least I flatter myself I read as much in your eye
(beware, by the bye, what you express with that organ; I am quick at