In resuming my pen some years after closing the preceding narrative, I am influenced by a desire not to have [sic; "leave"?] incomplete the record, for the sake of which chiefly this biographical sketch was undertaken, of the obligations I owe to those who have either contributed essentially to my own mental development or had a direct share in my writings and in whatever else of a public nature I have done. In the preceding pages, this record, so far as it relates to my wife, is not so detailed and precise as it ought to be; and since I lost her, I have had other help, not less deserving and requiring acknowledgment.
Note from KBJ: It appears that Mill put his autobiography aside for a few years, after his wife died. It must have been painful for him to go back to it. Mill's last words, to his stepdaughter Helen in 1873, were, "You know that I have done my work." This implies that at least some of his writings—including, perhaps, the autobiography—were completed under a sense of duty.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 