18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 35

[cahn]

In the previous post Charles II found AITA:

Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?

Comments

Re: Colonel John O'Sullivan's memoirs

[mildred_of_midgard]

but maybe it was a custom among the English speaking/writing mid 18th century memoirists? (By contrast, the German-French - i.e. by Germans, written in French - memoirs from the same era or slightly earlier I knew are written in the first person.)

Didn't Fritz, though? I always assumed these people were following Caesar's example. Especially since both Fritz and O'Sullivan are writing about military matters.

It's worth noting that James Keith's military memoirs were first-person, though.