It is my habit to give an account to myself of the characters I meet with: can I giveany true account of my own? I am a bachelor, without domestic distractions of anysort, and have all my life been an attentive companion to myself, flattering mynature agreeably on plausible occasions, reviling it rather bitterly when it mortifiedme, and in general remembering its doings and sufferings with a tenacity which istoo apt to raise surprise if not disgust at the careless inaccuracy of myacquaintances, who impute to me opinions I never held, express their desire toconvert me to my favourite ideas, forget whether I have ever been to the East, andare capable of being three several times astonished at my never having told thembefore of my accident in the Alps, causing me the nervous shock which has eversince notably diminished my digestive powers. Surely I ought to know myself betterthan these indifferent outsiders can know me; nay, better even than my intimatefriends, to whom I have never breathed those items of my inward experience whichhave chiefly shaped my life.