All this is nothing and accounts for nothing, yet this is all.  Whether you were susceptible of calmness or deeply turbulent,—­whether you were amiable, or only amiably disposed,—­whether you were inwardly blest and only superficially unrestful, safely moored even while tossing on an unquiet sea,—­what you thought, what you hoped, how you felt, yes, and how you lived and loved and hated, they do not know and cannot tell.  A biographer may be ever so conscientious, but he stands on the outside of the circle of his subject, and his view will lack symmetry.  There is but one who, from his position in the centre, is competent to give a fair and full picture, and that is your own self.  A few may possess imagination, and so partially atone for the disadvantages of position; but, ten hundred thousand to one, they will not have a chance at your life.  You must die knowing that you are at the mercy of whoever can hold a pen.

Unless you take time by the forelock and write your biography yourself!  Then you will be sure to do no harm, inasmuch as no one is obliged to read your narrative; and you may do much good, because, if any one does read it and become interested in you, he will have the pleasant consciousness of living in the same world with you.  When he drives through your street, he can put his head out of the carriage-window and stand a chance of seeing you just coming in at the front gate.  Also, if you write your biography yourself, you can have your choice as to what shall go in and what shall stay out.  You can make a discreet selection of your letters, giving the go-by to that especial one in which you rather—­is there such a word as spooneyly?—­offered yourself to your wife.  Every word was as good as the Bank of England to her, for to her you were a lover, a knight, a great brown-bearded angel, and all metaphors, however violent, fell upon good ground.  But to the people who read your life you will be a trader, a lawyer, a shoemaker, who pays his butcher’s bills and looks after the main chance, and the metaphors, emptied of their fire, but retaining their form, will seem incongruous, not to say ridiculous.  I do not say that your wife’s lover and knight and angel are not a higher and a better, yes, and a truer you, than the world’s trader and lawyer; still your love-letters will probably do better in the bosom of the love-lettered than on a bookseller’s shelves.  Besides these advantages, there is another in prae-humous publication.  If you wait for your biography till you are dead, it is extremely probable you will lose it altogether.  The world has so much to see to ahead that it can hardly spare a glance over its shoulder to take note of what is behind.  Take the note yourself and make sure of it You will then know where you are, and be master of the situation.

I purpose, therefore, to write the history of my life, from my entrance upon it down to a period which is within the memory of men still living.  In so doing, I shall not be careful to trace out that common ground which may be supposed to underlie all lives, but only indicate those features which serve to distinguish one from another.  Everybody is christened, cuts his teeth, and eats bread and molasses.  Silently will we, therefore, infer the bread and molasses, and swiftly stride in seven-league boots from mountain-peak to mountain-peak.