I was born somewhere towards the close of the
last century,—but, the register-leaf having been
torn from the family Bible, and no one remaining
who can give me information on the point, I am
not certain as to the exact year,—in the State of
New-Jersey, in one of the oldest counties that
border upon the Delaware river. My father was
a farmer in very good circumstances, respectable
in his degree, but perhaps more famous for the
excellent sausages he used to manufacture for the
Philadelphia market, than for any quality of mind or
body that can distinguish one man from his fellows.

[figure description] Page 008.[end figure description]

Taking the hint from his success in this article of
produce, he gradually converted his whole estate
into a market-farm, raising fine fruits and vegetables,
and such other articles as are most in demand
in a city; in which enterprise he succeeded beyond
his highest expectations, and bade fair to be,
as in the end he became, a rich man. The only
obstacle to a speedy accumulation of riches was a
disproportionate increase in the agents of consumption,—
his children multiplying on his hands almost
as fast as his acres, until he could count eleven in
all; a number that filled him at one time with
consternation. He used to declare no apple could
be expected to ripen on a farm where there were
eleven children; and as for watermelons and sugar-corn,
it was folly to think of raising them longer.
But fate sent my father relief sooner and
more effectually than he either expected or desired:
nine of the eleven being removed by death in a
space of time short of six years. Three (two of
whom were twin sisters) were translated in the
natural way, falling victims to an epidemic, and
were buried in the same grave. A fourth was
soon after killed by falling out of an apple-tree.
My eldest brother, then a boy of fourteen years
old, upon some freak, ran away from home (for he
was of a wild, madcap turn), and, getting into an
oyster-boat, made a voyage into the bay, where
he was lost; for, having fallen overboard, and not
being able to swim, a clumsy fellow, who thought
to save him in that way, clutched him round the

[figure description] Page 009.[end figure description]

neck with a pair of oyster-tongs, and thereby strangled
him. Two others were drowned in a millpond,
where they were scraping for snapping-turtles.
Another, who was the wag of the family,
was killed by attempting to ride a pig, which, running
in great alarm through a broken fence into
the orchard, dashed his brains out against a whiteoak
rail; and the ninth died of a sort of hysterical
affection, caused by this unlucky exploit of his
brother; for he could not cease laughing at it, notwithstanding
its melancholy termination, and he
died of the fit within twenty-four hours.

Thus, in a few years, there remained but two of
all the eleven children,—to wit, my oldest sister
Prudence and myself. My mother (from whom I
had my Christian name Sheppard, that being her
maiden name) died several years before this last
catastrophe, her mind having been affected, and
indeed distracted, by so many mournful losses occurring
in such rapid succession. She fell into a
deep melancholy, and died insane.

Being one of the youngest children, I grieved
but little for the loss of my brothers and sisters;
nor was I able to appreciate the advantage which,
in a worldly point of view, their death must prove
to me. My father, however, perceived the difference;
for, having now so few to look after and
be chargeable to him, he could with great propriety
consider himself a rich man. He immediately
resolved, as I was now his only son, that I
should have a good education; and it was not his

[figure description] Page 010.[end figure description]

fault if, in this particular, I fell short of his expectations.
I was sent to good schools, and, in
course of time, was removed to the college at
Nassau Hall, in Princeton, where I remained during
three years; that is, until my father's decease;
when I yielded to the natural indolence
of my temper, and left the college, or rather (for
I had formed no resolution on the subject) procrastinated
my return from day to day, until it was too
late to return.

My natural disposition was placid and easy,—I
believe I may say sluggish. I was not wanting in
parts, but had as little energy or activity of mind as
ever fell to the share of a Jerseyman; and how my
father ever came to believe I should make a figure
in the world, I cannot conceive, unless it was because
he knew he had a fortune to leave me, and
saw me safely lodged in a college. It is very certain
he encouraged a strong belief that I should
one day be a great man; and, I fancy, it was for
this reason he showed himself so favourable to me
in his will. He left me the bulk of his property,
bestowing upon my sister, who had recently married,
little beyond a farm which he had purchased
in a neighbouring county, but which was a valuable
one, and quite satisfied her husband.

But my father was a better judge of sausages
than of human character. Besides being deficient,
as I humbly confess, in all those qualities that are
necessary to the formation of a great man, I had
not the slightest desire to be one. Ambition was

[figure description] Page 011.[end figure description]

a passion that never afflicted my mind; and I was
so indifferent to the game of greatness which was
playing around me, that, I seriously declare, there
was a President of the United States elected to
office, and turned out again, after having served
his regular term, without my knowing any thing
about it. I had not even the desire, so common
to young men who find themselves in possession
of a fortune, to launch out into elegant expenses,
to dash about the country with fine horses, servants,
and clothes, and to play the spendthrift in
cities. On the contrary, I no sooner found myself
arrived at my majority, which was a few
months after my father's death, than I sat down
very quietly on the farm, resolved to take the
world easily; which I supposed I might easily do.
I had some idea of continuing to conduct the estate,
as my father had done before me; but it was a
very vague one; and having made one or two
efforts to bear myself like a man of business,
I soon found the effort was too tiresome for one
of my disposition; and I accordingly hired an
overseer to manage the property for me.

p016-021 CHAPTER III. The pleasures of having nothing to do. —Some thoughts on Matrimony.

[figure description] Page 012.[end figure description]

Having thus shuffled the cares of business from
my shoulders to another's, my time began to
weigh a little heavily on my hands, and I cast
about for some amusement that might enable me
to get rid of it. As there was great abundance of
small game, such as quails, partridges, and rabbits,
in the neighbourhood, I resolved to turn
sportman; and, in consequence, I bought me a
dog and gun, and began to harry the country with
some spirit. But having the misfortune to shoot
my dog the first day, and, soon after, a very valuable
imported cow, belonging to a neighbour, for
which I was obliged to pay him enormous damages,
and meeting besides with but little luck, I
grew disgusted with the diversion. My last shot
was soon fired; for, having forgotten the provisions
of our game-laws, I killed a woodcock
too early in the summer, for which, on the information
of a fellow who owed me a grudge, I was
prosecuted, although it was the only bird I ever
killed in all my life, and soundly fined; and this
incensed me so much, that I resolved to have
nothing more to do with an amusement that cost

[figure description] Page 013.[end figure description]

so much money, and threw me into so many difficulties.

I was then at a loss how to pass my time, until
a neighbour, who bred fine horses, persuaded me
to buy a pair of blooded colts, and try my luck on
the turf; and this employment, though rather too
full of cares and troubles to suit me exactly, I
followed with no little spirit, and became more
proud of my horses than I can well express, until
I came to try them on the race-course, where it
was my luck, what with stakes and betting together,
to lose more money in a single day, than
my father had ever made in two years together.
I then saw very clearly that horse-racing was
nothing better than gambling, and therefore both
disreputable and demoralizing; for which reason I
instantly gave it up, heartily sick of the losses it
had occasioned me.

My overseer, or steward,—for such he may be
considered,—whom I always esteemed a very sensible
fellow, for he was shrewd and energetic, and
at least ten years my senior, then advised me, as I
was a young man, with money enough, to travel a
little, and see the world: and accordingly I went
to New-York, where I was robbed of my luggage
and money by a villain whose acquaintance I made
in the steamboat, and whom I thought a highly
intelligent, gentlemanly personage; though, as it
afterward appeared, he was a professor from Sing-Sing,
where he had been sawing stone for two
years, the governor of New-York having forgiven

[figure description] Page 014.[end figure description]

him, as is the custom, the five other years for
which he was committed for, I believe, a fraud
committed on his own father.

This loss drove me home again; but being reencouraged
by my overseer, I filled my purse and
set out a second time, passing up the Hudson
river, with which I was prodigiously pleased,
though not with the Overslaugh, where we stuck
fast during six hours. I then proceeded to Saratoga,
where I remained for two weeks, on account
of its being fashionable; but, I declare to Heaven,
I was never so tired of any place in my life. I
then went to Niagara, which, in spite of the great
noise it made, I thought the finest place in the
world; and there, I think, I should have continued
all summer, had it not been for the crowds of tiresome
people that were eternally coming and going,
and the great labour of climbing up and down the
stairs. However, I was so greatly pleased with
what I saw, both at Niagara and along the way,
that I should have repeated my travels in after
years, as the most agreeable way of passing time,
had it not been for the dangers and miseries of
such enterprises; for, first, the coaches were perpetually
falling over, or sticking in the mud, or jolting
over stones, so that one had no security of life
or limb; and, secondly, the accommodations at
the inns along the road were not to my liking, the
food being cooked after the primitive systems of
Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and the beds stuck together
in the rooms as if for boys at a

[figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]

boardingschool. It is possible that these things are better
ordered now; but, from what I have since seen
and heard, I am of opinion there is a fine field for
cooks, carpenters, and chamber-maids, in the agricultural
regions of America. In those days I loved
ease and comfort too well to submit to such evils
as could be avoided; and, accordingly, after a little
experience in the matter, I ceased travelling altogether,
the pleasures bearing no sort of proportion
to the discomforts.

My time still weighing upon my hands, I was
possessed with a sudden idea (which my steward,
however, endeavoured to combat), namely,
that the tedium of my existence might be dispelled
by matrimony; and I resolved to look around me
for a wife. After much casting about, I fixed my
eyes upon a young lady of the village (for I must
inform the reader that my farm was on the skirts
of a village, and a very respectable one too, although
there were many lazy people in it), who, I
thought, was well fitted to make me comfortable;
and as she did not seem averse to my first advances,
I began to be quite particular, until all the old
women in the country declared it was a match,
and all the young fellows of my own age, as well
as all the girls I knew, became extremely witty
at my expense. These things, however, rather
encouraged me than otherwise; I believed I was
advancing my happiness by the change I contemplated
in my condition; and I was just on the
point of making formal proposals to the young

[figure description] Page 016.[end figure description]

lady, when an accident set me to considering the
enterprise entirely in a new light.

My charmer lived in the house of a married sister,
who had a large family of children,—a pack of the
most ill-bred imps, I verily believe, that were ever
gathered together in any one man's house; but, for
politeness' sake, during the first weeks of my courtship,
the young sinners were kept out of my way,
and, what with cuffing and feeding with sugarplums,
were preserved in some sort of order, so
that I was not annoyed by them. After a while,
however, and when matters had proceeded some
length, it was thought unnecessary to treat me
longer as a stranger; the children were suffered
to take care of themselves; and the consequence
was, that, in a short time, I found myself in a kind
of Pandemonium whenever I entered the house,
with such a whining, and squeaking, and tumbling,
and bawling, and fighting among the young ones,
as greatly discomposed my nerves; and, to make
the matter worse, the mother made no difficulty at
times, when the squabbling grew to a height, of
taking a switch to one, and boxing the ears of
another, and scolding roundly at a third, to reduce
them to order; and all this in my presence, and
under the nose of my charmer.

I began to fancy the married life could not be
altogether so agreeable as I had pictured it to my
imagination; and in this belief I was confirmed
by a visit to my sister, who had three children of
her own, all of whom, as I now perceived (for I

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

had not noticed it before, having no particular
inducement to make me observant), were given to
squabbling and bawling, just like other children,
while my sister did her share of boxing and scolding.
I thought to myself, “What should I do
with a dozen children squeaking all day and night
in my house, and a scolding wife dragooning them
into submission?”

The thought disconcerted me, and the fear of
such a consummation greatly chilled the ardour of
my affection; so that the young lady, observing
my backwardness, and taking offence at it, cast
her eyes upon another wooer who had made her
an offer, and, to my great satisfaction, married him
on the spot.

I was never more relieved in my life, and I resolved
to reflect longer upon the subject before
making advances of that nature a second time.
My overseer, who had from the first (for I made
him my confidant) been opposed to the match, on
the ground that I ought to enjoy my liberty, at
least until I was thirty, was greatly rejoiced at
the rupture, and swore that I had made a lucky
escape; for he had always thought, in his own
mind, that the lady was at bottom, though she
concealed it from me, a Tartar and fire-eater. In
this, however, he was mistaken; for, from all I
have heard of her since, she has proved a most
amiable and sweet-tempered woman, and her husband
is said to be very happy with her.

p016-027 CHAPTER IV. How to conduct a farm to the best advantage, and steer clear of the lawyers.

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

It is not my intention to dwell longer upon the
history of this period of my life, nor to recount in
detail how my easy and indolent temper at last
proved the ruin of me. I gave myself up to
laziness, neglecting my affairs to such a degree
that they soon became seriously entangled; and,
to make a long story short, I found myself, before
I had completed my twenty-eighth year, reduced
from independence, and almost affluence, to a
condition bordering upon actual poverty. My
farm, under the management of Mr. Aikin Jones
(for that was my steward's name), went gradually
to ruin; my orchards rotted away, without being
replanted; my meadows were converted into
swamps; my corn-fields filled with gullies; my
improvements fell into decay; and my receipts
began to run short of my expenses. Then came
borrowing and mortgaging, and, by-and-by, the
sale of this piece of land to remove the encumbrance
upon that; until I suddenly found myself
in the condition of my father when he began the
world; that is to say, the master of a little farm
of forty acres,—the centre and nucleus of the
fifteen hundred which he had got possession of

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

and bequeathed to me, but which had so soon
slipped through my fingers. There was this difference,
however, between us; the land, when my
father obtained it, was in good condition; it was
now (so well had it prospered under Jones's hands)
entirely worn out and empoverished, and not worth
a fourth part of its original value.

To add to my chagrin, I discovered that Mr.
Aikin Jones, whom I had treated rather as a
friend than servant, had abused my confidence;
in other words, that he was a rogue and villain,
who had taken advantage of my disinclination to
business, and my ignorance, as I believe I must
call it, to swindle me out of my property, which
he had the best opportunities to do. Whether he
effected his purpose by employing my own funds
or not, I cannot say; but, it is very certain, all the
different mortgages in which I was entangled
came, some how or other, by hook and by crook,
into his hands, and he took care to make the best
use of them. In a word, Mr. Jones became a rich
man, and I a poor one; and I had the satisfaction,
every day when I took a walk over my forty-acre
farm, as the place was familiarly called, though the
true name was Watermelon Hill, to find myself
stopped, which way soever I directed my steps, by
the possessions of Mr. Aikin Jones, my old friend
and overseer, whom I often saw roll by in his carriage,
while I was trudging along through the mud.

At the same time that I met with this heavy
misfortune, I had to endure others that were

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

vexatious enough. My brother-in-law and sister had
their suspicions of Mr. Jones, and often cautioned
me against him, though in vain,—not that I had
any very superstitious reliance on the gentleman's
integrity, but because I could not endure the trouble
of examining into his proceedings and accounts,
and chose therefore to believe him honest. This,
and my general indolence and indifference to my affairs,
incensed them both to that degree, that my sister
did not scruple to tell me to my face that I had
lost all the little sense I ever possessed; while my
brother-in-law took the freedom of saying of me in
public, “that I was wrong in the upper story,”—in
other words, that I was mad; and he had the insolence
to hint “that it ran in my blood,—that I had
inherited it from my mother,” she, as I mentioned
before, having lost her mind before her decease. I
was so much irritated by these insults on their part,
that I quarrelled with them both, though by no
means of a testy or choleric disposition; and it
was many years before we were reconciled. Having
therefore neither friends nor family, I was left
to bear my misfortunes alone; which was a great
aggravation of them all.

p016-030 CHAPTER V. The Author finds himself in trouble. —Some account of his Servant, honest James Jumble.

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

I have always described myself as of an easy,
contented disposition; and such I was born. But
misfortune produces sad changes in our tempers,
as it was soon my lot to experience. Before, however,
I describe the change that took place in mine,
it is fit I should let the reader understand to what
condition I was reduced by the perfidy of Jones,—
or, as I should rather say, by my own culpable
neglect of my affairs.

My whole landed possessions consisted of a farm
of forty acres, which I had, after the fashion of
some of my richer neighbours in other states, suffered
to fall into the most wretched condition imaginable.
My meadow-lands, being broken in upon
by the river, and neglected, were converted into
quagmires, reed-brakes, and cat-tail patches, the
only use of which was to shelter wild-fowl and
mire cattle. However, my live-stock was scanty
enough, and the only sufferers were my neighbours,
whose cows easily made their way through
my fences, and stuck fast in the mud at their pleasure.
My fields were overgrown here with mullein
and St. John's-wort, and there with sand-burs and

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

poke-berries. My orchards were in an equally
miserable condition,—the trees being old, rotten,
or worm-eaten, half of them torn down by the
winds, and the remainder fit for nothing but fire-wood.
My barn was almost roofless; and as for
a stable, I had so little occasion for one, that my
old negro-man Jim, of whom I shall have more to
say hereafter, or his wife Dinah, or both together,
thinking they could do nothing better with it, helped
the winds to tear it to pieces, especially in the
winter, when it formed a very convenient wood-pile.
My dwelling-house was also suffering from
decay. It was originally a small frame building;
but my father had added to it one portion after
another, until it became spacious; and the large
porches in front and on the rear, gave it quite a
genteel, janty air. But this it could not long
keep; the sun and rain gradually drove the white
paint from the exterior, and the damps getting inside,
the fine paper-hangings, pied and spotted,
peeled from the walls. The window-frames rotted,
and the glasses left them one after another; and
one day in a storm one half the front porch tumbled
down, and the remainder, which I propped up
as well as I could, had a mighty mean and poverty-stricken
appearance. The same high wind carried
away one of my chimneys, which, falling on a corner
of the roof, crushed that into the garret, and
left one whole gable-end in ruins.

It must not be supposed that my property presented
altogether this wretched appearance at
the moment of my losses. It was ir truth bad

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

enough then; but I am now describing it as it appeared
some few years after, when my miseries
were accumulated in the greatest number, and I
was just as poor as I could be.

In all this period of trouble and vexation I
had but one friend, if. I dare call him such;
though I should have been glad half the time
to be rid of him. This was my negro-man
Jim, or Jim Jumble, as he was called, of whom
I spoke before,—an old fellow that had been a
slave of my father, and was left to me in his
will. He was a crabbed, self-willed old fellow,
whom I could never manage, but who would
have all things his own way, in spite of me. As
I had some scruples of conscience about holding
a slave, and thought him of no value whatever,
but, on the contrary, a great trouble, I resolved to
set him free, and accordingly mentioned my design
to him; when, to my surprise, he burst into
a passion, swore he would not be free, and told me
flatly I was his master, and I should take care of
him: and the absurd old fool ended by declaring,
if I made him a free man he would have the law
of me, “he would, by ge-hosh!”

I never could well understand the cause of his
extreme aversion to being made free; but I suppose,
having got the upper hand of me, and being wise
enough to perceive the difference between living,
on the one hand, a lazy life, without any care
whatever, as my slave, and, on the other, labouring
hard to obtain a precarious subsistence as a free
man, he was determined to stick by me to the last,

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

whether I would or not. Some little affection for
me, as I had grown up from a boy, as it were, under
his own eye, was perhaps at the bottom of his
resolution; but if there were, it was of a strange
quality, as he did nothing but scold and grumble at
me all day long. I remember, in particular, that,
when the match I spoke of before was broken off,
and he had heard of it, he came to me in a great
passion, and insolently asked “what I meant by
courting a wife, who would be a good mistress to
him, and not marrying her?” and, on my condescending
to explain the reasons of my change of
mind, he told me plumply, “I had no more sense
than a nigger; for women was women, and children
children; and he was tired living so long in a
house with none but me and Massa Jones for company.”

I suppose it was old Jim's despair of my ever
marrying, that put him upon taking a wife himself;
for one day, not long after I was reduced to
the forty-acre farm, he brought home a great ugly
free negro-woman, named Dinah, whom he installed
into the kitchen without the least ceremony,
and without so much as even informing me of his
intention. Having observed her two or three times,
and seeing her at last come bouncing into the dinner-room
to wait on me, I asked her who she was,
and what she wanted; to which she answered,
“she was Jim's wife, and Jim had sent her in to
take care of me.”

It was in this way the old rascal used me. It
was in vain to complain; he gave me to

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

understand in his own language, “He knew what was
what, and there was no possuming an old nigger
like him; and if I had made him overseer, instead
of Massa Jones, it would have been all the better
for me.”

And, in truth, I believe it would; for Jim would
never have cheated me, except on a small scale;
and if he had done no work himself, it is very
certain he would have made everybody else work;
for he was a hard master when he had anybody
under him.

I may here observe, and I will do the old fellow
the justice to confess, that I found him exceedingly
useful during all my difficulties. What labour
was bestowed upon the farm, was bestowed
almost altogether by him and his wife Dinah. It
is true he did just what he liked, and without consulting
me,—planting and harvesting, and even
selling what he raised, as if he were the master
and owner of all things, and laying out what money
he obtained by the sales, just as his own wisdom
prompted; and finding I could do nothing
better, I even let him have his own way; and it
was perhaps to my advantage that I did.

But I grew poorer and poorer, notwithstanding:
and at that period, which I shall ever be inclined to
consider as the true beginning of my eventful life,
I was reduced almost to the point of despair; for
my necessities had compelled me to mortgage the
few miserable acres I had left, and I saw nothing
but utter ruin staring me in the face.

p016-035 CHAPTER VI. Sheppard Lee experiences his share of the respect that is accorded to “honest poverty. ”—His ingenious and highly original devices to amend his fortune.

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

It may be asked, why I made no efforts to retrieve
my fortunes? I answer to that, that I made
many, but was so infatuated that I never once
thought of resorting to the most obvious, rational,
and only means; that is to say, of cultivating with
industry my forty acres, as my father had done before
me. This idea, so sluggish was my mind, or so
confused by its distresses, never once occurred to
me; or if it did, it presented so many dreary images,
and so long a prospect of dull and disagreeable labour,
that I had not the spirit to pursue it. The
little toil I was forced to endure—for my necessities
now compelled me at times to work with my own
hands—appeared to me intolerably irksome; and
I was glad to attempt any thing else that seemed
to promise me good luck, and did not require positive
labour.

The first plan of bettering my fortune that I conceived,
was to buy some chances in a lottery,
which I thought an easy way of making money;
as indeed it is, when a man can make any. I had
my trouble for my pains, with just as many blanks
as I had bought tickets; upon which I began to

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

see clearly that adventuring in a lottery was nothing
short of gambling, as it really is; and so I quitted
it.

I then resolved to imitate the example of a
neighbour, who had made a great sum of money
by buying and selling to advantage stock in a southern
gold-mining company; and being very sanguine
of success, I devoted all the money I could scrape
together to the purpose, and that so wisely, that a
second instalment being suddenly demanded, I had
nothing left to discharge it with, and no means of
raising any; the consequence of which was, that I
was forced to sell at the worst time in the world,
and retired from the concern with just one fifth the
sum I had invested in it. I saw then that I had
no talent for speculating, and I began to have my
doubts whether stock-jobbing was not just as clear
gambling as horse-racing and lottery speculation.

I tried some ten or a dozen other projects with
a view to better my condition; but, as I came off
with the same luck from all, I do not think it necessary
to mention them. I will, however, state,
as a proof how much my difficulties had changed
my mind on that subject, that one of them was of
a matrimonial character. My horror of squabbling
children and scolding wives melted away before
the prospect of sheriffs and executions; and there
being a rich widow in the neighbourhood, I bought
me a new coat, and made her a declaration. But it
was too late in the day for me, as I soon discovered;
for besides giving me a flat refusal, she made a

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

point of revealing the matter to all her acquaintance,
who did nothing but hold me up to ridicule.

I found that my affairs were falling into a desperate
condition; and not knowing what else to do,
I resolved to turn politician, with the hope of getting
some office or other that might afford me a
comfortable subsistence.

This was the maddest project that ever possessed
my brain; but it was some time before I came
to that conclusion. But, in truth, from having
been the easiest and calmest tempered man in the
world, I was now become the most restless and
discontented, and incapable of judging what was
wise and what foolish. I reflected one day, that
of my old school and college mates who were still
alive, there was not one who had not made some
advance in the world, while I had done nothing but
slip backwards. It was the same thing with dozens
of people whom I remembered as poor farmers'
boys, with none of the advantages I had possessed,
but who had outstripped me in the road to fortune,
some being now rich cultivators, some wealthy
manufacturers and merchants, while two or three
had got into the legislature, and were made much
of in the newspapers. One of my old companions
had emigrated to the Mississippi, where he was
now a cotton-planter, with a yearly revenue of
twenty or thirty thousand dollars; another had become
a great lawyer in an adjacent state; and a
third, whom I always thought a very shallow, ignorant
fellow, and who was as poor as a rat to boot,

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

had turned doctor, settled down in the village, and,
besides getting a great practice, had married the
richest and finest girl in all the county. There
was no end to the number of my old acquaintances
who had grown wealthy and distinguished;
and the more I thought of them, the more discontented
I became.

My dissatisfaction was increased by discovering
with what little respect I was held among these
happy people. The doctor used to treat me with
a jocular sort of familiarity, which I felt to be insulting;
the lawyer, who had eaten many a dinner
at my table, when I was able to invite him, began
to make me low bows, instead of shaking hands
with me; and the cotton-planter, who had been my
intimate friend at college, coming to the village on
a visit to his relations, stared me fiercely in the
face when I approached him, and with a lordly
“hum—ha!” asked me “Who the devil I might
be?” As for the others, they treated me with as
little consideration; and I began to perceive very
plainly that I had got into the criminal stage of
poverty, for all men were resolved to punish me.
It is no wonder that poverty is the father of crime,
since the poor man sees himself treated on all hands
as a culprit.

I had never before envied a man for enjoying
more consideration in the world than myself: but
the discovery that I was looked upon with contempt
filled me with a new subject for discontent. I envied
my richer neighbours not only for being rich,

p016-039 [figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

but for being what they considered themselves, my
superiors in standing. I may truly say, I scarce
ever saw, in those days, a man with a good coat on
his back, without having a great desire to beat him.
But as I was a peaceable man, my anger never
betrayed me into violence.