from that class? Not the manners, which I
could feign, nor the vices, which I could feel. To be like them, was
only to be of them,--such, at least, was then my conviction and my
theory.

Any one who will take the pains to reflect on and analyze the mode of
thinking I have here mentioned, will see how necessarily it tends rather
to depress those above than to elevate those beneath. I did not purpose
to myself any education in high and noble sentiments, but simply the
performance of a part which I deemed easy to assume. The result soon
began to tell. I felt a degree of contemptuous hatred for the very
persons I had once revered as almost demigods. I no longer looked up to
the "gentleman" as such by right divine, but by accident; and I fostered
the feeling by the writings of every radical newspaper I could come at.
All the levelling doctrines of socialism, all the plausibilities of
equality, became as great truths to me; and I found a most ready
aptitude in my mind to square the fruits of my personal observation to
these pleasant theories. The one question recurred every morning as I
arose, and remained unanswered each night as I lay down, "Why should I
hold a horse, and why should another man ride one?" I suppose the
difficulty has puzzled wiser heads; indeed, since I mooted it to myself,
it has caused some trouble in the world; nor, writing now as I do in the
year of grace ''8, do I suppose the question is yet answered.

I have dwelt perhaps too long on this exposition of my feelings; but
as my subsequent life was one of far more action than reflection, the
indulgent reader will pardon the prosiness, not simply as explaining the
history which follows, but also as affording a small breathing-space in
a career where there were few "halts."

I have said that I began to conceive a great grudge against all who
were well off in life, and against none did I indulge this aversion
more strongly than "the captain," my first patron,--almost my only one.
Though he had always employed me,--and none ever approached him save
myself,--he had never condescended to the slightest act of recognition
beyond the tap on my head with his gold-mounted whip, and a significant
nod where to lead his pony. No sign of his, no look, no gesture, ever
confessed to the fact that I was a creature of his own species, that I
had had a share in the great firm which, under the name of Adam and Co.,
has traded so long and industriously.

If I were sick, or