e sunny landscapes of Claude. To me the world has,
for years, imparted a sense of much enjoyment. Human nature has been
my gallery, with all its variety, its breadth, its effect, its warm
colouring, and its cold tints.

It has been my pride to think that I can recognise every style and every
"handling," and that no man could impose a copy upon me for an original.
"And can it be possible," cried I aloud, "that while picture-dealers
revel in fortune--fellows whose traffic goes no higher than coloured
canvass--that I, the connoisseur of humanity, the moral toxicologist--I,
who read men as I read a French comedy--that I should be obliged to deny
myself the generous claret my doctor thinks essential to my system, and
that repose and change of scene he deems of more consequence to me than
mere physic?"

I do not--I will not--I cannot, believe it. No class of persons could
be less spared than pilots. Without their watchful skill the rich argosy
that has entered the chops of the Channel would never anchor in the
Pool. And are there no sand-banks, no sunk rocks, no hidden reefs, no
insidious shoals, in humanity? Are there no treacherous lee-shores, no
dangerous currents, no breakers? It is amidst these and such as these
I purpose to guide my fellow-men, not pretending for a moment to the
possession of any heaven-born instinct, or any inspired insight into
Nature. No; I have toiled and laboured in the cause. The experience that
I mean to offer for sale I have myself bought, occasionally far more
dearly than I intend to dispose of it. _Haud ignarus mali_; I am willing
to tell where I have been shipwrecked, and who stole my clothes. "Don't
tell me of your successes," said a great physician to his colleague,
"tell me of your blunders; tell me of the people you've killed." I am
ready to do this, figuratively of course, for they were all ladies; and
more, I will make no attempt to screen myself from the ridicule that may
attach to an absurd situation, nor conceal those experiences which may
subject me to laughter.

You may deem me boastful if I have to set forth my qualifications; but
what can I do? It is only when I have opened my pack and displayed my
wares that you may feel tempted to buy. I am driven, then, to tell you
that I know everybody that is worth knowing in Europe, and some two or
three in America; that I have been everywhere--eaten of everything--seen
everything. There's not a railway guard from Norway to Naples doesn't