. As to the first course, I may observe generally,
that what I dreaded beyond all other evils was the chance of being
reclaimed by my guardians; not doubting that whatever power the law gave
them would have been enforced against me to the utmost--that is, to the
extremity of forcibly restoring me to the school which I had quitted, a
restoration which, as it would in my eyes have been a dishonour, even if
submitted to voluntarily, could not fail, when extorted from me in
contempt and defiance of my own wishes and efforts, to have been a
humiliation worse to me than death, and which would indeed have
terminated in death. I was therefore shy enough of applying for
assistance even in those quarters where I was sure of receiving it, at
the risk of furnishing my guardians with any clue of recovering me. But
as to London in particular, though doubtless my father had in his
lifetime had many friends there, yet (as ten years had passed since his
death) I remembered few of them even by name; and never having seen
London before, except once for a few hours, I knew not the address of
even those few. To this mode of gaining help, therefore, in part the
difficulty, but much more the paramount fear which I have mentioned,
habitually indisposed me. In regard to the other mode, I now feel half
inclined to join my reader in wondering that I should have overlooked it.
As a corrector of Greek proofs (if in no other way) I might doubtless
have gained enough for my slender wants. Such an office as this I could
have discharged with an exemplary and punctual accuracy that would soon
have gained me the confidence of my employers. But it must not be
forgotten that, even for such an office as this, it was necessary that I
should first of all have an introduction to some respectable publisher,
and this I had no means of obtaining. To say the truth, however, it had
never once occurred to me to think of literary labours as a source of
profit. No mode sufficiently speedy of obtaining money had ever occurred
to me but that of borrowing it on the strength of my future claims and
expectations. This mode I sought by every avenue to compass; and amongst
other persons I applied to a Jew named D--- {4}

To this Jew, and to other advertising money-lenders (some of whom were, I
believe, also Jews), I had introduced myself with an account of my
expectations; which account, on examining my father's will at Doctors'
Commons, they had ascertained to be c