AUTOBIOGRAHY OF



tract from autobiographical impartiality and candor, or entirely
to subvert them, in behalf of their opposites, partiality and de-
ceptiveness-if that representation be true (and I have no reason
to apprehend that it will be controverted), then, for a person,
engaged in writing his own biography, strictly and conscienti-
ously to aim at, and accurately attain the just mean between the
extremes of the contrary and conflicting causes, is no easy task.
Nor is it one, which, however ably and perfectly executed, is
rewarded by security from envy and obloquy, or even by protec-
tion from contradiction and injustice. Far otherwise. He who
engages in it must be unusually sanguine and unsuspicious, and
limited in his experience and knowledge of men and their prac-
tices, if he believe or even hope that he will escape the charge
of vanity or self-conceit, or be shielded from some other more
disparaging and offensive imputation. Provided his account of
himself be in any marked degree commendatory and flattering,
he must deem himself exceedingly fortunate, and kindly treated,
if he be not suspected and publicly accused of an attempt to
attract admiration, and attain celebrity, by studied fiction, or de-
liberate falsehood-or by both united.
  In my own case, should the memoir I have commenced be pre-
pared and published, the danger of an accusation of this sort will
be not only imminent, but peculiarly annoying, if made on ac-
count of the difficulty, not to say the impossibility of meeting
and refuting it. For, as will hereafter more fully appear, there
exists not a human being, who is competent satisfactorily to
testify to either the truth or the falsehood of an account, by
whomsoever it may be given, of the first twenty-five years of my
life. The reason of this may be briefly rendered. There is not
now to be found-it is believed that there is not now living, any
individual, whose acquaintance with me was sufficiently intimate
to authorize him to testify to a single fact respecting me, during
those years-except, perhaps, my mere existence, and to my
having been reputed an indefatigable student. No inaccuracies
or objections, doubts or cavils, therefore, alleged in relation to
my memoir during that period, can be conclusively either dis-
credited or confirmed. My own statement, being the only testi-
mony on the subject that can be adduced, must be admitted as
true, regarded as doubtful, or rejected as false.



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