CHAPTER I _In which I begin to Acquire a Knowledge of the World._ I have always thought, and still think, that it matters very little where or when a man is born--it is sufficient for him to know that he is _here_, and that he had better adapt himself, as far as possible, to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, provided that he wishes to toddle through the world with comfort and credit to himself and to the approbation of others. But still, in order to please all classes of readers, I will state that some thirty years ago a young stranger struggled into existence in the city of New York; and I will just merely hint that the twenty-eighth day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-three, should be inserted in the next (comic) almanac as having been the birth-day of a great man--for when an individual attains a bodily weight of two hundred pounds and over, may he not be styled _great_? My parents were certainly respectable people, but they both inconsiderately died at a very early period of my life, leaving me a few hundred dollars and a thickheaded uncle, to whom was attached an objectionable aunt, the proprietress of a long nose and a shrewish temper. The nose was adapted to the consumption of snuff, and the temper was effective in the destruction of my happiness and peace of mind. The worthy couple, with a prophetic eye, saw that I was destined to become, in future years, somewhat of a _gourmand_, unless care should be taken to prevent such a melancholy fate; therefore, actuated by the best motives, and in order to teach me the luxury of abstinence, they began by slow but sure degrees to starve me. Good people, how I reverence their memory! One night I committed burglary upon a closet, and feloniously carried off a chunk of bread and meat, which I devoured in the cellar. "Oh, my prophetic soul--_my uncle_!" That excellent man caught me in the act of eating the provender, and--my bones ache at this very moment as I think of the licking I got! I forgot to mention that I had a rather insignificant brother, four years older than myself, who became my uncle's apprentice, and who joined that gentleman in his persecutions against me. My kind relatives were rather blissful people in the way of ignorance, and they hated me because they imagined that I regarded myself as their superior--a belief that was founded on the fact that I shunned their society and passed the greater portion of my time in reading and writing.