to refute it,
because, in my own mind, I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it
is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are, or should
be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to
conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be
really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for
writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.

_July_ 22_nd_, 1848.

[Picture: Facsimile of the Title-page of the First Edition]

CHAPTER I

You must go back with me to the autumn of 1827.

My father, as you know, was a sort of gentleman farmer in --shire; and I,
by his express desire, succeeded him in the same quiet occupation, not
very willingly, for ambition urged me to higher aims, and self-conceit
assured me that, in disregarding its voice, I was burying my talent in
the earth, and hiding my light under a bushel. My mother had done her
utmost to persuade me that I was capable of great achievements; but my
father, who thought ambition was the surest road to ruin, and change but
another word for destruction, would listen to no scheme for bettering
either my own condition, or that of my fellow mortals. He assured me it
was all rubbish, and exhorted me, with his dying breath, to continue in
the good old way, to follow his steps, and those of his father before
him, and let my highest ambition be to walk honestly through the world,
looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, and to transmit the
paternal acres to my children in, at least, as flourishing a condition as
he left them to me.

'Well!--an honest and industrious farmer is one of the most useful
members of society; and if I devote my talents to the cultivation of my
farm, and the improvement of agriculture in general, I shall thereby
benefit, not only my own immediate connections and dependants, but, in
some degree, mankind at large:--hence I shall not have lived in vain.'
With such reflections as these I was endeavouring to console myself, as I
plodded home from the fields, one cold, damp, cloudy evening towards the
close of October. But the gleam of a bright red fire through the parlour
window had more effect in cheering my spirits, and rebuking my thankless
repinings, than all the sage reflections and good resolutions I had
forced my mind to frame;--for I was young then, remember--only
four-and-twenty--and had not acquired half the rule over my own spir