or a fool is covered with steel and it is
often very hard to find his vulnerable part. In fact, to gull a fool
seems to me an exploit worthy of a witty man. I have felt in my very
blood, ever since I was born, a most unconquerable hatred towards the
whole tribe of fools, and it arises from the fact that I feel myself a
blockhead whenever I am in their company. I am very far from placing them
in the same class with those men whom we call stupid, for the latter are
stupid only from deficient education, and I rather like them. I have met
with some of them--very honest fellows, who, with all their stupidity,
had a kind of intelligence and an upright good sense, which cannot be the
characteristics of fools. They are like eyes veiled with the cataract,
which, if the disease could be removed, would be very beautiful.

Dear reader, examine the spirit of this preface, and you will at once
guess at my purpose. I have written a preface because I wish you to know
me thoroughly before you begin the reading of my Memoirs. It is only in a
coffee-room or at a table d'hote that we like to converse with strangers.

I have written the history of my life, and I have a perfect right to do
so; but am I wise in throwing it before a public of which I know nothing
but evil? No, I am aware it is sheer folly, but I want to be busy, I want
to laugh, and why should I deny myself this gratification?

'Expulit elleboro morbum bilemque mero.'

An ancient author tells us somewhere, with the tone of a pedagogue, if
you have not done anything worthy of being recorded, at least write
something worthy of being read. It is a precept as beautiful as a diamond
of the first water cut in England, but it cannot be applied to me,
because I have not written either a novel, or the life of an illustrious
character. Worthy or not, my life is my subject, and my subject is my
life. I have lived without dreaming that I should ever take a fancy to
write the history of my life, and, for that very reason, my Memoirs may
claim from the reader an interest and a sympathy which they would not
have obtained, had I always entertained the design to write them in my
old age, and, still more, to publish them.

I have reached, in 1797, the age of three-score years and twelve; I can
not say, Vixi, and I could not procure a more agreeable pastime than to
relate my own adventures, and to cause pleasant laughter amongst the good
company listening to me, from which I have received