Sinopsis

Every book has a beginning, and the beginning of every book is the undoubted spot on which the historian is bound to parade his hero. The novelist may therefore continue to envelope his man in a fog as long as he likes, but for myself I shall at once unfold to the world that I am my own hero; and though that same world hold my countrymen to be rich in wants, with the article of modesty among them, yet do I hope to maintain2 the character I have assumed, with as much propriety as can reasonably be expected of one labouring under such a national infirmity, for "I am a native of that land, which Some poets' lips and painters' hands"