animating myself, my family, my professional associates, and my friends
--weigh our comparative influence for good or evil on the community and
diagnose the general mental, moral and physical condition of the class
to which I belonged.

To do this aright, I must see clearly things as they were without regard
to popular approval or prejudice, and must not hesitate to call them by
their right names. I must spare neither myself nor anybody else. It
would not be altogether pleasant. The disclosures of the microscope are
often more terrifying than the amputations of the knife; but by thus
studying both myself and my contemporaries I might perhaps arrive at the
solution of the problem that was troubling me--that is to say, why I,
with every ostensible reason in the world for being happy, was not!
This, then, was to be my task.

* * * * *

I have already indicated that I am a sound, moderately healthy, vigorous
man, with a slight tendency to run to fat. I am five feet ten inches
tall, weigh a hundred and sixty-two pounds, have gray eyes, a rather
aquiline nose, and a close-clipped dark-brown mustache, with enough gray
hairs in it to give it dignity. My movements are quick; I walk with a
spring. I usually sleep, except when worried over business. I do not
wear glasses and I have no organic trouble of which I am aware. The New
York Life Insurance Company has just reinsured me after a thorough
physical examination. My appetite for food is not particularly good, and
my other appetites, in spite of my vigor, are by no means keen. Eating
is about the most active pleasure that I can experience; but in order to
enjoy my dinner I have to drink a cocktail, and my doctor says that is
very bad for my health.