that I _should_ be so; but, then, the more merit in me, if, in spite
of such reasonable presumptions, I really were _not_. In fact, my
brother soon learned, by a daily experience, how entirely he might
depend upon me for carrying out the most audacious of his own warlike
plans--such plans, it is true, that I abominated; but _that_ made no
difference in the fidelity with which I tried to fulfil them.

This eldest brother of mine was in all respects a remarkable boy. Haughty
he was, aspiring, immeasurably active; fertile in resources as Robinson
Crusoe; but also full of quarrel as it is possible to imagine; and, in
default of any other opponent, he would have fastened a quarrel upon his
own shadow for presuming to run before him when going westwards in the
morning, whereas, in all reason, a shadow, like a dutiful child, ought to
keep deferentially in the rear of that majestic substance which is the
author of its existence. Books he detested, one and all, excepting only
such as he happened to write himself. And these were not a few. On all
subjects known to man, from the Thirty-nine Articles of our English
church down to pyrotechnics, legerdemain, magic, both black and white,
thaumaturgy, and necromancy, he favored the world (which world was the
nursery where I lived amongst my sisters) with his select opinions. On
this last subject especially--of necromancy--he was very great: witness
his profound work, though but a fragment, and, unfortunately, long since
departed to the bosom of Cinderella, entitled "How to raise a Ghost; and
when you've got him down, how to keep him down." To which work he assured
us that some most learned and enormous man, whose name was a foot and a
half long, had promised him an appendix, which appendix treated of the
Red Sea and Solomon's signet ring, with forms of _mittimus_ for ghosts
that might be refractory, and probably a riot act, for any _emeute_
amongst ghosts inclined to raise barricades; since he often thrilled our
young hearts by supposing the case, (not at all unlikely, he affirmed,)