Introduction

New York City, 10 December, 1862.

It is with great trepidation that I dare to mar the first stark page of this journal with my barely legible scrawl. You will please excuse the wanting penmanship, dear reader, as these uncalloused fingers are not as adept at scribing the soft, flowing fonts of the Mother Tongue as they are the hard edges of numbers upon the face of a cheque-book. It was this latter predilection of mine, after all, that brought me to this odious task of journal-writing: the ebb and flow of my personal fortune which compels me in these dark days to set my thoughts down upon these naked and glaring pages.

Should my musings somehow gratify anything other than my own self-consumed nature, I will consider it a good thing; should they impart any lessons worthy of some reader’s time at some unforeseen some future date (even if it is after my demise, which is likely), I will consider myself blessed to have been given the chance to contribute something of value to this world, as paltry a contribution as that may seem.

I am, to put it mildly, a man with far fewer leisurely distractions these days than he is used to. This is not some arrogant pronouncement borne from a desire to win your pity, dear reader, so I beg you to not be repulsed by it. It a hard, cold fact – as hard and cold as the numbers scribed like a death sentence into the pages of my account books.

In order to understand the gravity of a man’s situation, you must first understand the man himself. For the next few pages, dear reader, I intend to help you do just this. But let me sum up one point quickly, (if you haven’t already done that for yourself), that I am a man quite used to a preponderance of leisurely distractions.

Perhaps the word “distractions” is a weak one in light of my current situation – distractions from what, you might ask? There is no answer to that question here, as the very word distraction implies that there are things in my life that I ought to be attending to instead, but alas, I can assure you, dear reader, there are none. The truth is that these so-called “distractions” are in fact not distractions at all, but as apiece make up what might more aptly be called an occupation.

In short, I am and have always been a Man of Leisure, a man without distractions entirely, without worries or concerns of any sort, except perhaps the occasional bother over a poorly-cooked beefsteak, or a suit whose tailoring is not just right, or a gold pocket-watch that loses a minute a week, as if the loss of a minute signals the imminent end of the world.

It is strange, how of late suddenly so many distractions have been thrust upon me. I am, to be sure, absolutely ridden with them, only they are not leisurely distractions at all, but of a sort better suited to more common types of folk – those who lie awake at night overwhelmed by disquietude; who suffocate hourly in fogs of perpetual agitation; who walk absentmindedly into lampposts, into the paths of omnibuses, from the edges of unfenced piers into the black churning waters of heedless rivers.