ABSTRACT
Hickey constructed his identity through his presentation of episodes selected from countless happenstances in his life, and the resulting story—his autobiography—presents a seemingly seamless mixture of how he wants to be perceived by his readers and who he thinks himself to be. In this chapter, it becomes apparent that the author continues a strategy to present to the reader, in a favorable light, a man of sensibility. Indeed, gentility and sensibility blend seamlessly in Hickey’s telling of the story of his life and its meaning. Hickey’s text is an exemplar in many ways of the culture of sensibility as it draws heavily from the lexicon and behavioral expectations of sentiment. As with most autobiography of the time, it shares many of the characteristics of novels. Tears flow profusely from Hickey and many characters he describes, and fainting fits are common. Favorable characters (his father, Joseph; Charlotte; Richards; and some prostitutes) invariably are kind, benevolent, humanitarian bearers of sympathy. Hickey’s text also doubles at times as travel literature, and his descriptions often invoke the notions of the romantic picturesque and the sublime.
