The Business Man

"The Business Man" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe about a businessman boasting of his accomplishments. It was published in February 1840 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. The story questions the concept of a self-made man. The narrator of the story is Peter Proffit, a "methodical" businessman by his own admission. He says a nurse swung him around when he was a young boy, and he bumped his head against a bedpost.
That single event determined his fate: the resulting bump was in the area dedicated to system and regularity, according to phrenology. Proffit goes on to say that he despises geniuses and that they are all asses-"the greater the genius the greater the ass." Geniuses can not, he says, be turned into men of business.