im, and so injured him, that he expired in a few days in great agony. My
grandfather was, indeed, a fortunate man; when he died he was followed to
the grave by the tears of the poor--my father was not.

'Two remarkable circumstances are connected with my birth--I am a
posthumous child, and came into the world some weeks before the usual
time, the shock which my mother experienced at my father's death having
brought on the pangs of premature labour; both my mother's life and my
own were at first despaired of; we both, however, survived the crisis. My
mother loved me with the most passionate fondness, and I was brought up
in this house under her own eye--I was never sent to school.

'I have already told you that mine is not a tale of adventure; my life
has not been one of action, but of wild imaginings and strange
sensations; I was born with excessive sensibility, and that has been my
bane. I have not been a fortunate man.

'No one is fortunate unless he is happy, and it is impossible for a being
constructed like myself to be happy for an hour, or even enjoy peace and
tranquillity; most of our pleasures and pains are the effects of
imagination, and wherever the sensibility is great, the imagination is
great also. No sooner has my imagination raised up an image of pleasure,
than it is sure to conjure up one of distress and gloom; these two
antagonist ideas instantly commence a struggle in my mind, and the gloomy
one generally, I may say invariably, prevails. How is it possible that I
should be a happy man?

'It has invariably been so with me from the earliest period that I can
remember; the first playthings that were given me caused me for a few
minutes excessive pleasure: they were pretty and glittering; presently,
however, I became anxious and perplexed, I wished to know their history,
how they were made, and what of--were the materials precious? I was not
satisfied with their outward appearance. In less than an hour I had
broken the playthings in an attempt to discover what they were made of.

'When I was eight years of age my uncle the baronet, who was also my
godfather, sent me a pair of Norway hawks, with directions for managing
them; he was a great fowler. Oh, how rejoiced was I with the present
which had been made me, my joy lasted for at least five minutes; I would
let them breed, I would have a house of hawks; yes, that I would--but--and
here came the unpleasant idea--suppose they were to flyaway, how