pecially lower limbs. The narrative is given in her own
words:--

"Ever since I can remember anything at all I could never think of
myself as a girl and I was in perpetual trouble, with this as the
real reason. When I was 5 or 6 years old I began to say to myself
that, whatever anyone said, if I was not a boy at any rate I was
not a girl. This has been my unchanged conviction all through my
life.

"When I was little, nothing ever made me doubt it, in spite of
external appearance. I regarded the conformation of my body as a
mysterious accident. I could not see why it should have anything
to do with the matter. The things that really affected the
question were my own likes and dislikes, and the fact that I was
not allowed to follow them. I was to like the things which
belonged to me as a girl,--frocks and toys and games which I did
not like at all. I fancy I was more strongly 'boyish' than the
ordinary little boy. When I could only crawl my absorbing
interest was hammers and carpet-nails. Before I could walk I
begged to be put on horses' backs, so that I seem to have been
born with the love of tools and animals which has never left me.

"I did not play with dolls, though my little sister did. I was
often reproached for not playing her games. I always chose boys'
toys,--tops and guns and horses; I hated being kept indoors and
was always longing to go out. By the time I was 7 it seemed to me
that everything I liked was called wrong for a girl. I left off
telling my elders what I did like. They confused and wearied me
by their talk of boys and girls. I did not believe them and could
hardly imagine that they believed themselves. By the time I was 8
or 9 I used to wonder whether they were dupes, or liars, or
hypocrites, or all three. I never believed or trusted a grown
person in consequence. I led my younger brothers in everything. I
was not at all a happy little child and often cried and was made
irritable; I was so confused by the talk, about boys and girls. I
was held up as an evil example to other little girls who
virtuously despised me.

"When I was about 9 years old I went to a day school and began to
have a better time. From 9 to 13 I practically shaped my own
life. I learned very little at school, and openly hated it, but I
read a great deal at home and got plenty