ar exertion stands in my way, if I am using my pen. I
can only write when the fit takes me--sometimes at night when I ought to
be asleep; sometimes at meals when I ought to be handling my knife and
fork; sometimes out of doors when I meet with inquisitive strangers who
stare at me. As for paper, the first stray morsel of anything that I can
write upon will do, provided I snatch it up in time to catch my ideas as
they fly.

"My method being now explained, I proceed to the deliberate act of
self-betrayal which I contemplate in producing this picture of myself."

II

"I divide my life into two Epochs--respectively entitled: Before my
Deafness, and After my Deafness. Or, suppose I define the melancholy
change in my fortunes more sharply still, by contrasting with each other
my days of prosperity and my days of disaster? Of these alternatives, I
hardly know which to choose. It doesn't matter; the one thing needful is
to go on.

"In any case, then, I have to record that I passed a happy
childhood--thanks to my good mother. Her generous nature had known
adversity, and had not been deteriorated by undeserved trials. Born of
slave-parents, she had not reached her eighteenth year, when she was sold
by auction in the Southern States of America. The person who bought her
(she never would tell me who he was) freed her by a codicil, added to his
will on his deathbed. My father met with her, a few years afterwards, in
American society--fell (as I have heard) madly in love with her--and
married her in defiance of the wishes of his family. He was quite right:
no better wife and mother ever lived. The one vestige of good feeling
that I still possess, lives in my empty heart when I dwell at times on
the memory of my mother.

"My good fortune followed me when I was sent to school.

"Our head master was more nearly a perfect human being than any other man
that I have ever met with. Even the worst-tempered boys among us ended in
loving him. Under his encouragement, and especially to please him, I won
every prize that industry, intelligence, and good conduct could obtain;
and I rose, at an unusually early age, to be the head boy in the first
class. When I was old enough to be removed to the University, and when
the dreadful day of parting arrived, I fainted under the agony of leaving
the teacher--no! the dear friend--whom I devotedly loved. There must
surely have been some good in me at that time. What has become of it now?

"The ye