The Project Gutenberg EBook of Autobiographical Sketches, by Annie Besant

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Title: Autobiographical Sketches

Author: Annie Besant

Release Date: February 29, 2004 [EBook #11376]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

SKETCHES.

BY

ANNIE BESANT

1885.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

I am so often asked for references to some pamphlet or journal in which
may be found some outline of my life, and the enquiries are so often
couched in terms of such real kindness, that I have resolved to pen a few
brief autobiographical sketches, which may avail to satisfy friendly
questioners, and to serve, in some measure, as defence against unfair
attack.

I.

On October 1st, 1847, I made my appearance in this "vale of tears",
"little Pheasantina", as I was irreverently called by a giddy aunt, a pet
sister of my mother's. Just at that time my father and mother were
staying within the boundaries of the City of London, so that I was born
well "within the sound of Bow bells".

Though born in London, however, full three quarters of my blood are
Irish. My dear mother was a Morris--the spelling of the name having been
changed from Maurice some five generations back--and I have often heard
her tell a quaint story, illustrative of that family pride which is so
common a feature of a decayed Irish family. She was one of a large
family, and her father and mother, gay, handsome, and extravagant, had
wasted merrily what remained to them of patrimony. I can remember her
father well, for I was fourteen years of age when he died. A bent old
man, with hair like driven snow, splendidly handsome in his old age,
hot-tempered to passion at the lightest provocation, loving and wrath in
quick succession. As the family grew larger and the moans grew smaller,
many a pinch came on the household, and the parent