actions were not those which
actuated me, so far as I could tell; and the consciousness of being
misjudged made me really what I had been believed to be before, a
thoroughly naughty boy. Out of fear of punishment I hid even the most
harmless actions, and when I was questioned I made untruthful answers.

In short, I was set down as wicked, and my father, who had not always
time to investigate the justice of the accusations against me,
remembered only the facts as they were represented to him. My neglected
childhood called forth the ridicule of others; when playing with my
step-brother, I was always, according to my mother, the cause of
anything that went wrong. As the mind of my parents turned more and more
away from me, so on my side my life became more and more separated from
theirs; and I was abandoned to the society of people who, if my
disposition had not been so thoroughly healthy, might have injured me
even more than they did. I longed to escape from this unhappy state of
things; and I considered my elder brothers fortunate in being all of
them away from home. Just at this melancholy time came home my eldest
brother. He appeared to me as an angel of deliverance, for he recognised
amidst my many faults my better nature, and protected me against
ill-treatment. He went away again after a short stay; but I felt that my
soul was linked to his, thenceforth, down to its inmost depths; and
indeed, after his death, this love of mine for him turned the whole
course of my life.[10]

The boon was at last vouchsafed me, and that at my greatest need, to
leave my father's house. Had it been otherwise, the flagrant
contradiction between my outer and inner life must necessarily have
developed the evil inclinations which had begun in earnest to fasten
upon me. A new life entirely different from the former now opened before
me. I was ten years and nine months old. But I pause yet another moment
in the contemplation of this period before I pass to its narration. In
order to be clearly understood by your serene Highness, which is very
necessary to me if I am to attain my object, I will compare, with your
permission, my former life with my present. I shall endeavour to show
how I trace the connection of my earlier and my later life; how my
earlier life has proved for me the means of understanding my later; how,
in general, my own individual life has become to me a key to the
universal life, or, in short, to what I call the symbolic li