-natured boy in the world; but something was the matter
with the attraction of cohesion, or the attraction of gravitation--with
the general dispensation of matter around me--that, let me do what I
would, things would fall down, and break, or be torn and damaged, if I
only came near them; and my unluckiness in any matter seemed in exact
proportion to my carefulness.

If any body in the room with me had a headache, or any kind of nervous
irritability, which made it particularly necessary for others to be
quiet, and if I was in an especial desire unto the same, I was sure,
while stepping around on tiptoe, to fall headlong over a chair, which
would give an introductory push to the shovel, which would fall upon the
tongs, which would animate the poker, and all together would set in
action two or three sticks of wood, and down they would come together,
with just that hearty, sociable sort of racket, which showed that they
were disposed to make as much of the opportunity as possible.

In the same manner, every thing that came into my hand, or was at all
connected with me, was sure to lose by it. If I rejoiced in a clean
apron in the morning, I was sure to make a full-length prostration
thereupon on my way to school, and come home nothing better, but rather
worse. If I was sent on an errand, I was sure either to lose my money in
going, or my purchases in returning; and on these occasions my mother
would often comfort me with the reflection, that it was well that my
ears were fastened to my head, or I should lose them too. Of course, I
was a fair mark for the exhortatory powers, not only of my parents, but
of all my aunts, uncles, and cousins, to the third and fourth
generation, who ceased not to reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all
long-suffering and doctrine.

All this would have been very well if nature had not gifted me with a
very unnecessary and uncomfortable capacity of _feeling_, which, like a
refined ear for music, is undesirable, because, in this world, one meets
with discord ninety-nine times where it meets with harmony once. Much,
therefore, as I furnished occasion to be scolded at, I never became
_used_ to scolding, so that I was just as much galled by it the
_forty_-first time as the first. There was no such thing as philosophy
in me: I had just that unreasonable heart which is not conformed unto
the nature of things, neither indeed _can_ be. I was timid, and
shrinking, and proud; I was nothing to any one around