I thought myself only too lucky to escape so well from the
danger of having done anything out of my own head. But somehow Susan and I
never altered it when we sang it to ourselves.
* * * * *
I thought it necessary, for the sake of those who might read my story, to
string together these few scattered recollections of my boyhood,--to give,
as it were, some sample of the cotyledon leaves of my young life-plant, and
of the soil in which it took root, ere it was transplanted--but I will not
forestall my sorrows. After all, they have been but types of the woes of
thousands who "die and give no sign." Those to whom the struggles of every,
even the meanest, human being are scenes of an awful drama, every incident
of which is to be noted with reverent interest, will not find them void of
meaning; while the life which opens in my next chapter is, perhaps, full
enough of mere dramatic interest (and whose life is not, were it but truly
written?) to amuse merely as a novel. Ay, grim and real is the action and
suffering which begins with my next page,--as you yourself would have
found, high-born reader (if such chance to light upon this story), had
you found yourself at fifteen, after a youth of convent-like seclusion,
settled, apparently for life--in a tailor's workshop.
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