Autobiographical Sketches | Page 7

Lost" from Latin passages fathered upon
imaginary writers, when these passages had previously been forged by
Lauder himself for the purpose of sustaining such a charge.
[4] It is a significant fact, that Dr. Strauss, whose sceptical spirit, left to
its own disinterested motions, would have looked through and through
this monstrous fable of Essenism, coolly adopted it, no questions asked,
as soon as he perceived the value of it as an argument against
Christianity.
[5] "Solitary road."--The reader must remember that, until the seventh
century of our era, when Mahometanism arose, there was no collateral
history. Why there was none, why no Gothic, why no Parthian history,
it is for Rome to explain. We tax ourselves, and are taxed by others,
with many an imaginary neglect as regards India; but assuredly we
cannot be taxed with that neglect. No part of our Indian empire, or of
its adjacencies, but has occupied the researches of our Oriental
scholars.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD DREAM ECHOES OF THESE
INFANT EXPERIENCES DREAM ECHOES FIFTY YEARS LATER

CHAPTER II.
INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE

CHAPTER III.

INFANT LITERATURE

CHAPTER IV.
THE FEMALE INFIDEL

CHAPTER V.
I AM INTRODUCED TO THE WARFARE OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL

CHAPTER VI.
I ENTER THE WORLD

CHAPTER VII.
THE NATION OF LONDON

CHAPTER VIII.
DUBLIN

CHAPTER IX.
FIRST REBELLION IN IRELAND

CHAPTER X.
FRENCH INVASION OF IRELAND, AND SECOND REBELLION

CHAPTER XI.
TRAVELLING

CHAPTER XII.

MY BROTHER

CHAPTER XIII.
PREMATURE MANHOOD

AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES.

CHAPTER I.
THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD.
About the close of my sixth year, suddenly the first chapter of my life
came to a violent termination; that chapter which, even within the gates
of recovered paradise, might merit a remembrance. "_Life is
finished!_" was the secret misgiving of my heart; for the heart of
infancy is as apprehensive as that of maturest wisdom in relation to any
capital wound inflicted on the happiness. "_Life is finished! Finished it
is!_" was the hidden meaning that, half unconsciously to myself, lurked
within my sighs; and, as bells heard from a distance on a summer
evening seem charged at times with an articulate form of words, some
monitory message, that rolls round unceasingly, even so for me some
noiseless and subterraneous voice seemed to chant continually a secret
word, made audible only to my own heart--that "now is the blossoming
of life withered forever." Not that such words formed themselves
vocally within my ear, or issued audibly from my lips; but such a
whisper stole silently to my heart. Yet in what sense could that be true?
For an infant not more than six years old, was it possible that the
promises of life had been really blighted, or its golden pleasures
exhausted? Had I seen Rome? Had I read Milton? Had I heard Mozart?
No. St. Peter's, the "Paradise Lost," the divine melodies of "Don
Giovanni," all alike were as yet unrevealed to me, and not more
through the accidents of my position than through the necessity of my
yet imperfect sensibilities. Raptures there might be in arrear; but
raptures are modes of troubled pleasure. The peace, the rest, the central
security which belong to love that is past all understanding,--these
could return no more. Such a love, so unfathomable,--such a peace, so

unvexed by storms, or the fear of storms,--had brooded over those four
latter years of my infancy, which brought me into special relations to
my elder sister; she being at this period three years older than myself.
The circumstances which attended the sudden dissolution of this most
tender connection I will here rehearse. And, that I may do so more
intelligibly, I will first describe that serene and sequestered position
which we occupied in life. [1]
Any expression of personal vanity, intruding upon impassioned records,
is fatal to their effect--as being incompatible with that absorption of
spirit and that self-oblivion in which only deep passion originates or
can find a genial home. It would, therefore, to myself be exceedingly
painful that even a shadow, or so much as a seeming expression of that
tendency, should creep into these reminiscences. And yet, on the other
hand, it is so impossible, without laying an injurious restraint upon the
natural movement of such a narrative, to prevent oblique gleams
reaching the reader from such circumstances of luxury or aristocratic
elegance as surrounded my childhood, that on all accounts I think it
better to tell him, from the first, with the simplicity of truth, in what
order of society my family moved at the time from which this
preliminary narrative is dated. Otherwise it might happen that, merely
by reporting faithfully the facts of this early experience, I could hardly
prevent the reader