Autobiographical Sketches | Page 9

my memory so as
to be remembered at this day, were two, and both before I could have
completed my second year; namely, 1st, a remarkable dream of terrific
grandeur about a favorite nurse, which is interesting to myself for this
reason--that it demonstrates my dreaming tendencies to have been
constitutional, and not dependent upon laudanum; [3] and, 2dly, the
fact of having connected a profound sense of pathos with the
reappearance, very early in the spring, of some crocuses. This I
mention as inexplicable: for such annual resurrections of plants and
flowers affect us only as memorials, or suggestions of some higher
change, and therefore in connection with the idea of death; yet of death
I could, at that time, have had no experience whatever.

This, however, I was speedily to acquire. My two eldest sisters-- eldest
of three then living, and also elder than myself--were summoned to an
early death. The first who died was Jane, about two years older than
myself. She was three and a half, I one and a half, more or less by some
trifle that I do not recollect. But death was then scarcely intelligible to
me, and I could not so properly be said to suffer sorrow as a sad
perplexity. There was another death in the house about the same time,
namely, of a maternal grandmother; but, as she had come to us for the
express purpose of dying in her daughter's society, and from illness had
lived perfectly secluded, our nursery circle knew her but little, and were
certainly more affected by the death (which I witnessed) of a beautiful
bird, viz., a kingfisher, which had been injured by an accident. With my
sister Jane's death (though otherwise, as I have said, less sorrowful than
perplexing) there was, however, connected an incident which made a
most fearful impression upon myself, deepening my tendencies to
thoughtfulness and abstraction beyond what would seem credible for
my years. If there was one thing in this world from which, more than
from any other, nature had forced me to revolt, it was brutality and
violence. Now, a whisper arose in the family that a female servant, who
by accident was drawn off from her proper duties to attend my sister
Jane for a day or two, had on one occasion treated her harshly, if not
brutally; and as this ill treatment happened within three or four days of
her death, so that the occasion of it must have been some fretfulness in
the poor child caused by her sufferings, naturally there was a sense of
awe and indignation diffused through the family. I believe the story
never reached my mother, and possibly it was exaggerated; but upon
me the effect was terrific. I did not often see the person charged with
this cruelty; but, when I did, my eyes sought the ground; nor could I
have borne to look her in the face; not, however, in any spirit that could
be called anger. The feeling which fell upon me was a shuddering
horror, as upon a first glimpse of the truth that I was in a world of evil
and strife. Though born in a large town, (the town of Manchester, even
then amongst the largest of the island,) I had passed the whole of my
childhood, except for the few earliest weeks, in a rural seclusion. With
three innocent little sisters for playmates, sleeping always amongst
them, and shut up forever in a silent garden from all knowledge of
poverty, or oppression, or outrage, I had not suspected until this

moment the true complexion of the world in which myself and my
sisters were living. Henceforward the character of my thoughts changed
greatly; for so representative are some acts, that one single case of the
class is sufficient to throw open before you the whole theatre of
possibilities in that direction. I never heard that the woman accused of
this cruelty took it at all to heart, even after the event which so
immediately succeeded had reflected upon it a more painful emphasis.
But for myself, that incident had a lasting revolutionary power in
coloring my estimate of life.
So passed away from earth one of those three sisters that made up my
nursery playmates; and so did my acquaintance (if such it could be
called) commence with mortality. Yet, in fact, I knew little more of
mortality than that Jane had disappeared. She had gone away; but
perhaps she would come back. Happy interval of heaven-born
ignorance! Gracious immunity of infancy from sorrow disproportioned
to its strength! I was sad for Jane's absence. But still in my heart I
trusted that she would come again. Summer and winter came
again--crocuses and roses; why not little Jane?
Thus easily was healed, then, the first wound