A Mind That Found Itself An Autobiography
This story is derived from as human a document as ever existed; and, because of its uncommon nature, perhaps no one thing contributes so much to its value as its authenticity. It is an autobiography, and more: in part it is a biography; for, in telling the story of my life, I must relate the history of another self--a self which was dominant from my twenty-fourth to my twenty-sixth year. During that period I was unlike what I had been, or what I have been since. The biographical part of my autobiography might be called the history of a mental civil war, which I fought single-handed on a battlefield that lay within the compass of my skull. An Army of Unreason, composed of the cunning and treacherous thoughts of an unfair foe, attacked my bewildered consciousness with cruel persistency, and would have destroyed me, had not a triumphant Reason finally interposed a superior strategy that saved me from my unnatural self. I am not telling the story of my life just to write a book. I tell it because it seems my plain duty to do so. A narrow escape from death and a seemingly miraculous return to health after an apparently fatal illness are enough to make a man ask himself: For what purpose was my life spared? That question I have asked myself, and this book is, in part, an answer.
As in the mellowed light she stood.
And, ever from that fatal hour,
This white youth's image, slight and pale,
Would haunt the maiden's leafy bower,
And wake her spirit's wail.
In that high heart that fiercely hates,
Love is as fierce and wild;
And so the love is wild, that waits
To mount its height in this poor child:
This poor, frail child who born beneath
A roof of leaves, is made to dream,
That she may wear a bridal wreath
For youth of snowy gleam.
Watoga! sure some demon lied,
To thee, when wrapt amid thy sleep,
To make thee his forlornest bride,
Beneath the moaning deep.
That youth who floats an Angel through,
Thy night, thy daily dream--
He loves a maid whose eyes are blue,
And cheek like yon full moon's white beam.
The simple ornaments which thou
Hast taken thy form to deck,
The wild flower wreath that binds thy brow,
The shells that gem thy neck;
Each ornament shall deck a bride
This story is derived from as human a document as ever existed; and, because of its uncommon nature, perhaps no one thing contributes so much to its value as its authenticity. It is an autobiography, and more: in part it is a biography; for, in telling the story of my life, I must relate the history of another self--a self which was dominant from my twenty-fourth to my twenty-sixth year. During that period I was unlike what I had been, or what I have been since. The biographical part of my autobiography might be called the history of a mental civil war, which I fought single-handed on a battlefield that lay within the compass of my skull. An Army of Unreason, composed of the cunning and treacherous thoughts of an unfair foe, attacked my bewildered consciousness with cruel persistency, and would have destroyed me, had not a triumphant Reason finally interposed a superior strategy that saved me from my unnatural self. I am not telling the story of my life just to write a book. I tell it because it seems my plain duty to do so. A narrow escape from death and a seemingly miraculous return to health after an apparently fatal illness are enough to make a man ask himself: For what purpose was my life spared? That question I have asked myself, and this book is, in part, an answer.