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.
13:006:029 The sons of Merari; Mahli, Libni his son, Shimei his son, Uzza
his son,
13:006:030 Shimea his son, Haggiah his son, Asaiah his son.
13:006:031 And these are they whom David set over the service of song in
the house of the LORD, after that the ark had rest.
13:006:032 And they ministered before the dwelling place of the
tabernacle of the congregation with singing, until Solomon had
built the house of the LORD in Jerusalem: and then they waited
on their office according to their order.
13:006:033 And these are they that waited with their children. Of the
sons of the Kohathites: Heman a singer, the son of Joel, the
son of Shemuel,
13:006:034 The son of Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the
son of Toah,
13:006:035 The son of Zuph, the son of Elkanah, the son of Mahath, the
son of Amasai,
13:006:036 The son of Elkanah, the son of Joel, the son of Azariah, the
son of Zephaniah,
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.