The bells of Bow were ringing in my ears. I saw myself a merchant
prince, though still young. Nobles crowded my counting house. I lent
them millions and married their daughters. I listened, unobserved in
a corner, to discussion on some new book. Immediately I was a famous
author. All men praised me: for of reviewers and their density I, in
those days, knew nothing. Poetry, fiction, history, I wrote them all;
and all men read, and wondered. Only here was a crumpled rose leaf in
the pillow on which I laid my swelling head: penmanship was vexation
to me, and spelling puzzled me, so that I wrote with sorrow and many
blots and scratchings out. Almost I put aside the idea of becoming an
author.

But along whichever road I might fight my way to the Elysian Fields of
fame, education, I dimly but most certainly comprehended, was a
necessary weapon to my hand. And so, with aching heart and aching
head, I pored over my many books. I see myself now in my small
bedroom, my elbows planted on the shaky, one-legged table, startled
every now and again by the frizzling of my hair coming in contact with
the solitary candle. On cold nights I wear my overcoat, turned up
about the neck, a blanket round my legs, and often I must sit with my
fingers in my ears, the better to shut out the sounds of life, rising
importunately from below. "A song, Of a song, To a song, A song, 0!
song!" "I love, Thou lovest, He she or it loves. I should or would
love" over and over again, till my own voice seems some strange
buzzing thing about me, while my head grows smaller and smaller till I
put my hands up frightened, wondering if it still be entire upon my
shoulders.

Was I more stupid than the average, or is a boy's brain physically
incapable of the work our educational system demands of it?