write upon will do, provided I snatch it up in time to catch my ideas as
they fly.

"My method being now explained, I proceed to the deliberate act of
self-betrayal which I contemplate in producing this picture of myself.

II

"I divide my life into two Epochs--respectively entitled: Before my
Deafness, and After my Deafness. Or, suppose I define the melancholy
change in my fortunes more sharply still, by contrasting with each other
my days of prosperity and my days of disaster? Of these alternatives, I
hardly know which to choose. It doesn't matter; the one thing needful is
to go on.

"In any case, then, I have to record that I passed a happy
childhood--thanks to my good mother. Her generous nature had known
adversity, and had not been deteriorated by undeserved trials. Born of
slave-parents, she had not reached her eighteenth year, when she was sold
by auction in the Southern States of America. The person who bought her
(she never would tell me who he was) freed her by a codicil, added to his
will on his deathbed. My father met with her, a few years afterwards, in
American society--fell (as I have heard) madly in love with her--and
married her in defiance of the wishes of his family. He was quite right:
no better wife and mother ever lived. The one vestige of good feeling
that I still possess, lives in my empty heart when I dwell at times on
the memory of my mother.

"My good fortune followed me when I was sent to school.