AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES.




CHAPTER I.

THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD.


About the close of my sixth year, suddenly the first chapter of my
life came to a violent termination; that chapter which, even within
the gates of recovered paradise, might merit a remembrance. "_Life is
finished!_" was the secret misgiving of my heart; for the heart of
infancy is as apprehensive as that of maturest wisdom in relation to
any capital wound inflicted on the happiness. "_Life is finished!
Finished it is!_" was the hidden meaning that, half unconsciously to
myself, lurked within my sighs; and, as bells heard from a distance
on a summer evening seem charged at times with an articulate form of
words, some monitory message, that rolls round unceasingly, even so
for me some noiseless and subterraneous voice seemed to chant
continually a secret word, made audible only to my own heart--that
"now is the blossoming of life withered forever." Not that such words
formed themselves vocally within my ear, or issued audibly from my
lips; but such a whisper stole silently to my heart. Yet in what sense
could _that_ be true? For an infant not more than six years old, was
it possible that the promises of life had been really blighted, or