always fervent and unruly, unacquainted with moderation in its
attachments, violent in its indignation and its enmity, but easily
persuaded to pity and forgiveness.

When I recovered from my swoon, I ran to my mother's room; but she was
gone. I rent the air with my cries, and shocked all about me with
importunities to know whither they had carried her. They had carried her
to the grave, and nothing would content me but to visit the spot three or
four times a day, and to sit in the room in which she died, in stupid and
mopeful silence, all night long.

At this time I was only five years old,--an age at which, in general, a
deceased parent is quickly forgotten; but, in my attachment to my mother,
I showed none of the volatility of childhood. While she lived, I was never
at ease but when seated at her knee, or with my arms round her neck. When
dead, I cherished her remembrance for years, and have paid, hundreds of
times, the tribute of my tears at the foot of her grave.

My brother, who was three years older than myself, behaved in a very
different manner. I used to think the difference between us was merely
that of sex; that every boy was boisterous, ungrateful, imperious, and
inhuman, as every girl was soft, pliant, affectionate. Time has cured me
of that mistake, and, as it has shown me females unfeeling and perverse,
so it has introduced me to men full of gentleness and sensibility. My
brother's subsequent conduct convinced me that he was at all times selfish
and irascible beyond most other men, and that his ingratitude and
insolence to his mother were only congenial parts of the character he
afterwards displayed at large.

My brother and I passed our infancy in one unintermitted quarrel. We