under housemaid to supply her place; who went off also in her turn, leaving
me in charge of the cook's daughter, a child of nine years old, who soon
stole out of the room, and scampered away along the gallery out of the
reach of my voice, leaving the room to darkness and to me--and there I lay,
in all the horrors of a low nervous fever, unpitied and alone.

Shall I be pardoned for having dwelt so long on this history of the mental
and corporeal ills of my childhood? Such details will probably appear more
trivial to the frivolous and ignorant than to the philosophic and well
informed: not only because the best informed are usually the most indulgent
judges, but because they will perceive some connexion between these
apparently puerile details and subjects of higher importance. Bacon, and
one who in later days has successfully followed him on this ground, point
out as one of the most important subjects of human inquiry, equally
necessary to the science of morals and of medicine, "The history of the
power and influence of the imagination, not only upon the mind and body of
the imaginant, but upon those of other people." This history, so much
desired and so necessary, has been but little advanced. One reason for this
may be, that both by the learned and the unlearned it is usually begun at
the wrong end.

"_Belier, mon ami, commences par le commencement_," is excellent advice;
equally applicable to philosophical history and to fairy tale. We must be
content to begin at the beginning, if we would learn the history of our own
minds; we must condescend to be even as little children, if we would
discover or recollect those small causes which early influence the
imagination, and afterwards become strong habits, prejudices, and passions.
In this point of view, if they might possibly tend to turn public attention
in a new direction to an important subject, my puerile anecdotes may be
permitted. These, my experiments, _solitary and in concert, touching fear_,