In the preceding pages I have given a short record of the first twenty-six years of my life,–years of suffering, disgrace, and inward remorse. I fear that my mode of telling will have left an idea simply of their absurdities; but, in truth, I was wretched,–sometimes almost unto death, and have often cursed the hour in which I was born. There had clung to me a feeling that I had been looked upon always as an evil, an encumbrance, a useless thing,–as a creature of whom those connected with him had to be ashamed.