Confession, Or The Blind Heart

The narrative which follows is intended to illustrate these opinions.
It is the story of a blind heart--nay, of blind hearts--blind
through their own perversity--blind to their own interests--their
own joys, hopes, and proper sources of delight. In narrating my
own fortunes, I depict theirs; and the old leaven of wilfulness,
which belongs to our nature, has, in greater or less degree, a
place in every human bosom.

I was the only one surviving of several sons. My parents died while
I was yet an infant. I never knew them. I was left to the doubtful
charge of relatives, who might as well have been strangers; and,
from their treatment, I learned to doubt and to distrust among the
first fatal lessons of my youth. I felt myself unloved--nay, as I
fancied, disliked and despised. I was not merely an orphan. I was
poor, and was felt as burdensome by those connections whom a dread
of public opinion, rather than a sense of duty and affection,
persuaded to take me to their homes. Here, then, when little more
than three years old, I found myself--a lonely brat, whom servants
might flout at pleasure, and whom superiors only regarded with a
frown. I was just old enough to remember that I had once experienced
very different treatment. I had felt the caresses of a fond mother--I
had heard the cheering accents of a generous and a gentle father.
The one had soothed my griefs and encouraged my hopes--the other
had stimulated my energies and prompted my desires. Let no one
fancy that, because I was a child, these lessons were premature.
All education, to be valuable, must begin with the child's first
efforts at discrimination. Suddenly, both of these fond parents
disappeared, and I was just young enough to wonder why.