If we look
back upon our earliest sorrows (and who are they that have none to
look upon?), and take into consideration the narrow limits of our
capacity for either pleasure or pain when we are young, we must admit
that a broken doll or a lost penny are, after all, as fruitful of
genuine and hopeless misery in their way, as are, in after-life, a
broken heart or a lost friend.
I do believe that on that June morning, when full of an untold sorrow,
I stole away to the most secret and secluded spot I could find, I was
not less miserable than I have been many a June morning since, though
the best of life's hard lessons have been learned in the meantime. It
seemed to me that all my hopes, and wishes, and endeavors would always
be vain and fruitless; I could not see a bright side anywhere I
looked. I was always doing and saying the wrong things; I was in
everybody's way: no one wanted me, no one cared for me--why was I ever
born? I had no companions. My stepmother looked down upon the
dangerous habit of allowing children to cultivate juvenile friendships
indiscriminately, and I was not sufficient unto myself for
distractions that would keep me quietly out of the way. What good was
I? I was always ill-humored, vexing my step-mother and making baby
cry. It was plain to see that I was one too many in the world, and
whatever I did with myself I would be surely trespassing upon
somebody's privilege, outraging somebody's patience, and making myself
a nuisance generally.
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