One
day, (I was about five years old then,) a gentleman paid a visit to my
father, riding a splendid Arabian horse. Upon dismounting, he tied the
horse near the steps of the piazza instead of the horseblock, so that I
found I was just upon the level with the stirrup, standing at a certain
elevation. Half as an experiment, to try whether I could touch the
horse without his starting, I managed to get my foot into the stirrup,
and so mounted upon his back. The horse, feeling the light burden, did
start, broke from his fastening, and sped away with me on his back at
the top of his speed. He ran several miles without stopping, and
finished by pitching me off his back upon the ground, in leaping a
fence. This fall produced some disease of the spine, which clung to me
till I was twelve years old, when it was almost miraculously cured by
an itinerant Arab physician. He was generally pronounced to be a quack,
but he certainly effected many wonderful cures, mine among others.
I had always been an imaginative child; and my long-continued sedentary
life compelling me (a welcome compulsion) to reading as my chief
occupation and amusement, I acquired much knowledge beyond my years.
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