taring at me (vile as human nature is, there were not many who did
that), as by insulting me with over-acted sympathy, and elaborate
anxiety to sham entire ignorance of my father's fate. The gallows-brand
was on my forehead; but they were too benevolently blind to see it. The
gallows-infamy was my inheritance; but they were too resolutely generous
to discover it! This was hard to bear. However, I was strong-hearted
even then, when my sensations were quick, and my sympathies young: so I
bore it.

"My only weakness was my father's weakness--the notion that I was born
to a station ready made for me, and that the great use of my life was to
live up to it. My station! I battled for that with the world for years
and years, before I discovered that the highest of all stations is the
station a man makes for himself: and the lowest, the station that is
made for him by others.

"At starting in life, your father wrote to make me offers of
assistance--assistance, after he had ruined me! Assistance to the child,
from hands which had tied the rope round the parent's neck! I sent him
back his letter. He knew that I was his enemy, his son's enemy, and his
son's son's enemy, as long as I lived. I never heard from him again.

"Trusting boldly to myself to carve out my own way, and to live down my
undeserved ignominy; resolving in the pride of my integrity to combat
openly and fairly with misfortune, I shrank, at first, from disowning my
parentage and abandoning my father's name. Standing on my own character,
confiding in my intellect and my perseverance, I tried pursuit after
pursuit, and was beaten afresh at every new effort. Whichever way I
turned, the gallows still rose as the same immovable obstacle between me
and fortune, between me and station, between me and my fellowmen. I
was morbidly sensitive on this point. The slightest references to my
father's fate, however remote or accidental, curdled my blood. I saw
open insult, or humiliating compassion, or forced forbearance, in the
look and manner of every man about me. So I broke off with old friends,
and tried new; and, in seeking fresh pursuits, sought fresh connections,
where my father's infamy might be unknown. Wherever I went, the old
stain always broke out afresh, just at the moment when I had deceived
myself into the belief that it was utterly effaced. I had a warm heart
then--it was some time before it turned to stone, and felt nothing.
Those were the days when failure and