Oh, how I hate this living
death which has swallowed all my teens, which is greedily devouring my
youth, which will sap my prime, and in which my old age, if I am cursed
with any, will be worn away! As my life creeps on for ever through the
long toil-laden days with its agonizing monotony, narrowness, and
absolute uncongeniality, how my spirit frets and champs its unbreakable
fetters--all in vain!

SPECIAL NOTICE

You can dive into this story head first as it were. Do not fear
encountering such trash as descriptions of beautiful sunsets and
whisperings of wind. We (999 out of every 1000) can see nought in sunsets
save as signs and tokens whether we may expect rain on the morrow or the
contrary, so we will leave such vain and foolish imagining to those poets
and painters--poor fools! Let us rejoice that we are not of their
temperament!

Better be born a slave than a poet, better be born a black, better be
born a cripple! For a poet must be companionless--alone! _fearfully_ alone
in the midst of his fellows whom he loves. Alone because his soul is as
far above common mortals as common mortals are above monkeys.

There is no plot in this story, because there has been none in my life or
in any other life which has come under my notice. I am one of a class,
the individuals of which have not time for plots in their life, but have
all they can do to get their work done without indulging in such a luxury.

CHAPTER ONE

I Remember, I Remember

"Boo, hoo! Ow, ow; Oh! oh! Me'll die. Boo, hoo. The pain, the pain!
Boo, hoo!"

"Come, come, now. Daddy's little mate isn't going to turn Turk like that,
is she? I'll put some fat out of the dinner-bag on it, and tie it up in
my hanky. Don't cry any more now. Hush, you must not cry! You'll make old
Dart buck if you kick up a row like that."

That is my first recollection of life. I was barely three. I can remember
the majestic gum-trees surrounding us, the sun glinting on their straight
white trunks, and falling on the gurgling fern-banked stream, which
disappeared beneath a steep scrubby hill on our left. It was an hour past
noon on a long clear summer day. We were on a distant part of the run,
where my father had come to deposit salt. He had left home early in the
dewy morning, carrying me in front of him on a little brown pillow which
my mother had made for the purpose. We had put the lumps of rock-salt
in the troughs on the other side of the creek. The str