And now,doubtless,after the above portrait of my brother,painted in the very best style of Rubens,the reader will conceive himself justified in expecting a full-length one of myself,as a child,for as to my present appearance,I suppose he will be tolerably content with that flitting glimpse in the mirror.But he must excuse me;Ihave no intention of drawing a portrait of myself in childhood;indeed it would be difficult,for at that time I never looked into mirrors.No attempts,however,were ever made to steal me in my infancy,and I never heard that my parents entertained the slightest apprehension of losing me by the hands of kidnappers,though I remember perfectly well that people were in the habit of standing still to look at me,ay,more than at my brother;from which premisses the reader may form any conclusion with respect to my appearance which seemeth good unto him and reasonable.Should he,being a good-natured person,and always inclined to adopt the charitable side in any doubtful point,be willing to suppose that I,too,was eminently endowed by nature with personal graces,Itell him frankly that I have no objection whatever to his entertaining that idea;moreover,that I heartily thank him,and shall at all times be disposed,under similar circumstances,to exercise the same species of charity towards himself.
With respect to my mind and its qualities I shall be more explicit;for,were I to maintain much reserve on this point,many things which appear in these memoirs would be highly mysterious to the reader,indeed incomprehensible.Perhaps no two individuals were ever more unlike in mind and disposition than my brother and myself:as light is opposed to darkness,so was that happy,brilliant,cheerful child to the sad and melancholy being who sprang from the same stock as himself,and was nurtured by the same milk.
Once,when travelling in an Alpine country,I arrived at a considerable elevation;I saw in the distance,far below,a beautiful stream hastening to the ocean,its rapid waters here sparkling in the sunshine,and there tumbling merrily in cascades.
On its banks were vineyards and cheerful villages;close to where Istood,in a granite basin with steep and precipitous sides,slumbered a deep,dark lagoon,shaded by black pines,cypresses,and yews.It was a wild,savage spot,strange and singular;ravens hovered above the pines,filling the air with their uncouth notes,pies chattered,and I heard the cry of an eagle from a neighbouring peak;there lay the lake,the dark,solitary,and almost inaccessible lake;gloomy shadows were upon it,which,strangely modified,as gusts of wind agitated the surface,occasionally assumed the shape of monsters.So I stood on the Alpine elevation,and looked now on the gay distant river,and now at the dark granite-encircled lake close beside me in the lone solitude,and Ithought of my brother and myself.I am no moraliser;but the gay and rapid river,and the dark and silent lake,were,of a verity,no had emblems of us two.
So far from being quick and clever like my brother,and able to rival the literary feat which I have recorded of him,many years elapsed before I was able to understand the nature of letters,or to connect them.A lover of nooks and retired corners,I was as a child in the habit of fleeing from society,and of sitting for hours together with my head on my breast.What I was thinking about,it would be difficult to say at this distance of time;Iremember perfectly well,however,being ever conscious of a peculiar heaviness within me,and at times of a strange sensation of fear,which occasionally amounted to horror,and for which Icould assign no real cause whatever.
By nature slow of speech,I took no pleasure in conversation,nor in hearing the voices of my fellow-creatures.When people addressed me,I not unfrequently,especially if they were strangers,turned away my head from them,and if they persisted in their notice burst into tears,which singularity of behaviour by no means tended to dispose people in my favour.I was as much disliked as my brother was deservedly beloved and admired.My parents,it is true,were always kind to me;and my brother,who was good nature itself,was continually lavishing upon me every mark of affection.
There was,however,one individual who,in the days of my childhood,was disposed to form a favourable opinion of me.One day,a Jew-I have quite forgotten the circumstance,but I was long subsequently informed of it-one day a travelling Jew knocked at the door of a farmhouse in which we had taken apartments;I was near at hand sitting in the bright sunshine,drawing strange lines on the dust with my fingers,an ape and dog were my companions;the Jew looked at me and asked me some questions,to which,though Iwas quite able to speak,I returned no answer.On the door being opened,the Jew,after a few words,probably relating to pedlery,demanded who the child was,sitting in the sun;the maid replied that I was her mistress's youngest son,a child weak HERE,pointing to her forehead.The Jew looked at me again,and then said:''Pon my conscience,my dear,I believe that you must be troubled there yourself to tell me any such thing.It is not my habit to speak to children,inasmuch as I hate them,because they often follow me and fling stones after me;but I no sooner looked at that child than Iwas forced to speak to it-his not answering me shows his sense,for it has never been the custom of the wise to fling away their words in indifferent talk and conversation;the child is a sweet child,and has all the look of one of our people's children.Fool,indeed!did I not see his eyes sparkle just now when the monkey seized the dog by the ear?-they shone like my own diamonds-does your good lady want any-real and fine?Were it not for what you tell me,I should say it was a prophet's child.Fool,indeed!he can write already,or I'll forfeit the box which I carry on my back,and for which I should be loth to take two hundred pounds!'
He then leaned forward to inspect the lines which I had traced.
All of a sudden he started back,and grew white as a sheet;then,taking off his hat,he made some strange gestures to me,cringing,chattering,and showing his teeth,and shortly departed,muttering something about 'holy letters,'and talking to himself in a strange tongue.The words of the Jew were in due course of time reported to my mother,who treasured them in her heart,and from that moment began to entertain brighter hopes of her youngest born than she had ever before ventured to foster.