For generations it had been a law unto itself; none of its
members had known any duty but the fulfilment of his desires; and I
believe even that kind of outward conscience called Honour had scarcely
existed for some of them. I had from my earliest recollection the nature
of these ancestors: they, though dead, desired, acted, lived in
me,--with something of a difference, due to I know not what. Let me try
to state the fact as it appears to me looking back: I was for myself the
one consciousness, the one person in the world, all else--trees, beasts,
men and women, and what not--being the medium in which, and on which, I
lived. I conceived of nothing around me but as existing to please, to
amuse, to delight me, and if anything showed itself contrary to these
ends, I simply avoided it. What I wished to do I did; what I wished to
have I had;--and nothing else. I do not suppose that in these points I
was different from most other children of wealthy parents. Where I
differed, I believe, was in having a peculiarly sensitive, and at the
same time admirably healthy, constitution of body, which induced a
remarkable development of desire and gratification.
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