My parents, though of noble rank, were limited in
fortune, or rather my father was ostentatious beyond his means, and
expended so much in his palace, his equipage, and his retinue, that he
was continually straitened in his pecuniary circumstances. I was a
younger son, and looked upon with indifference by my father, who, from
a principle of family pride, wished to leave all his property to my
elder brother.
I showed, when quite a child, an extreme sensibility. Every thing
affected me violently. While yet an infant in my mother's arms, and
before I had learnt to talk, I could be wrought upon to a wonderful
degree of anguish or delight by the power of music. As I grew older my
feelings remained equally acute, and I was easily transported into
paroxysms of pleasure or rage. It was the amusement of my relatives and
of the domestics to play upon this irritable temperament. I was moved
to tears, tickled to laughter, provoked to fury, for the entertainment
of company, who were amused by such a tempest of mighty passion in a
pigmy frame. They little thought, or perhaps little heeded the
dangerous sensibilities they were fostering. I thus became a little
creature of passion, before reason was developed. In a short time I
grew too old to be a plaything, and then I became a torment. The tricks
and passions I had been teased into became irksome, and I was disliked
by my teachers for the very lessons they had taught me.
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