 | CHAPTER I. Condensed novels and other papers |  |
1. CHAPTER I.
My earliest impressions are of a huge, mis-shapen
rock, against which the hoarse waves beat unceasingly.
On this rock three pelicans are standing in a
defiant attitude. A dark sky lowers in the background,
while two sea-gulls and a gigantic cormorant
eye with extreme disfavor the floating corpse of a
drowned woman in the foreground. A few bracelets,
coral necklaces, and other articles of jewelry,
scattered around loosely, complete this remarkable
picture.
It is one which, in some vague, unconscious way,
symbolizes, to my fancy, the character of a man. I
have never been able to explain exactly why. I
think I must have seen the picture in some illustrated
volume, when a baby, or my mother may have
dreamed it before I was born.
As a child I was not handsome. When I consulted
the triangular bit of looking-glass which I
always carried with me, it showed a pale, sandy and
freckled face, shaded by locks like the color of sea-weed
when the sun strikes it in deep water. My
eyes were said to be indistinctive; they were a faint,
ashen gray; but above them rose—my only beauty
—a high, massive, domelike forehead, with polished
temples, like door-knobs of the purest porcelain.
Our family was a family of governesses. My
mother had been one, and my sisters had the same
occupation. Consequently, when at the age of thirteen,
my eldest sister handed me the advertisement
of Mr. Rawjester, clipped from that day's Times, I
accepted it as my destiny. Nevertheless, a mysterious
presentiment of an indefinite future haunted me
in my dreams that night, as I lay upon my little
snow-white bed. The next morning, with two band-boxes
tied up in silk handkerchiefs, and a hair trunk,
I turned my back upon Minerva Cottage forever.
| CHAPTER I. Condensed novels and other papers | |