Thirdly, it is the only original story
in my somewhat limited collection, and I am naturally rather proud of
the favour with which it is invariably received. I think it was the
foolish fancy of my dear wife and children combined that this most
veracious history should be committed to paper. It was either
because--being so unused to authorship--I had no notion of
composition, and was troubled by a tyro tendency to stray from my
subject; or because the part played by the flat iron, though
important, was small; or because I and my affairs were most chiefly
interesting to myself as writer, and my family as readers; or from a
combination of all these reasons together, that my tale outgrew its
first title and we had to add a second, and call it "Some Passages in
the Life of an only Son."
Yes, I was an only son. I was an only child also, speaking as the
world speaks, and not as Wordsworth's "simple child" spoke. But let me
rather use the "little maid's" reckoning, and say that I have, rather
than that I had, a sister. "Her grave is green, it may be seen." She
peeped into the world, and we called her Alice; then she went away
again and took my mother with her.
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