In a few anecdotes of his early life which he related in
his "Memoranda," though the name of his mother was never mentioned but
with respect, it was not difficult to perceive that the recollections
she had left behind--at least, those that had made the deepest
impression--were of a painful nature. One of the most striking
passages, indeed, in the few pages of that Memoir which related to his
early days, was where, in speaking of his own sensitiveness, on the
subject of his deformed foot, he described the feeling of horror and
humiliation that came over him, when his mother, in one of her fits of
passion, called him "a lame brat." As all that he had felt strongly
through life was, in some shape or other, reproduced in his poetry, it
was not likely that an expression such as this should fail of being
recorded. Accordingly we find, in the opening of his drama, "The
Deformed Transformed,"
_Bertha_. Out, hunchback!
_Arnold_. I was born so, mother!
It may be questioned, indeed, whether that whole drama was not
indebted for its origin to this single recollection.
While such was the character of the person under whose immediate eye
his youth was passed, the counteraction which a kind and watchful
guardian might have opposed to such example and influence was almost
wholly lost to him. Connected but remotely with the family, and never
having had any opportunity of knowing the boy, it was with much
reluctance that Lord Carlisle originally undertook the trust; nor can
we wonder that, when his duties as a guardian brought him acquainted
with Mrs.
Pages:
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52