I can see now a significance back of these seemingly trivial things: they reveal an unenviable complexity of nature. In first one thing, then another, I have stood out against conforming to customs, if my own ideas of right and wrong prohibited me, but alas! so often has come the ultimate defeat--concessions to conventions, customs, overpowering circumstances, or instincts. And, when finally yielding to that so long withstood, I have pursued the opposite course with an almost equal determination to make a success of the counterfeit; to give, as far as possible, an impression of genuineness. If I curled my hair, the curls must be as natural as possible. And the same principle has been carried into less trivial matters. A legitimate outlet for my ingrained mimetic and dramatic tendency would have been the stage. When as a child I had sat on my father’s lap and coaxed him to tell me where I came from, I had no idea of the correct answer to my question. Though I do not remember how he answered me, I think I may have persisted in my query because I was beginning to see the inconsistencies and absurdities of the stories told me, but this is purely conjecture. I remember the older schoolgirls telling me strange, incredible things for a time, then later, one dreadful day, explaining more correctly the real origin of babies. Shocked and horrified by their talk, I opposed a prompt and stout rejection. It wasn’t so, I knew it wasn’t so. Laughing at me, they adduced further proof. I tried to pull away and get out of the room as I hotly declared, “It isn’t so, I know my father and mother never----” and I choked with indignation. They evidently enjoyed the torture they were inflicting. I was like a hunted hare, and half my fright was doubtless due to the growing conviction that _it might be true_. One girl pulled me back as I tried to escape; then braced herself against the door while I faced her in impotent rage and shame. And another informer taunted, “Little Fool! you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t true--your father and mother ain’t any better than anyone else’s.” This was such a bitter experience that I have always felt strongly the need of early satisfying these inevitable queries of children by true, if partial, explanations, thus forestalling their enlightenment in the brutal way it came to me, associated with impure, repelling interpretations.