So I began my life, and so has it continued. Some obscure instinct of pride compelled me to wave my handkerchief in response to excited waves of white from the pavement. I looked as if I did not care, and this was the start of a subsequent deliberate development of the "don't care" philosophy, which the good ladies of Mercy triumphantly prophesied would eventually lead me to perdition. To perdition it did not lead me, but to many private hours of despair and suffering, for which I could claim no alleviation in the support of my fellows, since I had chosen the attitude of defiance and "don't care." Heaven knows how much I cared! what salt passionate tears I wept because I always cared a great deal too much. But this nobody knew. My pride was to pass for a hardened reprobate, and such were my iniquities and the ferocity of that same untamable pride that if I achieved success in nothing else, here my accomplishment could not be disputed. I can hardly tell now what were my first definite impressions of a ship and the sea, for it is difficult to recall the time when either constituted a novelty for me. If there were truth in the theory of transmigration of the soul, mine ought to be a remnant of a sailor's, or a child's born at sea. The big vessel inspired me with no fears, but an acute sensation of delight. The ropes, the sailors, the shouting, the wonderful file of porters laden with trunks and portmanteaus, cases and boxes dropping into mysterious depths with such an awful suggestion of fatality, the triumphant assertion of our herded insignificance, the captain's air of deity upon the bridge above, the marvels of the cabins below, and the little perilous stairs one rather slid than walked down, and the rapture of climbing up again from the stuffy dimness into the grey brine-tasting air, to laugh aloud in the intoxication of fear as the ship rose and fell upon the swell of a choppy grey sea rushing into the river's mouth. It was sad to be alone, to be going away at seven from one's land and home among unknown barbarians; but for one strange hour I was not to be pitied, so quivering with pleasure was this first taste of adventure. By-and-by I grew stunned and quiescent, and was glad to sit still, curled up in some pretty lady's lap, where my cheek rested luxuriously against soft, warm fur. But for the moment I was too eager to see everything, follow every curious movement with childhood's wide alert gaze, hear everything, understand everything.