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1885.
I am so often asked for references to some pamphlet or journal in whichmay be found some outline of my life, and the enquiries are so oftencouched in terms of such real kindness, that I have resolved to pen a fewbrief autobiographical sketches, which may avail to satisfy friendlyquestioners, and to serve, in some measure, as defence against unfairattack.
On October 1st, 1847, I made my appearance in this "vale of tears","little Pheasantina", as I was irreverently called by a giddy aunt, a petsister of my mother's. Just at that time my father and mother werestaying within the boundaries of the City of London, so that I was bornwell "within the sound of Bow bells".
Though born in London, however, full three quarters of my blood areIrish. My dear mother was a Morris—the spelling of the name having beenchanged from Maurice some five generations back—and I have often heardher tell a quaint story, illustrative of that family pride which is socommon a feature of a decayed Irish family. She was one of a largefamily, and her father and mother, gay, handsome, and extravagant, hadwasted merrily what remained to them of patrimony. I can remember herfather well, for I was fourteen years of age when he died. A bent oldman, with hair like driven snow, splendidly handsome in his old age,hot-tempered to passion at the lightest provocation, loving and wrath inquick succession. As the family grew larger and the moans grew smaller,many a pinch came on the household, and the parents were glad to acceptthe offer of a relative to take charge of Emily, the second daughter. Avery proud old lady was this maiden aunt, and over the mantel-piece ofher drawing-room ever hung a great diagram, a family tree, which mightilyimpressed the warm imagination of the delicate child she had taken incharge. It was a lengthy and well-grown family tree, tracing back theMorris family to the days of Charlemagne, and branching out from a stockof "the seven kings of France". Was there ever yet a decayed. Irishfamily that did not trace itself back to some "kings"? and these"Milesian kings"—who had been expelled from France, doubtless for goodreasons, and who had sailed across the sea and landed in fair Erin, andthere had settled and robbed and fought—did more good 800 years aftertheir death than they did, I expect, during their ill-spent lives, ifthey proved a source of gentle harmless pride to the old maiden lady whoadmired their names over her mantel-piece in the earlier half of thepresent century. And, indeed, they acted as a kind of moral thermometer,in a fashion that would much have astonished their ill-doing andbarbarous selves. For my mother has told me how when she would commitsome piece of childish naughtiness, her aunt would say, looking gravelyover her spectacles at the small culprit: "Emily, your conduct isunworthy of the descendant of the seven kings of France." And Emily, withher sweet grey Irish eyes, and her curling masses of raven-black hair,would cry in penitent shame over her unworthiness, with some vague ideathat those royal, and to her very real ancestors, would despise her smallsweet rosebud self, as wholly unwo