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HOSTILITY.

It has always been my fate to be punished for fraternizing with any particular group of human beings. Such an effort on my part meets first with enthusiasm, then with hostility, and finally with a tendency to victimise. This has so often occured [[occurred]] that I can but ponder on the cause. Evidently my nature is monastic, and it has been accentuated by an unusual childhood. Any effort on my part to be otherwise is only make-believe, an unconscious deceiving of myself and others. To the herd this deception, when disclosed, is a crime, none the less objectionable because of its indefinite character. Even at that early age, had it been possible, I would have completely avoided my companions. As it was not possible, I made my first effort at feigning to be one with them.

At that particular moment of which I am now writing the tenement children suddenly rose against me. It was not merely dislike but actually hate that agitated them. They would point their dirty little fingers at me and called me "Saucer-eyes!" and other names, far worse. "Liar!" too, for though as poorly dressed as they, by now, did I not brag of velvet jackets and other elegancies beyond the gasp of their imaginations?

Even the tenement mothers joined in the general onslaught. When I went to fetch water with my heavy pitcher, they would collect round the public tap and give vent to their feelings in rich and colored language. Of course, at that time the experience was painful, but now it amuses me by its similarity to other and later occurences [[occurrences]] in quite different grades of society. Who can doubt but that the primitive instinct of the gregarious animal is to attack the one who walks alone!