For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence.
Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthened my soul.
My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events.
In their consequences, these events have terrified - have tortured - have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them.
To me, they have presented little but Horror - to many they will seem less terrible than _barroques_.
Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place - some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which w ill perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.
From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions.
I was especially fond of animals, and w as indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them.
This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure.
To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable.
There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere _Man_.
I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and _a cat_.
This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree.
In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as w itches in disguise.
Not that she was ever _serious_ upon this point - and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now , to be remembered.
