"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life or whether that station will be held by anybody else these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began strike and I began to cry simultaneously.

In consideration of the day and hour of my birth it was declared by the nurse and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted first that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirints; both these gifts inevitably of either gender born towards the small hours on a Friday night."