My father died when I was eight.
Apart from feeding and clothing me comfortably and sending me to school—which is no more than was due me—and transmitting to me the MacLane blood and character, I can not see that he ever gave me a single thought.
Certainly he did not love me, for he was quite incapable of loving any one but himself. And since nothing is of any moment in this world without the love of human beings for each other, it is a matter of supreme indifference to me whether my father, Jim MacLane of selfish memory, lived or died.
He is nothing to me.
There are with me still a mother, a sister, and two brothers.
They also are nothing to me.
They do not understand me any more than if I were some strange live curiosity, as which I dare say they regard me.
I am peculiarly of the MacLane blood, which is Highland Scotch. My sister and brothers inherit the traits of their mother’s family, which is of Scotch Lowland descent. This alone makes no small degree of difference. Apart from this the MacLanes—these particular MacLanes—are just a little bit different from every family in Canada, and from every other that I’ve known. It contains and has contained fanatics of many minds—religious, social, whatnot, and I am a true MacLane.
There is absolutely no sympathy between my immediate family and me. There can never be. My mother, having been with me during the whole of my nineteen years, has an utterly distorted idea of my nature and its desires, if indeed she has any idea of it.