_Explanation Fourth. My Own Defects._
My character was very defective in my early days. I have felt this a
hundred times while I have been writing and revising the foregoing
pages. I was wanting in humility. There were some kinds of pride from
which I was probably free; but there were others of which I had more
than my share. And I was lacking in meekness. I could control myself and
keep quite calm in a public debate; but could be angry and resentful in
other cases. I was not sufficiently forbearing. I was not sufficiently
forgiving.
And I was too critical, too pugnacious, too controversial. I was too
much in the habit of looking for defects in what I heard and read;
defects in style; errors in thought; mistakes in reasoning; faults in
arrangement; and improprieties in manner and spirit.
Considering that I was to a great extent self-taught, that much that I
learned I learned after I had become almost a man, this perhaps was
natural; but it was a disadvantage. It would have been better if I had
sought only for the true, the good, the beautiful in what I heard, and
read, and saw. I ought, perhaps, instead of exercising my critical
powers on others, to have contented myself with exercising them on my
own character and performances, and with endeavoring in all things to
set an example of what was worthy of imitation.
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