CHAPTER I.TO THE READER.
Before the history of any life can be written, that life must be lived; so that it is not my life that I am now writing.

Attacked in early youth by an abominable moral malady, I here narrate what happened to me during the space of three years.

Were I the only victim of that disease, I would say nothing, but as many others suffer from the same evil, I write for them, although I am not sure that they will give heed to me.

Should my warning be unheeded, I shall still have reaped the fruit of my agonizing in having cured myself, and, like the fox caught in a trap, shall have gnawed off my captive foot..