The effect is best described in her own words:
"It seems to me that I never could quite become accustomed to hear myself
addressed by name. When some member of the household would call me from
study or play--even at the early age of five or six years--I would
instantly be seized with a feeling of great and almost overwhelming awe and
amazement, at the sound, which I knew was in some way associated with me.
"I found it extremely difficult to identity myself with that name, and
often when alone would repeat the name over and over, trying to find a
solution of the 'why and wherefore.'
"At length this wonderment grew upon me to such an extent that I felt I
must see this self of me that was called by a name.
"I acquired the habit of standing on a chair to gaze into the mirror above
the chest of drawers in my mother's bed-room, and putting my face close to
the mirror, I would gaze and gaze into the eyes I saw there, and repeat
over and over the name which seemed to me not to belong to that 'other
self' hidden behind those eyes.
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