twelve o’clock at night
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 -LRB- as I have been informed and believe -RRB- on a Friday , at twelve o'clock at night . It was remarked that the clock began to 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 spirits ; both these gifts inevitably attaching , as they believed , to all unlucky infants of either gender , born towards the small hours on a Friday night . I need say nothing here , on the first head , because nothing can show better than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified by the result .