XXXIII 



LOOKING back now, it seems to me that the whole 

 of my childhood was pursued by one phantom or another. 

 The smell of the woods through the open nursery window 

 on a hot summer's night turned me sick with an un- 

 speakable apprehension. Believers in reincarnation would 

 attribute this peculiarity to some sylvan tragedy in a 

 previous existence. No doubt there must have been a 

 physical explanation. I have come to the conclusion that 

 most things in life are capable of a double interpretation / 

 which is the same thing as saying that there are two 

 aspects to every question ! 



Is it usual for children, I wonder, to see such marvellous 

 colours, shapes, and appearances in the dark as both I and 

 a sister did, between the ages of five and eight ? Kaleido- 

 scopic colours running one into the other, and an odd, 

 very frequently recurrent vision of a cushion covered with 

 gold pieces which poured down on the bed. 

 My husband, as a small child, would behold complete 

 scenes in the corner of his nursery, and would pull his 

 nurse on one side impatiently when she impeded his view. 

 And let me here note a curious incident connected with 

 his juvenile imaginings. All his life, as far back as he 

 could remember, he had a recurrent dream of terrorat 

 fairly rare intervals of an immense wave rising up before 

 him like a mountain and curling over at the top, about 

 to overwhelm the land. He told me of this dream after we 

 were married, adding that though it was so distinct that he 



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