ii] USK: MY EARLIEST MEMORIES 25 



common to a considerable proportion of children of the same 

 age, that, during the whole period of my residence at Usk, I 

 have no clear recollection, and can form no distinct mental 

 image, of either my father or mother, brothers or sisters. I 

 simply recollect that they existed, but my recollection is only 

 a blurred image, and does not extend to any peculiarities of 

 feature, form, or even of dress or habits. It is only at a 

 considerably later period that I begin to recollect them as 

 distinct and well-marked individuals whose form and features 

 could not be mistaken — as, in fact, being my father and 

 mother, my brothers and sisters ; and the house and surround- 

 ings in which I can thus first recollect, and in some degree 

 visualize them, enable me to say that I must have been then 

 at least eight years old. 



What makes this deficiency the more curious is that, 

 during the very same period at which I cannot recall the 

 personal appearance of the individuals with whom my life 

 was most closely associated, I can recall all the main features 

 and many of the details of my outdoor, and, to a less degree, 

 of my indoor, surroundings. The form and colour of the 

 house, the road, the river close below it, the bridge with the 

 cottage near its foot, the narrow fields between us and 

 the bridge, the steep wooded bank at the back, the stone 

 quarry and the very shape and position of the flat slabs on 

 which we stood fishing, the cottages a little further on the 

 road, the little church of Llanbadock and the stone stile into 

 the churchyard, the fishermen and their coracles, the ruined 

 castle, its winding stair and the delightful walk round its top — 

 all come before me as I recall these earlier days with a dis- 

 tinctness strangely contrasted with the vague shadowy figures 

 of the human beings who were my constant associates in all 

 these scenes. In the house I recollect the arrangement of 

 the rooms, the French window to the garden, and the blue- 

 papered room in which I slept, but of the people always with 

 me in those rooms, and even of the daily routine of our life, 

 I remember nothing at all. 



I cannot find any clear explanation of these facts in 

 modern psychology, whereas they all become intelligible 



