USK: MY EARLIEST MEMORIES 25 



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 began 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 in- 

 door, surroundings. The form and colour of the house, the 

 road, the river close below it, the bridge with the cottage near 

 its foot, the manor 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 church- 

 yard, 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 distinctness 

 strangely contrasted with the vague shadow 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 remem- 

 ber nothing at all. 



I cannot find any clear explanation of these facts in modern 

 psychology, whereas they all become intelligible from the 

 phrenological point of view. The shape of my head shows 

 that I have form and individuality but moderately developed, 

 while locality, ideality, colour, and comparison are decidedly 

 stronger. 



