26 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



from the phrenological point of view. The shape of my 

 head shows that I have form and individuality but moder- 

 ately developed, while locality ^ ideality, colour , and comparison 

 are decidedly stronger. Deficiency in the first two caused 

 me to take little notice of the characteristic form and features 

 of the separate individualities which were most familiar to 

 me, and from that very cause attracted less close attention ; 

 while the greater activity of the latter group gave interest 

 and attractiveness to the ever-changing combinations in out- 

 door scenery, while the varied opportunities for the exercise 

 of the physical activities, and the delight in the endless 

 variety of nature which are so strong in early childhood, 

 impressed these outdoor scenes and interests upon my 

 memory. And throughout life the same limitations of obser- 

 vation and memory have been manifest. In a new locality it 

 takes me a considerable time before I learn to recognize my 

 various new acquaintances individually ; and looking back on 

 the varied scenes amid which I have lived at home and 

 abroad, while numerous objects, localities, and events are 

 recalled with some distinctness, the people I met, or, with few 

 exceptions, those with whom I became fairly well acquainted, 

 seem but blurred and indistinct images. 



In the year 1883, when for the first time since my child- 

 hood I revisited, with my wife and two children, the scenes of 

 my infancy, I obtained a striking proof of the accuracy of 

 my memory of those scenes and objects. Although the town 

 of Usk had grown considerably on the north side towards 

 the railway, yet, to my surprise and delight, I found that no 

 change whatever had occurred on our side of the river, where, 

 between the bridge and Llanbadock, not a new house had 

 been built, and our cottage and garden, the path up to the 

 front door, and the steep woody bank behind it, remained 

 exactly as pictured in my memory. Even the quarry appeared 

 to have been very little enlarged, and the great flat stones 

 were still in the river exactly as when I had stood upon them 

 with my brother and sisters sixty years before. The one 

 change I noted here was that the well-remembered stone 

 stile into the village churchyard had been replaced by a 



