CHAPTER II 



USK: MY EARLIEST MEMORIES 



My earliest recollections are of myself as a little boy in short 

 frocks and with bare arms and legs, playing with my brother 

 and sisters, or sitting in my mother's lap or on a footstool 

 listening to stories, of which some fairy-tales, especially 

 " Jack the Giant-Killer," " Little Red Riding Hood," and 

 "Jack and the Beanstalk," seem to live in my memory ; and of 

 a more realistic kind, " Sandford and Merton," which perhaps 

 impressed me even more deeply than any. I clearly remem- 

 ber the little house and the room we chiefly occupied, with a 

 French window opening to the garden, a steep wooded bank 

 on the right, the road, river, and distant low hills to the left. 

 The house itself was built close under this bank, which 

 was quite rocky in places, and a little back yard between the 

 kitchen and a steep bit of rock has always been clearly 

 pictured before me as being the scene of my earliest attempt 

 to try an experiment, and its complete failure, "^sop's 

 Fables " were often read to me, and that of the fox which 

 was thirsty and found a pitcher with a little water in the 

 bottom but with the opening too small for its mouth to reach 

 it, and of the way in which it made the water rise to the top 

 by dropping pebbles into it, puzzled me greatly. It seemed 

 quite like magic. So one day, finding a jar or bucket standing 

 in the yard, I determined to try and see this wonderful thing. 

 I first with a mug poured some water in till it was about an 

 inch or two deep, and then collected all the small stones I 

 could find and put into the water, but I could not see that 

 the water rose up as I thought it ought to have done. Then 



20 



