breathless elevation to the level of the mantelpiece—the level, but not the proximity, as two Dresden shepherdesses, still unbroken before me as I write, can testify. My earliest at all datable reminiscence, and that is early enough in all conscience, is of the air-raid over London that took place on Whit-Sunday in 1917. We were, I have been told since, staying in London at the time, and I was hastily roused from sleep and carried into the cellars; for, although the danger from such raids in the Five Years’ War was, judged by the standards of modern warfare, almost negligible, it was a novelty and as such a cause of panic. My only reason for remembering the incident is that, in her hurry to get me downstairs, my nurse ran a pin into me; which immediate sensation meant far more to me at the time than any nocturnal perils overhead. But that refers, of course, to my conscious memory: according to what the doctors used to tell me in the days when mind-curing was fashionable, the air-raid must have left a deep and permanent mark on my subconsciousness. I have been assured that I have to attribute to this cause my dislike of being in the dark (except when I am in bed), my occasional nervousness about loud, sudden noises, my nervousness about other people, especially children, carrying firearms, my preference for having the door shut when I am asleep, my preference for having the window open on the same occasions, my want of ear for music, my inability to face learning the German language, my distaste for sausages, my fondness for lying in bed after I am called, my fear of cellars (which I thought was due to rats), my refusal to wear a maroon dress, my irritability when people whistle much in my hearing, my antipathy to the Tube when it is crowded, and Heaven knows what other sinister characteristics. Really, if this unremembered event made such a portentous difference in my life, so that my character was practically fixed from the moment of its occurrence (as these gentlemen seemed to imply), I am not sure that I ought not to end off my reminiscences here! Whatever follows will surely seem trivial by comparison.