Down here, when any of the older natives die, I hear people lamenting that so much local knowledge has died with them, and saying that they should have written things down. Fearing that this might soon be said of me, I got a book last Christmas--1916--and began to write things down. I meant to keep to local matters, but have gone much further than I meant. My memory is perhaps a little above the average; but my brother had a memory that was quite abnormal, and sometimes rather inconvenient. One day, in talking to a lady of uncertain age, he reminded her of something she had said at the Great Exhibition of 1851. She hastily replied:--“Yes, yes, you mean 1862.” But he missed the point of the reply, and went minutely into details showing that it must have been in 1851. I can remember the interior of a house that I have not seen since I attained the age of three. I am quite clear about the drawing-room, its carpet, chandeliers and mirrors, and a good deal of the furniture; less clear about the dining-room; but very clear indeed about the outlook from the windows in the front--a drive, a lawn, and then a road with houses on the other side. Of course, I can remember many other things that I saw before I was three; but I cannot be quite certain that my recollection of them dates from then, as I have seen them since. Here, however, I am certain. The family left that house at Michaelmas, 1860, and I was not three until October. I remember being taken by my father to call upon a very old man, who gave me an account of the beheading of King Charles the First, as he heard it from somebody, who heard it from an eye-witness. Unluckily, I am uncertain of the details, as I cannot separate what he told me then from what I may have heard or read about it since. Some years afterwards my father took me to call upon an old Mr Woodin; and from him I had an account of the Fire of London, as he heard it from a great-aunt of his; and she heard it from an old lady, who was about ten years old at the time of the fire. But it was only a child’s account, dwelling on such things as the quantities of raisins that she ate, while they were being salved. My father kept a diary from 1833 to 1878. When he was abroad or at any place of interest, he kept a diary upon a larger scale, and sent it round to aunts and other relatives, instead of writing to them separately; and I have gone through these diaries, and made some extracts from them. He kept all letters that he thought worth keeping, and sorted them according to writer, date or subject; and I have made extracts from the letters that his father wrote to him from here. The rest of my people seem to have destroyed their letters: at any rate, there are not many letters of theirs among my papers here.