Childhood Reminiscences:
An UnpubHshed Manuscript

H. RIDER HAGGARD

MOST people would find it impossible to fix the exact
period of their existence when memory began. The
past of our childhood is veiled with a morning mist,
through which men and things loom largely. Gradually, very grad¬
ually, the mist brightens as at the dawn till at length the backwards-
looking mind sees it vanish altogether and there is light, faint and
far away, but still light. It is a curious thing to watch a child of six
or seven. He is perfectly intelligent, has his likes and dislikes, loves
those about him ardently, anticipates, recollects and enjoys. Yet by
the time this child is twenty, all memory of very nearly all of this
vivid life will have gone from him, his very mother, should she
chance to die now, will be but a shadow to him, remembered only
perhaps by some one word or look or kiss. Still more curious are
the sensations of the man in middle life when he strives to recall
the distant past, which is after all so near. As I write these words I
look from my window onto a London garden. It is hidden in fog
that cloaks the paths and garden beds, but through the fog loom
the shapes of trees, and beyond them is a mass that may be houses or
any other thing. Through this curtain of reeking vapour come
sounds from the distant streets, familiar but undistinguishable. So
to the eye and ear of the mind come sights and sounds from our lost
childhood, and it is hard to distinguish among them or to give them
a meaning and relative value.

One of the first things that I can remember is leaving home with
my parents and other members of ray family. At first this seemed a

Overleaf: Original manuscript of "Childhood Reminiscences."
(Charles W. Alixer Fund)

■5