It is a curious experience thus to label the momentary,
in fact the instantaneous, impressions of previous years. A dual effect is produced upon the memory. The first effect is atmospheric, as when one plunges a hand into a bowl of pot-pourri and is rewarded by a blurred and musty recol- lection of June. The second effect is precise. When one gazes at a snapshot taken on the terrace of a hotel at Alexandria, one recalls other things that do not figure in the photograph, such as the sound of the waiter's slippered feet upon the coconut matting, or the shrivelled sloughs cast by the straws through which we sucked our drinks. The photograph labelled " View of the Palace, Sofia, as taken from my hotel bedroom," will not, I fear, arouse in my grandchildren any ecstatic appreciation, but recalls for me, not merely the exterior of that stucco residence, but the models of field-guns which litter the ante-rooms within. And, though I am well aware that my grandchildren will glance with indifference at the snapshot entitled " Beachy Head: Sunset," for me those cliffs shine scarlet above an angry sea and the sheet is wet with spray. * *
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