e then occupied by my father, I am able
to date it before the seventh year of my age, although it was probably
earlier in fact. The "pastures green" were represented by a certain
suburban stubble-field, where I had once walked with my nurse, under an
autumnal sunset, on the banks of the Water of Leith: the place is long
ago built up; no pastures now, no stubble-fields; only a maze of little
streets and smoking chimneys and shrill children. Here, in the fleecy
person of a sheep, I seemed to myself to follow something unseen,
unrealised, and yet benignant; and close by the sheep in which I was
incarnated--as if for greater security--rustled the skirts of my nurse.
"Death's dark vale" was a certain archway in the Warriston Cemetery: a
formidable yet beloved spot, for children love to be afraid,--in measure
as they love all experience of vitality. Here I beheld myself some paces
ahead (seeing myself, I mean, from behind) utterly alone in that uncanny
passage: on the one side of me a rude, knobby shepherd's staff, such as
cheers the heart of the cockney tourist, on the other a rod like a
billiard cue, appeared to accompany my progress: the staff sturdily
upright, the billiard cue inclined confidentially, like one whispering,
towards my ear. I was aware--I will never tell you how--that the
presence of these articles afforded me encouragement. The third and last
of my pictures illustrated the words:--

"My table Thou hast furnished
In presence of my foes:
My head Thou dost with oil anoint,
And my cup overflows":

and this was perhaps the most interesting of the series. I saw myself
seated in a kind of open stone summer-house at table; over my shoulder a
hairy, bearded, and robed presence anointed me from an authentic
shoe-horn; the summer-house was part of the green court of a ruin, and
from the far side of the court black and white imps discharged against
me ineffectual arrows. The picture appears arbitrary, but I can trace
every detail to its source, as Mr. Brock analysed the dream of Alan
Armadale. The summer-house and court were muddled together out of
Billings' "Antiquities of Scotland"; the imps conveyed from Bagster's
"Pilgrim's Progress"; the bearded and robed figure from any one of a
thousand Bible pictures; and the shoe-horn was plagiarised from an old
illustrated Bible, where it figured in the hand of Samuel anointing
Saul, and had been pointed out to me as a jest by my father. It was
shown me for