My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

18 MY LIFEamid which I have lived at home and abroad, whilenumerous objects, localities, and events are recalledwith some distinctness, the people I met, or, with fewexceptions, those with whom I became fairly wellacquainted, seem but blurred and indistinct images.In the year 1883, when for the first time since mychildhood I revisited, with my wife and two children,the scenes of my infancy, I obtained a striking proofof the accuracy of my memory of those scenes andobjects. Although the town of Usk had grown considerablyon the north side towards the railway, yet,to my surprise and delight, I found that no changewhatever had occurred on our side of the river, where,between the bridge and Llanbadock, not a new househad been built, and our cottage and garden, the pathup to the front door, and the steep woody bankbehind it, remained exactly as pictured in my memory.Even the quarry appeared to have been very littleenlarged, and the great flat stones were still in theriver exactly as when I had stood upon them with mybrothers and sisters sixty years before. The onechange I noted here was that the well-rememberedstone stile into the village churchyard had been replacedby a wooden one. We also visited the ruinedcastle, ascended the winding stair, and walked roundthe top wall, and everything seemed to me exactlyas I knew it of old, and neither smaller nor largerthan my memory had so long pictured it. The viewof the Abergavenny mountains pleased and interestedme as in childhood, and the clear-flowing Usk seemedjust as broad and as pleasant to the eye as mymemory had always pictured it.So far as I can remember or have heard I had noillness of any kind at Usk, which was no doubt dueto the free outdoor life we lived there, spending a great