blessings on a piece of paper; that only increases our fear,
because it is just the chance of forfeiting such blessings of which
we are in dread! We must simply remind ourselves that we are
surrounded by old phantoms, and that we derive our weakness from
ages far back, in which risks were many and security was rare.






VI

FEARS OF CHILDHOOD





If I look back over my own life, I can discern three distinct stages
of fear and anxieties, and I expect it is the same with most people.
The terrors of childhood are very mysterious things, and their
horror consists in the child's inability to put the dread into
words. I remember how one night, when we were living in the Master's
Lodge at Wellington College, I had gone to bed, and waking soon
afterwards heard a voice somewhere outside. I got out of bed, went
to the door, and looked out. Close to my door was an archway which
looked into the open gallery that ran round the big front hall,
giving access to the bedrooms. At the opposite end of the hall, in
the gallery, burnt a gaslight: to my horror I observed close to the