The suburb of——, in which I first say the light, contained little to stir the imagination. I am sure it is the last spot which an artist would choose for a home—just a little manufacturing village, dominated by a few tottering factories in the conventional brick red paint which characterized the Palaces of Industry in the year of 1895.

The last of a family of seven children, I found myself the baby brother of two grown brothers and four sisters. A tiny likeness of myself, named ——, had died two years before my birth—he had