The schoolhouse, around which had centered many of my schoolboy recollections--my only Alma Mater--and the playground, upon which mimic battles had been fought and races run, had shrunk into ridiculously small dimensions.

The fine residences, Broomhall, Fordell, and especially the conservatories at Donibristle, fell one after the other into the petty and insignificant.

What I felt on a later occasion on a visit to Japan, with its small toy houses, was something like a repetition of the impression my old home made upon me.
Everything was there in miniature.

Even the old well at the head of Moodie Street, where I began my early struggles, was changed from what I had pictured it.

But one object remained all that I had dreamed of it.