For three days during this week I have had a companion–one Waley41 of the School House, who had a boil on his arm and talked an amazing amount of agreeable nonsense. I pretended to be interested in and to understand his explanation of how an aeroplane engine works, and said ‘yes’ and ‘I see’ and ‘really’ at suitable intervals. I think I did all that was required very well.
However I am very pleased that he’s gone, as I find my own society infinitely more agreeable than his, and prefer Tennyson to lectures, however learned, on aeronautics. That’s just the perversity of fate. Anyone else who’d been down here alone for a fortnight would have been longing for a companion and of course wouldn’t get one, while I, who have been thoroughly enjoying the solitude, (so rare a blessing at school), must have not only a companion, but a talkative one, dumped down. However it was only for three days.
You were saying the other day that when you sat doing nothing of an evening you passed the time in day dreams. I used to day dream a tremendous lot, but these last few days I find when I sit down in a nice chair in front of the fire that I get up an hour later and realise that I’ve been thinking about absolutely nothing. Is this a sort of mental stagnation I wonder.
Have you seen to the quashing of that dance conspiracy yet? Don’t dare to answer in the negative. At any rate there must be no dance for me; nor for any other rational being I hope. So let that matter receive your immediate attention. You have your orders. Now we may go on.
I suppose the winter has set in at home by now, as it has here. But a very different kind of winter is the good old Belfast ‘rainy season’ from the English equivalent. Have you been winning any more musical laurels? That is a deed of daring do which should be set up in ‘letters all of gold’ (vide ‘brave Horatius’)42 under a statue in the hall representing you with a symbolical lyre and ‘plectrum’. (Look ‘plectrum’ out in a dictionary of classical terms).
your loving
son Jack.
TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 115):
School House,
Malvern College. Postmark: 8 December 1913
My dear Papy,
I am now once more safely ensconced in the house, and so my illness is officially dead and buried. Unfortunately I have missed the Lea Shakespeare exam., in which I think I might have done something. However, these things will happen. There are only two more weeks ‘and odd days’ as they say in Romeo and Juliet,43 now. I suppose we shall revise this week and have exams. next, so that the routine is practically over. Write and tell me about W’s exam as soon as possible.
We have settled down into real winter weather here, which is always rather pleasing.
I notice in your recent correspondance an absence of any answer to my remarks re the quashing of the dance conspiracy. What is the meaning of this? Am I to understand that it has not been duly slain and buried? If not, why not? As I said before–‘you have your orders’. They were put before you in a plain and forcible manner so that you have no excuse for misunderstanding them. I hope to hear by return of post that the matter is now a thing of the past.
I can quite believe that the Peacockean platitudes were a come down after grandfather’s production.44 Yes: that is a very appropriate text.
During the course of my walks abroad while I was at the San., I met Mr. Taylor, the old Cherbourg drawing master whom you met. He was very distressed because he had heard that I had given up my drawing at the Coll., but was consoled by my assurance that it was only a temporary fixture so long as it clashed with English. We had a very pleasant little chat indeed.
Today was the Repton match, and I suppose Cherbourg was there, but I didn’t notice them. It ended in a draw of one all after a very exciting game.
Allow me to observe that your noisy salutations to this insolent physician are not at all apropos and also were in somewhat questionable taste. I cannot write any more now.
your loving
son Jack.
1 The Rev. Canon Sydney Rhodes James (1855-1934) was the headmaster of Malvern College 1897-1914. His story is told in Seventy Years: Random Reminiscences and Reflections (1926).
2 William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (1623).
3 Jack fell ill on about 1 June and had to retire to bed. He nevertheless managed to take the exams in the infirmary between 3 and 5 June.
4 He was referring to Mr Allen who on 2 June wrote to Albert saying, ‘I believe you want him to go to the college here; if not, he might have a try for some other school which holds its Exams later’ (LP IV: 25).
5 Warnie was very often referred to in correspondence with family and friends as ‘W.’
6 Warnie had just begun thinking of entering the Army Service Corps, the one career he was always sure he wanted, while his father favoured a job with the London and North Western Railway
The Army Service Corps, which supplied food, weapons and other necessities to the troops, began in 1794 as the Corps of Waggoners. Over time it evolved until in 1888 it was recreated the Army Service Corps. In 1918, in recognition of its good work, it became the Royal Army Service Corps. It was renamed the Royal Corps of Transport in 1965. See John Fortescue, The Royal Army Service Corps: A History of Transport and Supplies in the British Army, vol. I (1930). Volume II by R. H. Beadon was published in 1931.
7 Albert’s letter to Jack of 30 June 1913 (LP IV: 41). Warnie had been caught smoking.
8 ‘Leeborough’ was Jack’s and Warnie’s private name for Little Lea. It had the advantage of yielding the adjectives ‘Leeburian’ and ‘Leborough’, as in a volume of their Boxen drawings called ‘Leborough Studies Ranging from 1905-1916’.
9 On 9 June Jack won a classical entrance scholarship to Malvern College.
10 In a little piece called ‘My Life During the Exmas Holadys of 1907’, Jack paid tribute to the postman: ‘Our postman is called Gordon [Jordan] and is a very nice and sensible man, and often sets me an essay to wright, the subject of which he provides’ (LP III: 90). In his letter to Jack of 30 June 1913, Mr Lewis congratulated Jack on his scholarship, saying: ‘I met Jordan the postman the other night, and as he used to set you essays, I thought I would tell him. He was as pleased as Punch. He said “Sir, the next time you’re writing will you say–Jordan is delighted.”’ (LP IV: 41).
11 See William Thompson Kirkpatrick in the Biographical Appendix. Mr Kirkpatrick had a number of nicknames, including ‘The Great Knock’, ‘Knock’ and ‘Kirk’.