My mother took little or no notice of all this—her thoughts, her heart, were far away. To her Christmas was simply "the festival of the birth of Christ." Her whole spiritual being was absorbed in it: earth did not signify: she did not and could not understand why it was not always the same with her little boy.
I was not allowed to have any holidays this year, and was obliged to do lessons all morning with Mr. Venables, the curate.[47] At this I wonder now, as every day my health was growing worse. I was constantly sick, and grew so thin that I was almost a skeleton, which I really believe now to have been entirely caused by the way in which the miseries of my home life preyed upon my excessively sensitive nervous disposition. And, instead of my mind being braced, I was continually talked to about death and hell, and urged to meditate upon them. Towards the close of the holidays I was so ill that at last my mother was alarmed, and took me to a Mr. Bigg, who declared that I had distinct curvature of the spine, and put my poor little back into a terrible iron frame, into which my shoulders were fastened as into a vice. Of course, with this, I ought never to have been sent back to Harrow, but this was not understood. Then, as hundreds of times afterwards, when I saw that my mother was really unhappy about me, I bore any amount of suffering without a word rather than add to her distress, and I see now that my letters are full of allusions to the ease with which I was bearing "my armour" at school, while my own recollection is one of intolerable anguish, stooping being almost impossible.
That I got on tolerably well at Harrow, even with my "armour" on, is a proof that I never was ill-treated there. I have often, however, with Lord Eustace Cecil (who was at Harrow with me), recalled since how terrible the bullying was in our time—of the constant cruelty at "Harris's," where the little boys were always made to come down and box in the evening for the delectation of the fifth form:—of how little boys were constantly sent in the evening to Famish's—half-way to the cricket-ground, to bring back porter under their greatcoats, certain to be flogged by the head-master if they were caught, and to be "wapped" by the sixth form boys if they did not go, and infinitely preferring the former:—of how, if the boys did not "keep up" at football, they were made to cut large thorn sticks out of the hedges, and flogged with them till the blood poured down outside their jerseys. Indeed, what with fagging and bullying, servility was as much inculcated at Harrow in those days as if it was likely to be a desirable acquirement in after life.
I may truly say that I never learnt anything useful at Harrow, and had little chance of learning anything. Hours and hours were wasted daily on useless Latin verses with sickening monotony. A boy's school education at this time, except in the highest forms, was hopelessly inane.
In some ways, however, this "quarter" at Harrow was much pleasanter than the preceding ones. I had a more established place in the school, and was on more friendly terms with all the boys in my own house; also, with my "armour," the hated racket-fagging was an impossibility. I had many scrambles about the country with Buller[48] in search of eggs and flowers, which we painted afterwards most carefully and perseveringly; and, assisted by Buller, I got up a sort of private theatricals on a very primitive scale, turning Grimm's fairy stories into little plays, which were exceedingly popular with the house, but strictly forbidden by the tutor, Mr. Simpkinson or "Simmy." Thus I was constantly in hot water about them. One day when we had got up a magnificent scene, in which I, as "Snowdrop," lay locked in a magic sleep in an imaginary cave, watched by dwarfs and fairies, Simmy came in and stood quietly amongst the spectators, and I was suddenly awakened from my trance by the sauve qui peut which followed the discovery. Great punishments were the result. Yet, not long after, we could not resist a play on a grander scale—something about the "Fairy Tilburina" out of the "Man in the Moon," for which we learnt our parts and had regular dresses made. It was to take place in the fifth form room on the ground-floor between the two divisions of the house, and just as Tilburina (Buller) was descending one staircase in full bridal attire, followed by her bridesmaids, of whom I was one, Simmy himself suddenly appeared on the opposite staircase and caught us.
These enormities now made my monthly "reports," when they were sent home, anything but favourable; but I believe my mother was intensely diverted by them: I am sure that the Stanleys were. A worse crime, however, was our passion for cooking, in which we became exceedingly expert. Very soon after a tremendous punishment for having been caught for the second time frying potato chips, we formed the audacious project of cooking a hare! The hare was bought, and the dreadful inside was disposed of with much the same difficulty and secrecy, and in much the same manner, in which the Richmond murderess disposed of her victims; but we had never calculated how long the creature would take to roast even with a good fire, much more by our wretched embers: and long before it was accomplished, Mrs. Collins, the matron, was down upon us, and we and the hare were taken into ignominious custody.
Another great amusement was making sulphur casts and electrotypes, and we really made some very good ones.
My great love for anything of historic romance, however, rendered the Louis Philippe revolution the overwhelming interest of this quarter, and put everything else into the shade. In the preceding autumn the murder of the Duchesse de Praslin had occupied every one, and we boys used to lie on the floor for hours poring over the horrible map of the murder-room which appeared in the "Illustrated," in which all the pools of blood were indicated. But that was nothing to the enthusiastic interest over the sack of the Tuileries and the escape of the Royal Family: I have never known anything like it in after life.
I have often heard since much of the immoralities of a public-school life, but I can truly say that when I was there, I saw nothing of them. A very few boys, however, can change the whole character of a school, especially in a wrong direction. "A little worm-wood can pollute a hive of honey," was one of the wise sayings of Pius II. I do not think that my morals were a bit the worse for Harrow, but from what I have heard since of all that went on there even in my time, I can only conclude it was because—at that time certainly—"je n'avais pas le goût du peché," as I once read in a French novel.
At Easter, 1848, I left Harrow for the holidays, little imagining that I should never return there. I should have been very sorry had I known it. On the whole, the pleasurable "adventures" of a public-school life had always outweighed its disagreeables; though I was never in strong enough health for any real benefit or enjoyment.
IV
LYNCOMBE
"Les longues maladies usent la douleur, et les longues espérances usent la joie."—Mme. de Sévigné.
"One adequate support
For the calamities of mortal life
Exists, one only—an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, however
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power,
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good."
—WORDSWORTH.
"Condemned to Hope's delusive mire,
As we toil on from day to day
By sudden stroke or slow decline
Our means of comfort drop away."
—JOHNSON.
"It is well we cannot see into the future. There are few boys
of fourteen who would not be ashamed of themselves at forty."
—Jerome K. Jerome.
OF all the unhappy summers of my boyhood, that of 1848