Then he suddenly appears in another aspect; at the age of thirty-two he is a successful, well-to-do man. And then his ambition, if he had any, seems to shift its centre, and he appears to be only bent upon restoring the fortunes of his family, and attaining a solid municipal position. He buys the biggest house in his native place; from the proceeds of his writings, his professional income as an actor, and from his share in the playhouse of which he is part owner, he purchases lands and houses, he engages in lawsuits, he concerns himself with grants of arms. Still the flood of stupendous literature flows out; he seems to be under a contract to produce plays, for which he receives the magnificent sum of L10 (L100 of our money). He writes easily and never corrects. He seems to set no store on his writings, which stream from him like light from the sun. He adapts, collaborates, and has no idea of what would be called a high vocation.

At forty-seven it all ceases; he writes no more, but lives prosperously in his native town, with occasional visits to London. At fifty-two his health fails. He makes business-like arrangements in the event of death, and faces the darkness of the long sleep like any other good citizen.

Who can co-ordinate or reconcile these things? Who can conceive the likeness of the man, who steps in this light-hearted, simple way on to the very highest platform of literature—so lofty and unattainable a place he takes without striving, without arrogance, a throne among the thrones where Homer, Virgil, and Dante sit? And yet his mind is set, not on these things, but on acres and messuages, tithes and investments. He seems not only devoid of personal vanity, but even of that high and solemn pride which made Keats say, with faltering lips, that he believed he would be among the English poets after his death.

I came through the pleasant water-meadows and entered the streets of the busy town. Everything, from bank to eating-shop, bears the name of Shakespeare; and one cannot resist the thought that such local and homely renown would have been more to our simple hero's taste than the laurel and the throne. I groaned in spirit over the monstrous playhouse, with its pretentious Teutonic air; I walked through the churchyard, vocal with building rooks, and came to the noble church, full of the evidences of wealth and worship and honour. I do not like to confess the breathless awe with which I drew near to the chancel and gazed on the stone that, nameless, with its rude rhyme, covers the sacred dust. I cannot say what my thoughts were, but I was lost in a formless, unuttered prayer of true abasement before the venerable relics of the highest achievements of the human spirit. There beneath my feet slept the dust of the brain that conceived Hamlet and Macbeth, and the hand that had traced the Sonnets, and the eye that had plumbed the depths of life. That was a solemn moment, and I do not think I ever experienced so deep a thrill of speechless awe. I could not tear myself away; I could only wonder and desire.

Presently, by the kind offices of a pleasant simple verger, I did more. I mounted on some steps he brought, and looked face to face at the bust in the monument.

I cannot share in the feelings of those who would consider it formal or perfunctory. There was the high-domed forehead, like that of Pericles and Walter Scott; there were the steady eyes, the clear-cut nose; and as for the lips—I never for an instant doubted the truth of what I saw—I am as certain as I can be that they are the lips of a corpse, drawn up in the stiff tension of death, showing the teeth below. I am absolutely convinced that here we get as near to the man as we can get, and that the head is taken from a death-mask. What injures the dignity and beauty of the face is the plumpness of the chin that testifies to the burgher prosperity, the comfortable life, the unexercised brain of the later days. I saw afterwards the various portraits; I suppose it is a matter of evidence, but nothing convinced me of truth, not even the bilious, dilapidated, dyspeptic, white face of the folio engraving, with the horrible hydrocephalous development of skull. That is a caricature only. The others seem mere fancies.

Then I saw patiently the other relics, the foundations of New Place, the schoolhouse—but all without emotion, except a deep sense of shame that the only records allowed to stand in the long, low-latticed room in which the boy Shakespeare probably saw a play first acted, are boards recording the names of school football and cricket teams. The ineptitude of such a proceeding, the hideous insistence of the athletic craze of England, drew from me a despairing smile; but I think that Shakespeare himself would have viewed it with tolerance and even amusement.

But most of these relics, like Anne Hathaway's Cottage, are restored out of all interest, and only testify to the silly and frivolous demands of trippers.

But, my dear Herbert, the treasure is mine. Feeble as the confession is, I do not think I ever realised before the humanity of Shakespeare. He seemed to me before to sit remote, enshrined aloof, the man who could tell all the secrets of humanity that could be told, and whose veriest hints still seem to open doors into mysteries both high and sweet and terrible. But now I feel as if I had been near him, had been able to love what I had only admired.

I feel somehow that it extends the kingdom of humanity to have realised Shakespeare; and yet I am baffled. But I seem to trace in the later and what some would call the commonplace features of the man's life, a desire to live and be; to taste life itself, not merely to write of what life seemed to be, and of what lay behind it. I am sure that some such allegory was in his mind when he wrote of Prospero, who so willingly gave up the isle full of noises, the power over the dreaming, sexless spirits of air and wood, to go back to his tiresome dukedom, and his petty court, and all the dull chatter and business of life. I am sure that Shakespeare thought of his art as an Ariel—that dainty, delicate spirit, out of the reach of love and desire, that slept in cowslip-bells and chased the flying summer on the bat's back, and that yet had such power to delude and bemuse the human spirit. After all, Ariel could not come near the more divine inheritance of the human heart, sorrow and crying, love and hate. Ariel was but a merry child, lost in passionless delights, yearning to be free, to escape; and Prospero felt, and Shakespeare felt, that life, with all its stains and dreariness and disease and darkness, was something better and truer than the fragrant dusk of the copse, and the soulless laughter of the summer sea. Ariel could sing the heartless, exquisite song of the sea-change that could clothe the bones and eyes of the doomed king; but Prospero could see a fairer change in the eyes and heart of his lonely darling.

And I am glad that even so Shakespeare could be silent, and buy and sell, and go in and out among his fellow-townsmen, and make merry. That is better than to sit arid and prosperous, when the brain stiffens with stupor, and the hand has lost its cunning, and to read old newspaper-cuttings, and long for adequate recognition. God give me and all uneasy natures grace to know when to hold our tongues; and to take the days that remain with patience and wonder and tenderness; not making haste to depart, but yet not fearing the shadow out of which we come and into which we must go; to live wisely and bravely and sweetly, and to close our eyes in faith, with a happy sigh, like a child after a long summer day of life and delight.—Ever yours,

T. B.



THE BLUE BOAR, STANTON HARDWICK, April 25, 1904.

DEAR HERBERT,—Since I last wrote I have been making pious pilgrimages to some of the great churches hereabouts: to Gloucester, Worcester, Tewkesbury, Malvern, Pershore. It does me good to see these great poems in stone, beautiful in their first conception, and infinitely more beautiful from the mellowing influences of age, and from the human tradition that is woven into them and through them. There are few greater pleasures than to make one's way into a Cathedral city, with the grey towers visible for miles across the plain, rising high above the house roofs and the smoke. At first one is in the quiet country; then the roads begin to have a suburban air—new cottages rise by the wayside, comfortable houses, among shrubberies and plantations. Then the street begins; the houses grow taller and closer, and one has a glimpse of some stately Georgian front, with pediment and cornice; perhaps there is a cluster of factories, high, rattling buildings overtopped by a tall chimney, with dusty, mysterious gear, of which one cannot guess the purport, travelling upwards into some tall, blank orifice. Then suddenly one is in the Close, with trees and flowers and green grass, with quaint Prebendal houses of every style and date, breathing peace and prosperity. A genial parson or two pace gravely about; and above you soars the huge church, with pinnacle and parapet, the jackdaws cheerily hallooing from the lofty ledges. You are a little weary of air and sun; you push open the great door, and you are in the cool, dark nave with its holy smell; you sit for a little and let the spirit of the place creep into your mind; you walk hither and thither, read the epitaphs, mourn with the bereaved, give thanks for the record of long happy lives, and glow with mingled pain and admiration for some young life nobly laid down. The monuments of soldiers, the sight of dusty banners moving faintly in the slow-stirring air, always move me inexpressibly; the stir and fury of war setting hither, like a quiet tide, to find its last abiding-place. Then there is the choir to visit. I do not really like the fashion which now generally prevails of paying a small sum, writing your name in a book, and being handed over to the guidance of some verger, a pompous foolish person, who has learnt his lesson, delivers it like a machine, and is put out by any casual question. I do not want to be lectured; I want to wander about, ask a question if I desire it, and just have pointed out to me anything of which the interest is not patent and obvious. The tombs of old knights, the chantries of silent abbots and bishops, are all very affecting; they stand for so much hope and love and recollection. Then sometimes one has a glow at seeing some ancient and famous piece of history presented to one's gaze. The figure of the grim Saxon king, with his archaic beard and shaven upper-lip, for all the world like some Calvinistic tradesman; or Edward the Second, with his weak, handsome face and curly locks; or the mailed statue of Robert of Normandy, with scarlet surcoat, starting up like a warrior suddenly aroused. Such tombs send a strange thrill through one, a thrill of wonder and pity and awe. What of them now? Sleepest thou, son of Atreus? Dost thou sleep, and dream perchance of love and war, of the little life that seemed so long, and over which the slow waves of time have flowed? Little by little, in the holy walls, so charged with faith and tenderness and wistful love, the pathetic vision of mortality creeps across the mind, and one loses oneself in a dream of wonder at the brief days so full of life, the record left for after time, and the silence of the grave.

Then, when I have drunk my fill of sweet sights, I love to sit silent, while the great bell hums in the roof, and gathering footsteps of young and old patter through the echoing aisles. There is a hush of expectation. A few quiet worshippers assemble; the western light grows low, and lights spring to life, one after another, in the misty choir. Then murmurs a voice, an Amen rises in full concord, and as it dies away the slumberous thunder of a pedal note rolls on the air; the casements whirr, the organ speaks. That fills, as it were, to the brim, as with some sweet and fragrant potion, the cup of beauty; and the dreaming, inquiring spirit sinks content into the flowing, the aspiring tide, satisfied as with some heavenly answer to its sad questionings. Then the stately pomp moves slowly to its place—so familiar, perhaps trivial an act to those who perform it, so grave and beautiful a thing to those who see it. The holy service proceeds with a sense of exquisite deliberation, leading one, as by a ladder, through the ancient ways, up to the message of to-day. Through psalm and canticle and anthem the solemnity passes on; and perhaps some single slender voice, some boyish treble, unconscious of its beauty and pathos, thrown into relief, like a fountain springing among dark rocks, by the slow thunders of the organ, comes to assure the heart that it can rest, if but for a moment, upon a deep and inner peace, can be gently rocked, as it were, in a moving boat, between the sky and translucent sea. Then falls the rich monotone of prayer; and the organ wakes again for one last message, pouring a flood of melody from its golden throats, and dying away by soft gradations into the melodious bourdon of its close.

Does this seem to you very unreal and fantastic? I do not know; it is very real to me. Sometimes, in dreary working hours, my spirit languishes under an almost physical thirst for such sweetness of sound and sight. I cannot believe that it is other than a pure and holy pleasure, because in such hours the spirit soars into a region in which low and evil thoughts, ugly desires, and spiteful ambitions, die, like poisonous flowers in a clear and wholesome air. I do not say that it inspires one with high and fierce resolution, that it fits one for battling with the troublesome world; but it is more like the green pastures and waters of comfort; it is pleasure in which there is no touch of sensual appetite or petty desire; it is a kind of heavenly peace in which the spirit floats in a passionate longing for what is beautiful and pure. It is not that I would live my life in such reveries; even while the soft sound dies away, the calling of harsher voices makes itself heard in the mind. But it refreshes, it calms, it pacifies; it tells the heart that there is a peace into which it is possible to enter, and where it may rest for a little and fold its weary wings.

Yet even as I write, as the gentle mood lapses and fades, I find myself beset with uneasy and bewildering thoughts about the whole. What was the power that raised these great places as so essential and vital a part of life? We have lost it now, whatever it was. Churches like these were then an obvious necessity; kings and princes vied with each other in raising them, and no one questioned their utility. They are now a mere luxury for ecclesiastically minded persons, built by slow accretion, and not by some huge single gift, to please the pride of a county or a city; and this in days when England is a thousandfold richer than she was. They are no longer a part of the essence of life; life has flowed away from their portals, and left them a beautiful shadow, a venerable monument, a fragrant sentiment. No doubt it was largely superstition that constructed them, a kind of insurance paid for heavenly security. No one now seriously thinks that to endow a college of priests to perform services would affect his spiritual prospects in the life to come. The Church itself does not countenance the idea. Moreover, there is little demand in the world at large for the kind of beauty which they can and do minister to such as myself. The pleasure for which people spend money nowadays has to have a stirring, exciting, physical element in it to be acceptable. If it were otherwise, then our cathedrals could take their place in the life of the nation; but they are out of touch with railways, and newspapers, and the furious pursuit of athletics. They are on the side of peace and delicate impressions and quiet emotions. I wish it were not so; but it would be faithless to believe that we are not in the hand of God still, and that our restless energies develop against His will.

And then there falls a darker, more bewildering thought. Suppose that one could bring one of the rough Galilean fishermen who sowed the seed of the faith, into a place like this, and say to him, "This is the fruit of your teaching; you, whose Master never spoke a word of art or music, who taught poverty and simplicity, bareness of life, and an unclouded heart, you are honoured here; these towers and bells are called after your names; you stand in gorgeous robes in these storied windows." Would they not think and say that it was all a terrible mistake? would they not say that the desire of the world, the lust of the eye and ear, had laid subtle and gentle hands on a stern and rugged creed, and bade it serve and be bound?

"Thy nakedness involves thy Spouse In the soft sanguine stuff she wears."

So says an eager and vehement poet, apostrophising the tortured limbs, the drooping eye of the Crucified Lord; and is it true that these stately and solemn houses, these sweet strains of unearthly music, serve His purpose and will? Nay, is it not rather true that the serpent is here again aping the mildness of the dove, and using all the delicate, luxurious accessories of life to blind us to the truth?

I do not know; it leaves me in a sad and bewildered conflict of spirit. And yet I somehow feel that God is in these places, and that, if only the heart is pure and the will strong, such influences can minister to the growth of the meek and loving spirit.—Ever yours,

T. B.

I don't know what has happened to your letters. Perhaps you have not been able to write? I go back to work to-morrow.



UPTON, May 2, 1904.

MY DEAR HERBERT,—My holidays are over, and I am back at work again. I have got your delightful letter; it was silly to be anxious. . . .

To-day I was bicycling; I was horribly preoccupied, as, alas, I often am, with my own plans and thoughts. I was worrying myself about my work, fretting about the thousand little problems that beset a schoolmaster, trying to think out a chapter of a book which I am endeavouring to write, my mind beating and throbbing like a feverish pulse. I kept telling myself that the copses were beautiful, that the flowers were enchanting, that the long line of distant hills seen across the wooded valleys and the purple plain were ravishingly tranquil and serene; but it was of no use; my mind ran like a mill-race, a stream of thoughts jostling and hurrying on, in spite of my efforts to shut the sluice.

Suddenly I turned a corner by a little wood, and found myself looking over into the garden of a small, picturesque cottage, which has been smartened up lately, and has become, I suppose, the country retreat of some well-to-do people. It was a pretty garden; a gentle slope of grass, borders full of flowers, and an orchard behind, whitening into bloom, with a little pool in the shady heart of it. On the lawn were three people, obviously and delightfully idle; an elderly man sate in a chair, smiling, smoking, reading a paper. The other two, a younger man and a young woman, were walking side by side, their heads close together, laughing quietly at some gentle jest. A perambulator stood by the porch. Both the men looked like prosperous professional people, clean-shaven, healthy, and contented. I inferred, for no particular reason, that the young pair were man and wife, lately married, and that the elder man was the father-in-law. I had this passing glimpse, no more, of an interior; and then I was riding among the spring woods again.

Of course it was only an impression, but this happy, sunshiny scene, so suddenly opened to my gaze, so suddenly closed again, was like a parable. I felt as if I should have liked to stop, to take off my hat, and thank my unknown friends for making so simple, pleasant, and sweet a picture. I dare say they were as preoccupied in professional matters, as careful and troubled as myself, if I had known more about them. But in that moment they were finding leisure simply to taste and enjoy the wholesome savours of life, and were neither looking backward in regret nor forward in anticipation. I dare say the jokes that amused them were mild enough, and that I should have found their conversation tedious and tiresome if I had been made one of the party. But they were symbolical; they stood for me, and will stand, as a type of what we ought to aim at more; and that is simply LIVING. It is a lesson which you yourself are no doubt learning in your fragrant, shady garden. You have no need to make money, and your only business is to get better. But for myself, I know that I work and think and hope and fear too much, and that in my restless pursuit of a hundred aims and ambitions and dreams and fancies, I am constantly in danger of hardly living at all, but of simply racing on, like a man intoxicated with affairs, without leisure for strolling, for sitting, for talking, for watching the sky and the earth, smelling the scents of flowers, noting the funny ways of animals, playing with children, eating and drinking. Yet this is our true heritage, and this is what it means to be a man; and, after all, one has (for all one knows) but a single life, and that a short one. It is at such moments as these that I wake as from a dream, and think how fast my life flows on, and how very little conscious of its essence I am. My head is full from morning to night of everything except living. For a busy man this is, of course, to a certain extent inevitable. But where I am at fault is in not relapsing at intervals into a wise and patient passivity, and sitting serenely on the shore of the sea of life, playing with pebbles, seeing the waves fall and the ships go by, and wondering at the strange things cast up by the waves, and the sharp briny savours of the air. Why do I not do this? Because, to continue my confession, it bores me. I must, it seems, be always in a fuss; be always hauling myself painfully on to some petty ambition or some shadowy object that I have in view; and the moment I have reached it, I must fix upon another, and begin the process over again. It is this lust for doing something tangible, for sitting down quickly and writing fifty, for having some definite result to show, which is the ruin of me and many others. After all, when it is done, what worth has it? I am not a particularly successful man, and I can't delude myself into thinking that my work has any very supreme value. And meanwhile all the real experiences of life pass me by. I have never, God forgive me, had time to be in love! That is a pitiful confession.

Sometimes one comes across a person with none of these uneasy ambitions, with whom living is a fine art; then one realises what a much more beautiful creation it is than books and pictures. It is a kind of sweet and solemn music. Such a man or woman has time to read, to talk, to write letters, to pay calls, to walk about the farm, to go and sit with tiresome people, to spend long hours with children, to sit in the open air, to keep poultry, to talk to servants, to go to church, to remember what his or her relations are doing, to enjoy garden parties and balls, to like to see young people enjoying themselves, to hear confessions, to do other people's business, to be a welcome presence everywhere, and to leave a fragrant memory, watered with sweet tears. That is to live. And such lives, one is tempted to think, were more possible, more numerous, a hundred years ago. But now one expects too much, and depends too much on exciting pleasures, whether of work or play. Well, my three persons in a garden must be a lesson to me; and, whatever may really happen to them, in my mind they shall walk for ever between the apple-trees and the daffodils, looking lovingly at each other, while the elder man shall smile as he reads in the Chronicle of Heaven, which does not grow old.—Ever yours,

T. B.



UPTON, May 9, 1904.

MY DEAR HERBERT,—I am going back to the subject of ambition—do you mind?

Yesterday in chapel one of my colleagues preached rather a fine sermon on Activity. The difficulty under which he laboured is a common one in sermons; it is simply this—How far is a Christian teacher justified in recommending ambition to Christian hearers? I think that, if one reads the Gospel, it is clear that ambition is not a Christian motive. The root of the teaching of Christ seems to me to be that one should have or acquire a passion for virtue; love it for its beauty, as an artist loves beauty of form or colour; and the simplicity which is to be the distinguishing mark of a Christian seems to me to be inconsistent with personal ambition. I do not see that there is any hint of a Christian being allowed to wish to do, what is called in domestic language "bettering" himself. The idea rather is that the all-wise and all-loving Father puts a man into the world where he intends him to be; and that a man is to find his highest pleasure in trying to serve the Father's will, with a heart full of love for all living things. A rich man is to disembarrass himself of his riches, or at least be sure that they are no hindrance to him; a poor man is not to attempt to win them. Of course it may be possible that the original Christians were intended to take a special line while the faith was leavening the world, and that a different economy was to prevail when society had been Christianised. This is a point of view which can be subtly defended, but I think it is hard to find any justification for it in the Gospel. Ambition practically means that, if one is to shoulder to the front, one must push other people out of the way; one must fight for one's own hand. To succeed at no one's expense is only possible to people of very high character and genius.

But it is difficult to see what motive to set before boys in the matter; the ideas of fame and glory, the hope of getting what all desire and what all cannot have, are deeply rooted in the childish mind. Moreover, we encourage ambition so frankly, both in work and play, that it is difficult to ascend the school pulpit and take quite a different line. To tell boys that they must simply do their best for the sake of doing their best, without any thought of the rewards of success—it is a very fine ideal, but is it a practical one? If we gave prizes to the stupid boys who work without hope of success, and if we gave colours to the boys who played games hard without attaining competence in them, we might then dare to speak of the rewards of virtue. But boys despise unsuccessful conscientiousness, and all the rewards we distribute are given to aptitude. Some preachers think they get out of the difficulty by pointing to examples of lives that battled nobly and unsuccessfully against difficulties; but the point always is the ultimate recognition. The question is not whether we can provide a motive for the unsuccessful; but whether we ought not to discourage ambition in every form? Yet it is the highest motive power in the case of most generous and active-minded boys.

In the course of the sermon the preacher quoted some lines of Omar Khayyam in order to illustrate the shamefulness of the indolent life. That is a very dangerous thing to do. The lovely stanzas, sweet as honey, flowed out upon the air in all their stately charm. The old sinner stole my heart away with his gentle, seductive, Epicurean grace. I am afraid that I felt like Paolo as he sate beside Francesca. I heard no more of the sermon that day; I repeated to myself many of the incomparable quatrains, and felt the poem to be the most beautiful presentment of pure Agnosticism that has ever been given to the world. The worst of it is that the delicate traitor makes it so beautiful that one does not feel the shame and the futility of it.

This evening I have been reading the new life of FitzGerald, so you may guess what was the result of the sermon for me. It is not a wholly pleasing book, but it is an interesting one; it gives a better picture of the man than any other book or article, simply by the great minuteness with which it enters into details. And now I find myself confronted by the problem in another shape. Was FitzGerald's life an unworthy one? He had great literary ambitions, but he made nothing of them. He lived a very pure, innocent, secluded life, delighting in nature and in the company of simple people; loving his friends with a passion that reminds one of Newman; doing endless little kindnesses to all who came within his circle; and tenderly loved by several great-hearted men of genius. He felt himself that he was to blame; he urged others to the activities which he could not practise. And yet the results of his life are such as many other more busy, more conscientious men have not achieved. He has left a large body of good literary work, and one immortal poem of incomparable beauty. He also left, quite unconsciously, I believe, many of the most beautiful, tender, humorous, wise letters in the English tongue; and I find myself wondering whether all this could have been brought to pass in any other way.

Yet I could not conscientiously advise any one to take FitzGerald's life as a model It was shabby, undecided, futile; he did many silly, almost fatuous things; he was deplorably idle and unstrung. At the same time a terrible suspicion creeps upon me that many busy men are living worse lives. I don't mean men who give themselves to activities, however dusty, which affect other people. I will grant at once that doctors, teachers, clergymen, philanthropists, even Members of Parliament are justified in their lives; then, too, men who do the necessary work of the world—farmers, labourers, workmen, fishermen, are justifiable. But business men who make fortunes for their children; lawyers, artists, writers, who work for money and for praise—are these after all so much nobler than our indolent friend? To begin with, FitzGerald's life was one of extraordinary simplicity. He lived on almost nothing, he had no luxuries; he was like a lily of the field. If he had been a merely selfish man it would have been different; but he loved his fellow-men deeply and tenderly, and he showered unobtrusive kindness on all round him.

I find it very hard to make up my mind; it is true that the fabric of the world would fall to pieces if we were all FitzGeralds. But so, too, as has often been pointed out, would it fall to pieces if we all lived literally on the lines of the Sermon on the Mount. Activities are for many people a purely selfish thing, to fill the time because they are otherwise bored; and it is hard to see why a man who can fill his life with less strenuous pleasures, books, music, strolling, talking, should not be allowed to do so.

Solve me the riddle, if you can! The simplicity of the Gospel seems to me to be inconsistent with the Expansion of England; and I dare not say off-hand that the latter is the finer ideal.—Ever yours,

T. B.



UPTON, May 15, 1904.

MY DEAR HERBERT,—You ask if I have read anything lately? Well, I have been reading Stalky & Co. with pain, and, I hope, profit. It is an amazing book; the cleverness, the freshness, the incredible originality of it all; the careless ease with which scene after scene is touched off and a picture brought before one at a glance, simply astounds me, and leaves me gasping. But I don't want now to discourse about the literary merits of the book, great as they are. I want to relieve my mind of the thoughts that disquiet me. I think, to start with, it is not a fair picture of school life at all. If it is really reminiscent—and the life-likeness and verisimilitude of the book is undeniable—the school must have been a very peculiar one. In the first place, the interest is concentrated upon a group of very unusual boys. The Firm of Stalky is, I humbly thank God, a combination of boys of a rare species. The other figures of boys in the book form a mere background, and the deeds of the central heroes are depicted like the deeds of the warriors of the Iliad. They dart about, slashing and hewing, while the rank and file run hither and thither like sheep, their only use being in the numerical tale of heads that they can afford to the flashing blades of the protagonists; and even so the chief figures, realistic though they are, remind me not so much of spirited pictures as of Gillray's caricatures. They are highly coloured, fantastic, horribly human and yet, somehow, grotesque. Everything is elongated, widened, magnified, exaggerated. The difficulty is, to my mind, to imagine boys so lawless, so unbridled, so fond at intervals of low delights, who are yet so obviously wholesome-minded and manly. I can only humbly say that it is my belief, confirmed by experience, that boys of so unconventional and daring a type would not be content without dipping into darker pleasures. But Kipling is a great magician, and, in reading the book, one can thankfully believe that in this case it was not so; just as one can also believe that, in this particular case, the boys were as mature and shrewd, and of as complete and trenchant a wit as they appear. My own experience here again is that no boys could keep so easily on so high a level of originality and sagacity. The chief characteristic of all the boys I have ever known is that they are so fitful, so unfinished. A clever boy will say incredibly acute things, but among a dreary tract of wonderfully silly ones. The most original boys will have long lapses into conventionality, but the heroes of Kipling's book are never conventional, never ordinary; and then there is an absence of restfulness which is one of the greatest merits of Tom Brown.

But what has made the book to me into a kind of Lenten manual is the presentation of the masters. Here I see, portrayed with remorseless fidelity, the faults and foibles of my own class; and I am sorry to say that I feel deliberately, on closing the book, that schoolmastering must be a dingy trade. My better self cries out against this conclusion, and tries feebly to say that it is one of the noblest of professions; and then I think of King and Prout, and all my highest aspirations die away at the thought that I may be even as these.

I suppose that Kipling would reply that he has done full justice to the profession by giving us the figures of the Headmaster and the Chaplain. The Headmaster is obviously a figure which his creator regards with respect. He is fair-minded, human, generous; it is true that he is enveloped with a strange awe and majesty; he moves in a mysterious way, and acts in a most inconsequent and unexpected manner. But he generally has the best of a situation; and though there is little that is pastoral about him, yet he is obviously a wholesome-minded, manly sort of person, who whips the right person at the right time, and generally scores in the end. But he is a Roman father, at best. He has little compassion and no tenderness; he is acute, brisk, and sensible; but he has (at least to me) neither grace nor wisdom; or, if he has, he keeps them under a polished metallic dish-cover, and only lifts it in private. I do not feel that the Headmaster has any religion, except the religion of all sensible men. In seeming to despise all sentiment, Kipling seems to me to throw aside several beautiful flowers, tied carelessly up in the same bundle. There should be a treasure in the heart of a wise schoolmaster; not to be publicly displayed nor drearily recounted; but at the right moment, and in the right way, he ought to be able to show a boy that there are sacred and beautiful things which rule or ought to rule the heart. If the Head has such a treasure he keeps it at the bank and only visits it in the holidays.

The "Padre" is a very human figure—to me the most attractive in the book; he has some wisdom and tenderness, and his little vanities are very gently touched. But (I daresay I am a very pedantic person) I don't really like his lounging about and smoking in the boys' studies. I think that what he would have called tolerance is rather a deplorable indolence, a desire to be above all things acceptable. He earns his influence by giving his colleagues away, and he seems to me to think more of the honour of the boys than of the honour of the place.

But King and Prout, the two principal masters—it is they who spoil the taste of my food and mingle my drink with ashes. They are, in their way, well-meaning and conscientious men. But is it not possible to love discipline without being a pedant, and to be vigilant without being a sneak? I fear in the back of my heart that Kipling thinks that the trade of a schoolmaster is one which no generous or self-respecting man can adopt. And yet it is a useful and necessary trade; and we should be in a poor way if it came to be regarded as a detestable one. I wish with all my heart that Kipling had used his genius to make our path smoother instead of rougher. The path of the schoolmaster is indeed set round with pitfalls. A man who is an egotist and a bully finds rich pasturage among boys who are bound to listen to him, and over whom he can tyrannise. But, on the other hand, a man who is both brave and sensitive—and there are many such—can learn as well as teach abundance of wholesome lessons, if he comes to his task with some hope and love. King is, of course, a verbose bully; he delights in petty triumphs; he rejoices in making himself felt; he is a cynic as well, a greedy and low-minded man; he takes a disgusting pleasure in detective work; he begins by believing the worst of boys; he is vain, shy, irritable; he is cruel, and likes to see his victim writhe. I have known many schoolmasters and I have never known a Mr. King, except perhaps at a private school. But even King has done me good; he has confirmed me in my belief that more can be done by courtesy and decent amiability than can ever be done by discipline enforced by hard words. He teaches me not to be pompous, and not to hunger and thirst after finding things out. He makes me feel sure that the object of detection is to help boys to be better, and not to have the satisfaction of punishing them.

Prout is a feeble sentimentalist, with a deep belief in phrases. He is a better fellow than King, and is only an intolerable goose. Both the men make me wish to burst upon the scene, when they are grossly mishandling some simple situation; but while I want to kick King, when he is retreating with dignity, my only desire is to explain to Prout as patiently as I can what an ass he is. He is a perfect instance of absolutely ineffective virtue, a plain dish unseasoned with salt.

There are, of course, other characters in the book, each of them grotesque and contemptible in his own way, each of them a notable example of what not to be. But I would pardon this if the book were not so unjust; if Kipling had included in his gathering of masters one kindly, serious gentleman, whose sense of vocation did not make him a prig. And if he were to reply that the Headmaster fulfils these conditions, I would say that the Headmaster is a prig in this one point, that he is so desperately afraid of priggishness. The manly man, to my mind, is the man who does not trouble his head as to whether he is manly or not, not the man who wears clothes too big for him, and heavy boots, treads like an ox, and speaks gruffly; that is a pose, not better or worse than other poses. And what I want in the book is a man of simple and direct character, interested in his work, and not ashamed of his interest; attached to the boys, and not ashamed of seeming to care.

My only consolation is that I have talked to a good many boys who have read the book; they have all been amused, interested, delighted. But they say frankly that the boys are not like any boys they ever knew, and, when I timidly inquire about the masters, they laugh rather sheepishly, and say that they don't know about that.

I am sure that we schoolmasters have many faults; but we are really trying to do better, and, as I said before, I only wish that a man of Kipling's genius had held out to us a helping hand, instead of giving us a push back into the ugly slough of usherdom, out of which many good fellows, my friends and colleagues, have, however feebly, been struggling to emerge.—Ever yours,

T. B.



UPTON, May 21, 1904.

MY DEAR HERBERT,—I have been wondering since I wrote last whether I could possibly write a school story. I have often desired to try. The thing has hardly ever been well done. Tom Brown remains the best. Dean Farrar's books, vigorous in a sense as they are, are too sentimental. Stalky & Co., as I said in my last letter, in spite of its amazing cleverness of insight, is not typical. Gilkes' books are excellent studies of the subject, but lack unity of theme; Tim is an interesting book, but reflects a rather abnormal point of view; A Day of My Life at Eton is too definitely humorous in conception, though it has great verisimilitude.

In the first place the plot is a difficulty; the incidents of school life do not lend themselves to dramatic situations. Then, too, the trivialities of which school life is so much composed, the minuteness of the details involved, make the subject a singularly complicated one; another great difficulty is to give any idea of the conversations of boys, which are mainly concerned with small concrete facts and incidents, and are lacking in humour and flexibility.

Again, to speak frankly, there is a Rabelaisian plainness of speech on certain subjects, which one must admit to be apt to characterise boys' conversation, which it is impossible to construct or include, and yet the omission of which subtracts considerable reality from the picture. Genius might triumph over all these obstacles, of course, but even a genius would find it very difficult to put himself back into line with the immaturity and narrow views of boys; their credulity, their preoccupations, their conventionality, their inarticulateness—all these qualities are very hard to indicate. Only a boy could formulate these things, and no boy has sufficient ease of expression to do so, or sufficient detachment both to play the part and describe it. A very clever undergraduate, with a gift of language, might write a truthful school-book; but yet the task seems to require a certain mellowness and tolerance which can only be given by experience; and then the very experience would tend to blunt the sharpness of the impressions.

As a rule, in such books, the whole conception of boyhood seems at fault; a boy is generally represented as a generous, heedless, unworldly creature. My experience leads me to think that this is very wide of the mark. Boys are the most inveterate Tories. They love monopoly and privilege, they are deeply subservient, they have little idea of tolerance or justice or fair-play, they are intensely and narrowly ambitious; they have a certain insight into character, but there are some qualities, like vulgarity, which they seem incapable of detecting. They have a great liking for jobs and small indications of power. They are not, as a rule, truthful; they have no compassion for weakness. It is generally supposed that they have a strong sense of liberty, but this is not the case; they are, indeed, tenacious of their rights, or what they suppose to be their rights, but they have little idea of withstanding tyranny, they are incapable of democratic combination, and submit blindly to custom and tradition. Neither do I think them notably affectionate or grateful; everything that is done for them within the limits of a prescribed and habitual system they accept blindly and as a matter of course, while at the same time they are profoundly affected by any civility or sympathy shown them outside the ordinary course of life. I mean that they do not differentiate between a master who takes immense trouble over his work, and discharges his duties with laborious conscientiousness, and a master who saves himself all possible trouble; they are not grateful for labour expended on them, and they do not resent neglect. But a master who asks boys to breakfast, talks politely to them, takes an interest in them in a sociable way, will win a popularity which a laborious and inarticulate man cannot attain to. They are extremely amenable to any indications of personal friendship, while they are blind to the virtues of a master who only studies their best interests. They will work, for instance, with immense vigour for a man who praises and appreciates industry; but a man who grimly insists on hard and conscientious work is looked upon as a person who finds enjoyment in a kind of slave-driving.

Boys are, in fact, profound egoists and profound individualists. Of course there are exceptions to all this; there are boys of deep affection, scrupulous honesty, active interests, keen and far-reaching ambitions; but I am trying to sketch not the exception but the rule.

You will ask what there is left? What there is that makes boys interesting and attractive to deal with? I will tell you. There is, of course, the mere charm of youthfulness and simplicity. And the qualities that I have depicted above are really the superficial qualities, the conventions that boys adopt from the society about them. The nobler qualities of human nature are latent in many boys; but they are for the most part superficially ruled by an intensely strong mauvaise honte, which leads them to live in two worlds, and to keep the inner life very sharply and securely ruled off from the outer. They must be approached tactfully and gently as individuals. It is possible to establish a personal and friendly relation with many boys, so long as they understand that it is a kind of secret understanding, and will not be paraded or traded upon in public. In their inner hearts there are the germs of many high and beautiful things, which tend, unless a boy has some wise and tender older friend—a mother, a father, a sister, even a master—to be gradually obscured under the insistent demands of his outer life. Boys are very diffident about these matters, and require to be encouraged and comforted about them. The danger of public schools, with overworked masters, is that the secret life is apt to get entirely neglected, and then these germs of finer qualities get neither sunshine or rain. Public spirit, responsibility, intellectual interests, unconventional hopes, virtuous dreams—a boy is apt to think that to speak of such things is to incur the reproach of priggishness; but a man who can speak of them naturally and without affectation, who can show that they are his inner life too, and are not allowed to flow in a sickly manner into his outer life, who has a due and wise reserve, can have a very high and simple power for good.

But to express all this in the pages of a book is an almost impossible task; what one wants is to get the outer life briskly and sharply depicted, and to speak of the inner in hints and flashes. Unfortunately, the man who really knows boys is apt to get so penetrated with the pathos, the unrealised momentousness, the sad shipwrecks of boy life that he is not light-hearted enough to depict the outer side of it all, and a book becomes morbid and sentimental. Then, too, to draw a boy correctly would often be to produce a sense of contrast which would almost give a feeling of hypocrisy, because there are boys—and not unfrequently the most interesting—who, if fairly drawn, would appear frivolous, silly, conventional in public, even coarse, who yet might have very fine things behind, though rarely visible. Moreover, the natural, lively, chattering boys, whom it would be a temptation to try and draw, are not really the most interesting. They tend to develop into bores of the first water in later life. But the boy who develops into a fine man is often ungainly, shy, awkward, silent in early life, acutely sensitive, and taking refuge in bluntness or dumbness.

The most striking instances that have come under my own experience, where a boy has really revealed the inside of his mind and spirit, are absolutely incapable of being expressed in words. If I were to write down what boys have said to me, on critical occasions, the record would be laughed at as impossible and unnatural.

So you see that the difficulties are well-nigh insuperable. Narrative would be trivial, conversation affected, motives inexplicable; for, indeed, the crucial difficulty is the absolute unaccountableness of boys' actions and words. A schoolmaster gets to learn that nothing is impossible; a boy of apparently unblemished character will behave suddenly in a manner that makes one despair of human nature, a black sheep will act and speak like an angel of light. The interest is the mystery and the impenetrability of it all; it is so impossible to foresee contingencies or to predict conduct. This impulsiveness, as a rule, diminishes in later life under the influence of maturity and material conditions. But the boy remains insoluble, now a demon, now an angel; and thus the only conclusion is that it is better to take things as they come, and not to attempt to describe the indescribable.—Ever yours,

T. B.



UPTON, May 28, 1904.

DEAR HERBERT,—I am bursting with news. I am going to tell you a secret. I have been offered an important Academical post; that is to say, I received a confidential intimation that I should be elected if I stood. The whole thing is confidential, so that I must not even tell you what the offer was. I should have very much liked to talk it over with you, but I had to make up my mind quickly; there was no time to write, and, moreover, I feel sure that when I had turned out the pros and cons of my own feelings for your inspection, you would have decided as I did.

You will say at once that you do not know how I reconciled my refusal with the cardinal article of my faith, that our path is indicated to us by Providence, and that we ought to go where we are led. Well, I confess that I felt this to be a strong reason for accepting. The invitation came to me as a complete surprise, absolutely unsought, and from a body of electors who know the kind of man they want and have a large field to choose from; there was no question of private influence or private friendship. I hardly know one of the committee; and they took a great deal of trouble in making inquiries about men.

But, to use a detestable word, there is a strong difference between an outward call and an inward call. It is not the necessary outcome of a belief in Providence that one accepts all invitations, and undertakes whatever one may be asked to do. There is such a thing as temptation; and there is another kind of summons, sent by God, which seems to come in order that one may take stock of one's own position and capacities and realise what one's line ought to be. It is like a passage in a labyrinth which strikes off at right angles from the passage one is following; the fact that one MAY take a sudden turn to the left is not necessarily a clear indication that one is meant to do so. It may be only sent to make one consider the reasons which induce one to follow the path on which one is embarked.

I had no instantaneous corresponding sense that it was my duty to follow this call. I was (I will confess it) a little dazzled; but, as soon as that wore off, I felt an indescribable reluctance to undertake the task, a consciousness of not being equal to it, a strong sense that I was intended for other things.

I don't mean to say that there was not much that was attractive about the offer in a superficial way. It meant money, power, position, and consequence—all good things, and good things which I unreservedly like. I am like every one else in that respect; I should like a large house, and a big income, and professional success, and respect and influence as much as any one—more, indeed, than many people.

But I soon saw that this would be a miserable reason for being tempted by the offer, the delight of being called Rabbi. I don't pretend to be high-minded, but even I could see that, unless there was a good deal more than that in my mind, I should be a wretched creature to be influenced by such considerations. These are merely the conveniences; the real point was the work, the power, the possibility of carrying out certain educational reforms which I have very much at heart, and doing something towards raising the general intellectual standard, which I believe to be lower than it need be.

Now, on thinking it out carefully, I came to the conclusion that I was not strong enough for this role. I am no Atlas; I have no deep store of moral courage; I am absurdly sensitive, ill-fitted to cope with unpopularity and disapproval. Bitter, vehement, personal hostility would break my spirit. A fervent Christian might say that one had no right to be faint-hearted, and that strength would be given one; that is perfectly true in certain conditions, and I have often experienced it when some intolerable and inevitable calamity had to be faced. But it is an evil recklessness not to weigh one's own deficiencies. No one would say that a man ignorant of music ought to undertake to play the organ, if the organist failed to appear, believing that power would be given him. Christ Himself warned His disciples against embarking in an enterprise without counting the cost. But here I confess was the darkest point of my dilemma—was it cowardice and indolence to refuse to attempt what competent persons believed I could do? or was it prudent and wise to refuse to attempt what I, knowing my own temperament better, felt I could not attempt successfully?

Now in my present work it is different. I know that my strength is equal to the responsibility; I know that I can do what I undertake. The art of dealing with boys is very different from the art of dealing with men, the capacity for subordinate command is very different from the capacity for supreme command. Of course, it is a truism to say that if a man can obey thoroughly and loyally he can probably command. But then, again, there is a large class of people, to which I believe myself to belong, who are held to be, in the words of Tacitus, Capax imperii, nisi imperasset.

Then, too, I felt that a great task must be taken up in a certain buoyancy and cheerfulness of spirit, not in heaviness and diffidence. There are, of course, instances where a work reluctantly undertaken has been crowned with astonishing success. But one has no business to think that reluctance and diffidence to undertake a great work are a proof that God intends one to do it.

I am quite aware of the danger which a temperament like my own runs, of dealing with such a situation in too complex and subtle a way. That is the hardest thing of all to get rid of, because it is part of the very texture of one's mind. I have tried, however, to see the whole thing in as simple a light as possible, and to ask myself whether acceptance was in any sense a plain duty. If the offer had been a constraining appeal, I should have doubted. But it was made in an easy, complimentary way, as if there was no doubt that I should fall in with it.

Well, I had a very anxious day; but I simply (I may say that to you) prayed that my way might be made clear; and the result was a conviction, which rose like a star and then, as it were, waxed into a sun, that the quest was not for me.

And so I refused; and I am thankful to say that I have had, ever since, the blessed and unalterable conviction that I have done right. Even the conveniences have ceased to appeal to me; they have not even, like the old Adam in the Pilgrim's Progress, pinched hold of me and given me a deadly twitch. Though the picturesque mind of one who, like myself, is very sensitive to "the attributes of awe and majesty," takes a certain peevish pleasure in continuing to depict my unworthy self clothed upon with majesty, and shaking all Olympus with my nod.

But if Olympus had refused to shake, even though I had nodded like a mandarin?

I am sure that I shall not regret it; and I do not even think that my conscience will reproach me; nor do I think that (on this ground alone) I shall be relegated to the dark circle of the Inferno with those who had a great opportunity given them and would not use it.

Please confirm me if you can! Comfort me with apples, as the Song says. I am afraid you will only tell me that it proves that you are right, and that I have no ambition.—Ever yours,

T. B.



UPTON, June 4, 1904.

DEAR HERBERT,—I have nothing to write about. The summer is come, and with it I enter into purgatory; I am poured out like water, and my heart is like melting wax; I have neither courage nor kindness, except in the early morning or the late evening. I cannot work, and I cannot be lazy. The only consolation I have—and I wish it were a more sustaining one—is that most people like hot weather better.

I will put down for you in laborious prose what if I were an artist I would do in half-a-dozen strokes. There is a big place near here, Rushton Park. I was bicycling with Randall past the lodge, blaming the fair summer, like the fisherman in Theocritus, when he asked if I should like to ride through. The owner, Mr. Payne, is a friend of his, and laid a special injunction on him to go through whenever he liked. We were at once admitted, and in a moment we were in a Paradise. Payne is famed for his gardeners, and I think I never saw a more beautiful place of its kind. The ground undulates very gracefully, and we passed by velvety lawns, huge towering banks of rhododendron all ablaze with flower, exquisite vistas and glades, with a view of far-off hills. It seemed to me to be an enchanted pleasaunce, like the great Palace in The Princess. Now and then we could see the huge facade of the house above us, winking through its sunblinds. There was not a soul to be seen; and this added enormously to the magical charm of the place, as though it were the work of a Genie, not made with hands. We passed a huge fountain dripping into a blue-tiled pool, over a great cockleshell of marble; then took a path which wound into the wood, all a mist of fresh green, and in a moment we were in a long old-fashioned garden, with winding box hedges, and full of bright flowers. To the left, where the garden was bordered by the wood, was set a row of big marble urns, grey with age, on high pedestals, all dripping with flowering creepers. It was very rococo, like an old French picture, but enchanting for all that. To the right was a long, mellow brick wall, under which stood some old marble statues, weather-stained and soft of hue. The steady sun poured down on the sweet, bright place, and the scent of the flowers filled the air with fragrance, while a dove, hidden in some green towering tree, roo-hooed delicately, as though her little heart was filled with an indolent contentment.

The statue that stood nearest us attracted my attention. I cannot conceive what it was meant to represent. It was the figure of an old, bearded man, with a curious brimless hat on his head, and a flowing robe; in his hands he held and fingered some unaccountable object of a nondescript shape; and he had an unpleasant fixed smile, which he seemed to turn on us, as though he knew a secret connected with the garden which he might not reveal, and which if revealed would fill the hearers with a secret horror. I do not think that I have often seen a figure which affected me so disagreeably. He seemed to be saying that within this bright and fragrant place lay some tainted mystery which it were ill to tamper with. It was as though we opened a door out of some stately corridor, and found a strange, beast-like thing running to and fro in a noble room.

Well, I do not know! But it seems to me a type of many things, and I doubt not that the wise-hearted patrician, the former owner, who laid out the garden and set the statue in its place, did so with a purpose. It is for us to see that there lies no taint behind our pleasures; but even if this be not the message, the heart of the mystery, may not the figure stand perhaps for the end, the bitter end, which lies ahead of all, when the lip is silent and the eye shut, and the heart is stilled at last?

The quiet figure with its secret, wicked smile, somehow slurred for me the sunshine and the pleasant flowers, and I was glad when we turned away.—Ever yours,

T. B.



UPTON, June 11, 1904.

DEAR HERBERT,—Yes, I am sure you are right. The thing I get more and more impatient of every year is conventionality in every form. It is rather foolish, I am well aware, to be impatient about anything; and great conventionality of mind is not inconsistent with entire sincerity, for the simple reason that conventionality is what ninety-nine hundredths of the human race enjoy. Most people have no wish to make up their own minds about anything; they do not care to know what they like or why they like it. This is often the outcome of a deep-seated modesty. The ordinary person says to himself, "Who am I that I should set up a standard? If all the people that I know like certain occupations and certain amusements, they are probably right, and I will try to like them too." I don't mean that this feeling is often put into words, but it is there; and there is for most people an immense power in habit. People grow to like what they do, and seldom inquire if they really like it, or why they like it.

Of course, to a certain extent, conventionality is a useful, peaceful thing. I am not here recommending eccentricity of any kind. People ought to fall in simply and quietly with ordinary modes of life, dress, and behaviour; it saves time and trouble; it sets the mind free. But what I rather mean is that, when the ordinary usages of life have been complied with, all sensible people ought to have a line of their own about occupation, amusements, friends, and not run to and fro like sheep just where the social current sets. What I mean is best explained by a couple of instances. I met at dinner last night our old acquaintance, Foster, who was at school with us. He was in my house; I don't think you ever knew much of him. He was a pleasant, good-humoured boy enough; but his whole mind was set on discovering the exact code of social school life. He wanted to play the right games, to wear the right clothes, to know the right people. He liked being what he called "in the swim." He never made friends with an obscure or unfashionable boy. He was quite pleasant to his associates when he was himself obscure; but he waited quietly for his opportunity to recommend himself to prominent boys, and, when the time came, he gently threw over all his old companions and struck out into more distinguished regions. He was never disagreeable or conceited; he merely dropped his humble friends until they too were approved as worthy of greater distinction, and then he took them up again. He succeeded in his ambitions, as most cool and clear-headed persons do. He became what would be called very popular; he gave himself no airs; he was always good company; he was never satirical or critical. The same thing has gone on ever since. He married a nice wife; he secured a good official position. Last night, as I say, I met him here. He came into the room with the same old pleasant smile, beautifully dressed, soberly appointed. His look and gestures were perfectly natural and appropriate. He has never made any attempt to see me or keep up old acquaintance; but here, where I have a certain standing and position, it was obviously the right thing to treat me with courteous deference. He came up to me with a genial welcome, and, but for a little touch of prosperous baldness, I could have imagined that he was hardly a day older than when he was a boy. He reminded me of some cheerful passages of boyhood; he asked with kindly interest after my work; he paid me exactly the right compliments; and I became aware that I was, for the moment, one of the pawns in his game, to be delicately pushed about where it suited him. We talked of other matters; he held exactly the right political opinions, a mild and cautious liberalism; he touched on the successes of certain politicians and praised them appropriately; he deplored the failure of certain old friends in political life. "A very good fellow," he said of Hughes, "but just a little—what shall I say?—impracticable?" He had seen all the right plays, heard the right music, read the right books. He deplored the obscurity of George Meredith, but added that he was an undoubted genius. He confessed himself to be an ardent admirer of Wagner; he thought Elgar a man of great power; but he had not made up his mind about Strauss. I found that "not making up his mind about" a person was one of his favourite expressions. If he sees that some man is showing signs of vigour and originality in any department of life, he keeps his eye upon him; if he passes safely through the shallows, he praises him, saying that he has watched his rise; if he fails, our friend will be ready with the reasons for his failure, adding that he always feared that so-and-so was a little unpractical.

I can't describe to you the dreariness and oppression that fell upon me. The total absence of generosity, of independent interest, weighed on my soul. The one quality that this equable and judicious critic was on the look-out for was the power of being approved. Foster's view seemed to knock the bottom out of life, to deprive everything equally of charm and individuality.

The conversation turned on golf, and one of the guests, whom I am shortly about to describe, said bluffly that he considered golf and drink to be the two curses of the country. Our polite friend turned courteously towards him, treated the remark as an excellent sally, and then said that he feared he must himself plead guilty to a great devotion to golf. "You see all kinds of pleasant people," he said, "in such a pleasant way; and then it tempts one into the open air; and it is such an excellent investment, in the way of exercise, for one's age; a man can play a very decent game till he is sixty—though, of course, it is no doubt a little overdone." We all felt that he was right; he took the rational, the sensible view; but it tempted me, though I successfully resisted the temptation, to express an exaggerated dislike of golf which I do not feel.

The guest whose remark had occasioned this discourse is one of my colleagues, Murchison by name—you don't know him—a big, rugged, shy, sociable fellow, who is in many ways one of the best masters here. He is always friendly, amusing, courteous. He holds strong opinions, which he does not produce unless the occasion demands it. He keeps a good deal to himself, follows his own pursuits, and knows his own mind. He is very tolerant, and can get on with almost everybody. The boys respect him, like his teaching, think him clever, sensible, and amusing. There are a great many things about which he knows nothing, and is always ready to confess his ignorance. But whenever he does understand a subject, and he has a strong taste for art and letters, you always feel that his thoughts and opinions are fresh and living. They are not produced like sardines from a tin, with a painful similarity and regularity. He has strong prejudices, for which he can always give a reason; but he is always ready to admit that it is a matter of taste. He does not tilt in a Quixotic manner at established things, but he goes along trying to do his work in the best manner attainable. He is no genius, and his character is by no means a perfect one; he has pronounced faults, of which he is perfectly conscious, and which he never attempts to disguise. But he is simple, straightforward, affectionate, and sincere. If he were more courageous, more fiery, he would be, I think, a really great man; but this he somehow misses.

The two men, Foster and Murchison, are as great a contrast as can well be imagined. They serve to illustrate exactly what I mean. Our friend Foster is perfectly correct and admirably pleasant. You would never think of confiding in him, or saying to him what you really felt; but, on the other hand, there is no one whom I would more willingly consult in a small and delicate point of practical conduct—and his advice would be excellent.

But Murchison is a real man; he knows his limitations, but he takes nothing second-hand. He brings his own mind and character to bear on every problem, and judges people and things on their own merits.

Of course one does not desire that conventional people should strive after unconventionality. That produces the most sickening conventionality of all, because it is merely an attempt to construct a pose that shall be accepted as unconventional. The only thing is to be natural; and, after all, if one merely desires to see how the cat jumps and then to jump after it, it is better to do so frankly and make no pretence about it.

But I am sure that it is one's duty as a teacher to try and show boys that no opinions, no tastes, no emotions are worth much unless they are one's own. I suffered acutely as a boy from the lack of being shown this. I found—I am now speaking of intellectual things—that certain authors were held up to me as models which I was unfortunate enough to dislike. Instead of making up my own mind about it, instead of trying to see what I did admire and why I admired it, I tried feebly for years to admire what I was told was admirable. The result was waste of time and confusion of thought. In the same way I followed feebly, as a boy, after the social code. I tried to like the regulation arrangements, and thought dimly that I was in some way to blame because I did not. Not until I went up to Cambridge did the conception of mental liberty steal upon me—and then only partly. Of course if I had had more originality I should have perceived this earlier. But the world appeared to me a great, organised, kindly conspiracy, which must be joined, in however feeble a spirit. I have learnt gradually that, after a decent compliance with superficial conventionalities, there are not only no penalties attached to independence, but that there, and there alone, is happiness to be found; and that the rewards of a free judgement and an authentic admiration are among the best and highest things that the world has to bestow. . . .—Ever yours,

T. B.



UPTON, June 18, 1904.

DEAR HERBERT,—I am sick at heart. I received one of those letters this morning which are the despair of most schoolmasters. I have in my house a boy aged seventeen, who is absolutely alone in the world. He has neither father or mother, brother or sister. He spends his holidays with an aunt, a clever and charming person, but a sad invalid (by the way, in passing, what a wretched thing in English it is that there is no female of the word "man"; "woman" means something quite different, and always sounds slightly disrespectful; "lady" is impossible, except in certain antique phrases). The boy is frail, intellectual, ungenial. He is quite incapable of playing games decently, having neither strength or aptitude; he finds it hard to make friends, and the consequence is that, like all clever people who don't meet with any success, he takes refuge in a kind of contemptuous cynicism. His aunt is devoted to him and to his best interests, but she is too much of an invalid to be able to look after him; the result is that he is allowed practically to do exactly as he likes in the holidays; he hates school cordially, and I don't wonder. He fortunately has one taste, and that is for science, and it is more than a taste, it is a real passion. He does not merely dabble about with chemicals, or play tricks with electricity; but he reads dry, hard, abstruse science, and writes elaborate monographs, which I read with more admiration than comprehension. This is almost his only hold on ordinary life, and I encourage it with all my might; I ask about his work, make such suggestions as I can, and praise his successful experiments and his treatises, so far as I can understand them, loudly and liberally.

This morning one of his guardians writes to me about him. He is a country gentleman, with a large estate, who married a cousin of my pupil. He is a big, pompous, bumble-bee kind of man, who prides himself on speaking his mind, and is quite unaware that it is only his position that saves him from the plainest retorts. He writes to say that he is much exercised about his ward's progress. The boy, he says, is fanciful and delicate, and has much too good an opinion of himself. That is true; and he goes on to lay down the law as to what he "needs." He must be thrown into the society of active and vigorous boys; he must play games; he must go to the gymnasium. And then he must learn self-reliance; he must not be waited upon; he must be taught that it is his business to be considerate of others; he must learn to be obliging, and to look after other people. He goes on to say that all he wants is the influence of a strong and sensible man (that is a cut at me), and he will be obliged if I will kindly attend to the matter.

Well, what does he want me to do? Does he expect me to run races with the boy? To introduce him to the captain of the eleven? To have him thrust into teams of cricket and football from which his incapacity for all games naturally excludes him? When our bumble-bee friend was at school himself—and a horrid boy he must have been—what would he have said if a master had told him to put a big, clumsy, and incapable boy into a house cricket eleven in order to bring him out?

Then as to teaching him to be considerate, the mischief is all done in the holidays; the boy is not waited on here, and he has plenty of vigorous discipline in the kind of barrack life the boys lead. Does he expect me to march into the boy's home, and request that the boy may black his own boots and carry up the coals!

The truth is that the man has no real policy; he sees the boy's deficiencies, and liberates his mind by requesting me, as if I were a kind of tradesman, to see that they are corrected.

Of course the temptation is to write the man an acrimonious letter, and to point out the idiotic character of his suggestions. But that is worse than useless.

What I have done is to write and say that I have received his kind and sensible letter, that he has laid his finger on the exact difficulties, and that naturally I am anxious to put them straight. I then added that his own recollection of his school-days will show that one cannot help a boy in athletic or social matters beyond a certain point, that one can only see that a boy has a fair chance, and is not overlooked, but that other boys would not tolerate (and I know that he does not mean to suggest this) that a boy should be included in a team for which he is unfit, simply in order that his social life should be encouraged. I then point out that as to discipline there is no lack of it here; and that it is only at home that he is spoilt; and that I hope he will use his influence, in a region where I cannot do more than make suggestions, to minimise the evil.

The man will approve of the letter; he will think me sensible and himself extraordinarily wise.

Does that seem to you to be cynical? I don't think it is. The man is sincerely anxious for the boy's welfare, just as I am, and we had better agree than disagree. The fault of his letter is that it is stupid, and that it is offensive. The former quality I can forgive, and the latter is only stupidity in another form. He thinks in his own mind that if I am paid to educate the boy I ought to be glad of advice, that I ought to be grateful to have things that I am not likely to detect for myself pointed out by an enlightened and benevolent man.

Meanwhile I shall proceed to treat the boy on my own theory. I don't expect him to play games; I don't think that it is, humanly speaking, possible to expect a sensitive, frail boy to continue to play a game in which he only makes himself ridiculous and contemptible from first to last. Of course if a boy who is incapable of success in athletics does go on playing games perseveringly and good-humouredly, he gets a splendid training, and, as a rule, conciliates respect. But this boy could not do that.

Then I shall try to encourage the boy in any taste he may exhibit, and try to build up a real structure on these slender lines. The great point is that he shall have SOME absorbing and wholesome instinct. He will be wealthy, and in a position to gratify any whim. He is not in the least likely to do anything foolish or vicious—he has not got the animal spirits for that. I shall encourage him to take up politics; and I shall try to put into his head a desire to do something for his fellow-creatures, and not to live an entirely lonely and self-absorbed life.

I have a theory that in education it is better to encourage aptitudes than to try merely to correct deficiencies. One can't possibly extirpate weaknesses by trying to crush them. One must build up vitality and interest and capacity. It is like the parable of the evil spirits. It is of no use simply to cast them out and leave the soul empty and swept; one must encourage some strong, good spirit to take possession; one must build on the foundations that are there.

The boy is delicate-minded, able and intelligent; he is an interesting companion, when he is once at his ease. If only this busy, fussy, hearty old bore would leave him alone! What I am afraid of his doing is of his getting the boy to stay with him, making him go out hunting, and laughing mercilessly at his tumbles. The misery that a stupid, genial man can inflict upon a sensitive boy like this is dreadful to contemplate.

At the end of the half I shall write a letter about the boy's work, and delicately hint that, if he is encouraged in his subject, he may attain high distinction and eventually rise to political or scientific eminence. The old bawler will take the fly with a swirl—see if he does not! And, if I can secure an interview with him, I will wager that my triumph will be complete.

Does this all seem very dingy to you, my dear Herbert? You have never had to deal with tiresome, stupid people in a professional capacity, you see. There is a distinct pleasure in getting one's own way, in triumphing over an awkward situation, in leading an old buffer by the nose to do the thing which you think right, and to make him believe that you are all the time following his advice and treasuring up his precepts. But I can honestly say that my chief desire is not to amuse myself with this kind of diplomacy, but the real welfare of the child. I know you will believe that.—Ever yours,

T. B.



UPTON, June 25, 1904.

DEAR HERBERT,—This is not a letter; it is a sketch, an aquarelle out of my portfolio.

Yesterday was a hot, heavy, restless day, with thunder brewing in the dark heart of huge inky clouds; a day when one craves for light, and brisk airs, and cold bare hill-tops; when one desires to get away from one's kind, away from close rooms and irritable persons. So I went off on my patient and uncomplaining bicycle, along a country road; and then crossing a wide common, like the field, I thought, in the Pilgrim's Progress across which Evangelist pointed an improving finger, I turned down to the left to the waterside In the still air, that seemed to listen, the blue wooded hills across the river had a dim, rich beauty. How mysterious are the fields and heights from which one is separated by a stream, the fields in which one knows every tree and sloping lawn by sight, and where one sets foot so rarely! The road came to an end in a little grassy space among high-branching elms. On my left was a farm, with barns and byres, overhung by stately walnut trees; on the right a grange among its great trees, a low tiled house, with white casements, in a pleasant garden, full of trellised roses, a big dovecote, with a clattering flight of wheeling pigeons circling round and round. Hard by, close to the river, stands a little ancient church, with a timbered spire, the trees growing thickly about it, dreaming forgotten dreams.

Here all was still and silent; the very children moved languidly about, not knowing what ailed them. Far off across the wide-watered plain came a low muttering of thunder, and a few big drops pattered in the great elms.

This secluded river hamlet has an old history; the church, which is served from a distant parish, stands in a narrow strip of land which runs down across the fields to the river, and dates from the time when the river was a real trade-highway, and when neighbouring parishes, which had no frontages on the stream, found it convenient to have a wharf to send their produce, timber or bricks, away by water. But the wharf has long since perished, though a few black stakes show where it stood; and the village, having no landing-place and no inn, has dropped out of the river life, and minds its own quiet business.

A few paces from the church the river runs silently and strongly to the great weir below. To-day it was swollen with rain and turbid, and plucked steadily at the withies. To-day the stream, which is generally full of life, was almost deserted. But it came into my head what an allegory it made. Here through the unvisited meadows, with their huge elms, runs this thin line of glittering vivid life; you hear, hidden in dark leaves, the plash of oars, the grunt of rowlocks, and the chatter of holiday folk, to whom the river-banks are but a picture through which they pass, and who know nothing of the quiet fields that surround them. That, I thought, following a train of reflection, is like life itself, moving in its bright, familiar channel, so unaware of the broad tracts of mystery that hem it in. May there not be presences, unseen, who look down wondering—as I look to-day through my screen of leafy boughs—on the busy-peopled stream that runs so merrily between its scarped banks of clay? I know not; yet it seems as though it might be so.

Beneath the weir, with its fragrant, weedy scent, where the green river plunges and whitens through the sluices, lies a deep pool, haunted by generations of schoolboys, who wander, flannelled and straw-hatted, up through the warm meadows to bathe. In such sweet memories I have my part, when one went riverwards with some chosen friend, speaking with the cheerful frankness of boyhood of all our small concerns, and all we meant to do; and then the cool grass under the naked feet, the delicious recoil of the fresh, tingling stream, and the quiet stroll back into the ordered life so full of simple happiness.

"Ah! happy fields, ah! pleasing shade, Ah! fields beloved in vain!"

sang the sad poet of Eton—but not in vain, I think, for these old beautiful memories are not sad; the good days are over and gone, and they cannot be renewed; but they are like a sweet spring of youth, whose waters fail not, in which a tired soul may bathe and be clean again. They may bring back

"The times when I remember to have been Joyful, and free from blame."

To be pensive, not sentimental, is the joy of later life. The thought of the sweet things that have had an end, of life lived out and irrevocable, is not a despairing thought, unless it is indulged with an unavailing regret. It is rather to me a sign that, whatever we may be or become, we are surrounded with the same quiet beauty and peace, if we will but stretch out our hands and open our hearts to it. To grow old patiently and bravely, even joyfully—that is the secret; and it is as idle to repine for the lost joys as it would have been in the former days to repine because we were not bigger and stronger and more ambitious. Life, if it does not become sweeter, becomes more interesting; fresh ties are formed, fresh paths open out; and there should come, too, a simple serenity of living, a certainty that, whatever befall, we are in wise and tender hands.

So I reasoned with myself beside the little holy church, not far from the moving stream.

But the time warned me to be going. The thunder had drawn off to the west; a faint breeze stirred and whispered in the elms. The day declined. But I had had my moment, and my heart was full; for it is such moments as these that are the pure gold of life, when the scene and the mood move together to some sweet goal in perfect unison. Sometimes the scene is there without the mood, or the mood comes and finds no fitting pasturage; but to-day, both were mine; and the thought, echoing like a strain of rich sad music, passed beyond the elms, beyond the blue hills, back to its mysterious home. . . .

There, that is the end of my sketch; a little worked up, but substantially true. Tell me if you like the kind of thing; if you do, it is rather a pleasure to write thus occasionally. But it may seem to you to be affected, and, in that case, I won't send you any more of such reveries.

You seem very happy and prosperous; but then you like heat, and enjoy it like a lizard. My love to all of you.—Ever yours,

T. B.



UPTON, July 1, 1904.

DEAR HERBERT,—What you say about forming habits is very interesting. It is quite true that one gets very little done without a certain method; and it is equally true that, if one does manage to arrive at a certain definite programme for one's life and work, it is very easy to get a big task done. Just reflect on this fact; it would not be difficult, in any life, to so arrange things that one could write a short passage every day, say enough to fill a page of an ordinary octavo. Well, if one stuck to it, that would mean that in the course of a year one would have a volume finished. Sometimes my colleagues express surprise that I can find time for so much literary work; and on the other hand if I tell them how much time I am able to devote to it they are equally surprised that I can get anything done, because it seems so little. This is the fact; I can get an hour—possibly two—on Tuesday, two hours on Thursday, one on Friday, two on Saturday, and one or two on Sunday—nine hours a week under favourable circumstances, and never a moment more. But writing being to me the purest pleasure and refreshment, I never lose a minute in getting to work, and I use every moment of the time. That does not include reading; but by dint of having books about, and by working carefully, so that I do not need to go over the same ground twice, I get through a good deal in the week. I have trained myself, too, to be able to write at full speed when I am at work, and I can count on writing three octavo pages in an hour, or even four. The result is, as you will see, that in a term of twelve weeks, I can turn out between three and four hundred pages. The curious thing is that I do better original work in the term-time than in the holidays. I think the pressure of a good deal of mechanical work, not of an exhausting kind, clears the brain and makes it vigorous. Of course it is rather scrappy work; but I lay my plans in the holidays, make my skeleton, and work up my authorities; and so I can go ahead at full steam.

But I have strayed away from the subject of habits; and the moral of the above is only that habits are easy enough if you like the task enough. If I did not care for writing, I should find abundance of excellent reasons why I should not do it.

Pater says somewhere that forming habits is failure in life; by which I suppose he means that if one gets tied down to a petty routine of one's own, it generally ends in one's becoming petty too—narrow-minded and conventional. I don't suppose he referred to method, because he was one of the most methodical of men. He wrote down sentences that came into his mind, scattered ideas, on small cards; when he had a sufficient store of these, he sorted them and built up his essay out of them.