SCENE. _The same, but the wall of sand-bags_ _bags is broken
in many places. The dead lie half-buried beneath them._ CECIL
_lies, badly wounded, against a gap in the wall, his rifle
by his side._ HONOUR _and_ DUTY _kneel beside him tenderly.
The last rays of the sun light up his painful smile._ THIRST
_stands gloomily over him, and the wild flowers are peeping
at him with sleepy eyes through the gap, while_ MOTHER EARTH
_calls to them to go to bed._ FATHER SUN _leans sadly over the
broken parapet._
CECIL (_slowly and with difficulty_). Honour, Duty, I thank you. You
did not fail me.
HONOUR. You played the man, Cecil, as your father did before you.
DUTY. Your example it was that steadied your comrades, and kept craven
fear at a distance. You saved the trench.
HONOUR. This is the beauty of manhood, to die for a good cause. There
is no fairer thing in all God's world.
CECIL. I thank you. Good-night, Sun; good-night, Mother Earth. Think
kindly of me. I don't think I was mad after all.
SUN. Good-night, brave lad. (_To_ MOTHER EARTH) I can hardly bear to
look on so sad a sight.
CECIL. Good-night, Ragged Robins; good-night, Poppies. You have
played your game, and I mine. Only they are different because we are
different.
CHORUS OF FLOWERS. Good-night, dear Cecil. We are so very sorry that
you are hurt.
(_Enter the_ MASTER, _flowers shyly following him._ HONOUR
_and_ DUTY _raise_ CECIL _gently to a standing position._)
THE MASTER (_extending his arms with a loving smile_). "Well done,
good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
(CECIL, _with a look of wonder and joy, is borne forward._)
(_Curtain._)
XV
MY HOME AND SCHOOL[3]
A FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY
I
MY HOME
What is one to say of home? It is difficult to know. I find that
biographers are particular about the date of birth, the exact address
of the babe, the social position and ancestry of the parent. I suppose
that it is all that they can learn. But as an autobiographer I want
to do something better; to give a picture of the home where, as I
can now see, ideals, tastes, prejudices and habits were formed which
have persisted through all the internal revolutions that have since
upheaved my being.
[Footnote 3: "A Student" left a great deal of manuscript, among which
this fragment of autobiography is not the least interesting.]
I try to form the picture in my mind, and a crowd of detail rushes
in which completely destroys its simplicity and harmony. How hard it
is to judge, even at this distance, what are the salient features.
I must try, but I know that from the point of view of psychological
development I may easily miss out the very factors which were really
most important.
I remember a big house, in a row of other big houses, in a side street
leading from the East Cliff at Brighton right up to the edge of the
bare rolling downs. It was exactly like almost every other house
in that part of Brighton--stucco fronted, with four stories and a
basement, three windows in front on each of the upper stories, and two
windows and a door on the ground floor and basement. At the back was
a small garden, with flower beds surrounding a square of gravel, and
a tricycle house in one corner. There was a back door in this garden,
which gave on to a street of cottages. This back door was a point of
strategic importance.
But I need not describe the house in detail. It was exactly like
thousands of other houses built in the beginning of the nineteenth
century. High, respectable, ugly and rather inconvenient, with many
stairs, two or three big rooms, a lot of small ones and no bathroom.
It was essentially a family house, intended for people of moderate
means and large families. Nowadays they build houses which are
prettier, and have bathrooms; but they are not meant for large
families.
We were a large family, and a fairly noisy one. Moreover, we were
singularly self-sufficing. We hadn't many friends, we didn't entertain
much, we had dinner in the middle of the day, and supper in the
evening.
There was my father who was a recluse, my mother who was essentially
our mother, the two girls and four boys. I was an afterthought, being
seven years younger than my next brother, who for seven years had
been called B. (for baby), and couldn't escape from it even after my
appearance.
In addition to these, B. and I both had inseparable friends, who lived
within a stone's throw. Ronnie was my _alter ego_ till I was fourteen:
so much so that I had no other friend. Even now, though our ways
have kept us apart, and our interests and opinions are fundamentally
different, we can sit in each other's rooms with perfect content. We
know too much of each other for it to be possible to pretend to be
what we are not. We sit and are ourselves, naked and unashamed so to
speak, and it is very restful.
Pictures float before my mind. Let me select a few. I see a rather
fat, stolid little boy in a big airy nursery at the top of the house,
sitting in the middle of the floor playing with bricks. Outside it is
gusty and wet, and the small boy hopes that he will be allowed to stay
in all the afternoon, and play with bricks. But that is not to be. A
small thin man, with gentle grey eyes, short curly beard, an old black
greatcoat and a black square felt hat, comes in. The child must have
some air. The child is resentful, but resigned, is wrapped up well,
put in his pram and wheeled up and down the Madeira Road.
"Pa" didn't appear very much except on some such errand; but "Ma" was
in and out all the time. "Ma" was everything, the only woman who has
ever had my whole love, my whole trust and has made my heart ache with
the desire to show my love.
A later picture. The boy is bigger, and not so fat. He no longer has
a nurse. He has vacated the nursery, which is now tenanted by his big
sisters. He has a little room all his own: a very small room, looking
west. The south-west gales beat upon the window in the winter, and not
so far away is the roar of the sea. It is good to curl up in a nice
warm little bed, and listen to the howling of the wind and the waves.
In the morning come lessons from his eldest sister G. The schoolroom
has rings and a trapeze, a bookshelf full of boys' books, and
cupboards full of stone bricks, cannon and soldiers. The boy's mind
is set on bricks and soldiers. Lessons and walks with "Ma" and his
sisters or Ronnie and his nurse down the town are a nuisance. They
interfere with the building of cathedrals and the settling of the
destinies of nations by the arbitrament of war.
It was a stolid, placid boy, intensely wrapt up in his cathedrals and
his generals, intensely devoted to "Ma," and regarding all else as
rather a nuisance. Ronnie he liked. He liked going to tea with him,
and going walks with him and his nurse; but they didn't have much
in common except cricket. Ronnie had big soldiers which could not be
knocked down by cannon balls, and which couldn't make history because
they were few in number, and nearly all English. Mine were of every
European power, and many Asiatic ones. They were diminutive and
numerous, could take shelter in a forest of pine cones and were
admirably suited to be mown down at the cannon's mouth. The King of
England was a person with a fine figure. He had one leg and one arm,
and the plume of his dragoon's helmet was shorn off; but his slight,
erect figure still looked noble on a stately white palfrey. The French
armies were usually commanded by Marshal Petit, a gay fellow with
his full complement of limbs, who sat a horse well. He had a younger
brother almost equally distinguished. I have no recollection of a King
of France. He must have been a poor fellow. The Sultan of Turkey,
the Khedive, and Li Hung Chang still live in my memory as persons of
distinction; but I have no personal recollection of the Tsar, or the
Emperors of Germany or Austria, or of the King of Italy, though I know
they existed.
Into this placid existence turmoil would enter three times a year. The
elder brothers, Hugh, Tommy and B., would come home for the holidays
from Sandhurst and Rugby, and R. would appear, and become almost one
of the family. Then would occur troublous times, with a few advantages
and many disadvantages.
"Tommy" was a curiously solitary youth as I remember him, who played
the 'cello with great perseverance and considerable success. At
soldiers he was something of a genius, though his games were of an
intricacy which failed to commend itself to me altogether. In his
great soldier days he not only made history, but wrote it--a height to
which I never attained.
In the holidays, cricket in the back garden became a great feature,
and Tommy was a demon bowler. I fancy, too, that the very elaborate
but highly satisfactory form of the game must have originated with
him. In the back garden we not merely played cricket, but made
history--cricket history. Two county sides were written out, and
we batted alternately for the various cricketers, doing our best
to imitate their styles. We bowled also in a rough imitation of the
styles of the county bowlers whom we represented. This arrangement
secured us against personal rivalry, kept up a tremendous interest in
first-class cricket and enabled matches to continue, if necessary,
for weeks at a time. It encouraged, too, a fair, impersonal and
unprejudiced view of outside events.
In cricket, war and music we undoubtedly benefited by the holidays,
especially in the summer, when we used to go to the country, often
occupying a school-house with gym, cricket nets and a fair-sized
garden. Ecclesiastical architecture suffered, however....
Hugh was a great and glorious person, a towering beneficent despot
when he did appear.... As for me I adored him with whole-hearted
hero-worship. He was the "protector of the poor," who kept the rest of
us in order. He was a magnificent person who revolutionized the art
of war by the introduction of explosives. He was a tremendous walker,
and first taught me to love great tramps over the downs, to sniff
appreciatively the glorious air and to love their bare, storm-swept
outlines. Hugh stood for all that is wholesome, strenuous, out of
doors in my life. Without him I should have been a mere sedentary.
Among other things he was an enthusiastic boxer and gymnast. For these
pursuits I sturdily feigned enthusiasm and suppressed timidity.
A few more pictures. First, Sunday morning. Gertrude goes off to
Sunday School. She likes teaching and bossing. Hilda and Hugh, who
are greater pals than brother and sister can often be, go off to St.
James', where there will be good music and an interesting sermon.
Tommy goes to St. Mark's, a good Protestant place, or to the beach,
where curious and recondite doctrines are weekly disputed. B. goes to
St. George's, protesting. There is plenty of room for his hat, there
is a congenially aggressive spirit against Rome and it slightly
irritates Ma. Pa is not up yet. Ma and I go to All Souls', because it
is the nearest poor church, and Ma finds it easier to worship where
there are no pew rents, and the seats are uncushioned, and there are
few rich people. I am ever loyal to Ma.
I often wonder whether the reason why my family are all Churchgoers
now is not that at that time we could choose our church.
The next picture is Sunday night. "Pa" and I, and perhaps some of
the other boys, set out for St. Paul's, at the other end of the town.
Then, after the service, follows an immense walk all through the slums
of the town. We talk of Australia, where Pa once had a sheep run; of
theology, of the past and the future. This weekly walk is something of
a privilege, and rather solemn. It makes me feel older.
It is spring. I am at Rugby, and in the "San" with ophthalmia. The
South African war is raging. Hugh is there. I am told that Hugh is
dead. He has been shot in a glorious but futile charge at Paardeberg.
I can't realize it. I am an object of interest, of envy almost, to the
whole school. The flag is half-mast because my brother is dead. Every
one is kind, touched. I put on an air as of a martyr.
I get a heartbroken letter from my mother. Will I come home? Or hadn't
I better go to Uncle Jack's? If I go home we shall make each other
worse. It is better for me than for Maurice, who is with the fleet in
the Mediterranean with no one to comfort him.
Ma has had a great shock. She feels it desperately. She thinks all
the others feel it as much. Except Hilda, we don't. There is a huge
piece taken out of Ma's life and Hilda's life, because they were so
unselfishly devoted to Hugh. Pa, also, has lost much, but he is a
philosopher.
I go to Uncle Jack's and shoot rabbits. The holidays come and go.
Tommy is at Oxford; I am at Rugby. Pa is immersed in theological
speculation about the next world; B. is in the Mediterranean. Ma sends
Gertrude and Hilda away for a long change. They go, and come back.
Something about Ma frightens them. She and Pa come near Rugby and stay
with Uncle Jack. The holidays come. I learn that for the first time
for about twenty years Ma is to go away without Pa. I am to meet her
at Hereford, and we are to go to Wales. Ma forgets things. She is more
loving than ever, but her memory is going. We go to communion together
in the little village church.
A few weeks later. We are back in Brighton. An Australian uncle and
family are staying with us. Ma is ill in bed. I get up at 6 A.M.,
tramp over the downs and in a place I wot of, some five miles away,
I gather heather for Ma. I run. I get back by 8.30. I find my uncle
and cousins getting into a cab. Some one says, "How lovely! Are these
for me?" I grip them in despair. They are for Ma. "Quite right," says
someone. A day or two later my heather was placed, still blooming, on
Ma's grave.
I was sixteen then. Six years later I return home from abroad. Within
a few weeks of my return I am sitting in Pa's room in agony, listening
to him fight for breath. The fight at last weakens. I hear him
whisper, "Help! help!" I set my teeth. The others come in. There
is silence. All is over. I am given my father's ring. It is my most
treasured possession.
Henceforth all I have left of home is Hilda, for she alone is
unmarried. Ever since my mother's death she has been my confidante.
As far as was possible she has taken Ma's place in my life, and I have
taken Hugh's place in hers. We are substitutes. For that reason as
we get older we get to know each other better, and to know better how
much we can give to each other. There is more criticism between us
than there would have been between Ma and me, and Hilda and Hugh. But
it has its advantages. We live apart, but we correspond weekly, and
holiday together. It is all that is left of home, and it is infinitely
precious.
Now that I have written these pages I can see as I have never seen
before how much the child was father of the man. Since those home days
I have had more variety of experience perhaps than falls to the lot
of most men, and I would almost say more varied and more epoch-making
friendships. Yet in these pages that I have written I seem to see all
the essential and salient features of my character already mirrored
and formed.
I am still by nature lethargic and placid. I could still occupy myself
contentedly With bricks and soldiers, art and history, and trouble
no one. But there is still that other element, instilled by Hugh--a
love of the open air, of struggle with the elements, in lonely desert
places.
I have never lost the craving for true religion, which induced my
mother to go to a poor church to worship, and to visit the drunken
and helpless in their slums. I have never lost the desire for her
singleness of mind, and simple loyalty to Christ and His Church. At
the same time I have never lost my father's inquiring spirit, broad
view, love of doctrine tempered by reason and founded on history and
tested by human experience. When these two beloved ones passed from
this world I learnt the meaning of the text, "Where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also." My heart has never been wholly in this
world.
So, too, I have always been a man of few friends. Ronnie has had many
successors; but seldom more than one at a time. I have never cared
much for society. My father and mother neither of them attached much
importance to conventions, or to the fictitious values which society
puts on clothes or money or position. I have always looked rather
for some one to admire, some one whose ideals and personality were
congenial, whatever their position or occupation. I have also, on the
whole, always preferred comfort to show, simple to elaborate living.
This I trace to the simple comfort and naturalness of my old home.
II
SCHOOL
I went to a day school kept by Ronnie's father when I was nine.
At least, it was a day school for me; but nearly all the boys
were boarders. I worked fairly hard, and got prizes. I was fairly
good at cricket, and not much good at football. I had only one
friend--Ronnie--and about two enemies, both of whom were day boys, and
whom I should have liked to have fought if I had dared. My memories
of the school are few. I best remember leaving home, and going
back, and also playing cricket. Ronnie's father lives as a just and
straightforward gentleman, who never caned a boy except for what was
mean or dirty, and whom we all loved and respected. But then I have
known and loved him and his wife all my life. If our house was a
second home to Ronnie, theirs has always been a second home to me.
There was one master whom I liked, and who perhaps did something to
develop my character. He was fond of poetry and history, and from him
I learnt--an easy lesson for me--to love history; but what is more, he
first gave me a glimmering idea, which was to develop long after, that
the classics are literature, and not torture.
I left there to go to Rugby.
Never did a boy enter Rugby with better chances. The memory of
my three brothers still lived in the house. They had all achieved
distinction in games, and been leading prefects (or sixths as they
are called at Rugby) in the house. Many masters remembered them for
good, particularly Jacky, the housemaster, who had loved them all,
especially Hugh.
In addition to this, one of the leading fellows in the house, who was
afterwards to be captain of the school fifteen and cricket eleven,
lieutenant in the corps, and one of the racquet pair, had been at my
private school. I shared a study with another fellow who had been at
my private school. Two boys accompanied me from there, one of whom was
my next best friend to Ronnie. His parents were in India, and he had
spent some of his holidays with Ronnie and me.
But though I loved Rugby and was happy there, I can't say I was a
success. I made few friends, who have since, with one exception,
drifted out of my life. I was too timid to enjoy Rugger. I never
achieved distinction at cricket. I got into the sixth my last term,
but hadn't the force of character to enjoy the prefectural powers
which that fact conferred upon me. The fact is that I left when I was
16, and it is between 16 and 18 that the full enjoyment of school life
comes and boys reap the harvest they have sown. Had I stayed another
year I should have belonged to the leading generation, strengthened
my friendships and developed what was latent in my character. As it
was, I left at an unfortunate age. I was pushed into the sixth a year
before my contemporaries. My friendships were only half formed, and
I had only just begun to feel strength of body and mind developing in
me.
As a junior I was too conscientious, and not light-hearted enough.
I hardly had any adventures at Rugby, because I had an incurable
instinct for keeping rules. I worked hard at mathematics and French,
and my report generally read, "Good ability. Might exert himself
more." At classics and chemistry I did as little work as possible,
and any report generally read, "Hard-working but not bright."
On the whole I think I was pretty happy at Rugby; but I never look
back to my school days as the happiest part of my life. I have had
many happier times since. But still, my house was a good one. Jacky,
the housemaster, was wonderfully kind and wise. He hardly ever
interfered with the affairs of the house, but left it all--in
appearance--to the "Sixths." Actually, nothing escaped him. The tone
of the house was on the whole extraordinarily clean and wholesome,
and the fellows who had dirty minds were a small minority, and easily
avoided. At all events, very little of that sort of thing reached me.
At sixteen and a half I went to the Royal Military Academy at
Woolwich, commonly known as "the Shop." There I spent the two
most miserable years of my life, and made the second of my great
friendships. In these days the Shop was still a pretty rough place,
and at the moment it was unusually full. I think there were over 300
fellows there altogether, and there were about 70 in my term. My first
experience was unfortunate. I was interviewing the Adjutant, a keen
sportsman and a bit of a tartar. He eyed me unfavourably, asked what
games I could play, and when I replied that I had no great proficiency
in any he commented, "Humph, a good-for-nothing!" and dismissed me.
I am by nature slow, stolid and clumsy. I was bad at being "smart";
I was slow and clumsy at drill; map making and geometrical drawing
were physical impossibilities to me; I was incredibly slow and stupid
at machinery, mechanism and electricity. The only subject which
interested me was military history. In my first term I dropped from
about forty-fourth to about seventieth in my class, and I kept near
the bottom until my fourth term, when I failed in my electricity
exam., and had to stay one term more. In the same term I received a
prize for the best essay on the lessons of the South African War.
Oh, the misery of those terms at Woolwich! I hated the work, the
drill, the gym and even the riding school. I hated the officers, and
above all I hated the spirit of the place. As far as I remember,
the one eternal topic of conversation and subject of "wit" was the
sexual relation. Of course the boys had never been taught sensibly
anything about it. Consequently the place was continually circulated
with filthy books, pictures, stories, etc. When I went there I was
extraordinarily innocent, and devoid of curiosity. I had been recently
the more disposed to purity through the death of my mother. At
Woolwich I remained extraordinarily innocent and uncurious, letting
the poisonous stream flow continually by me, shrinking from its
stench, and finding more and more relief in my own company. I must
have been a very unpleasant person at that time.
One friend I had. He was a small, compact, keen, and capable little
Rugbian named F----. He was like me in that he had recently lost his
parents, and was interested in religion and philosophy in a boyish
way. Unlike me he rather enjoyed Woolwich. He had a lot of friends,
was keen on riding and on a good deal of the work, and generally
speaking plunged into life, taking the rough with the smooth, and
both in good part. Although we have drifted far apart in ideals and
sympathies, and though misunderstanding has come in and destroyed our
friendship, I shall never cease to be grateful for all that F----
did for me in those days. He routed me out when I was in the blues,
laughed at me, cheered me up and made me look at life with new eyes.
Moreover he did this, as I know, in defiance of the set with whom he
was friendly, who despised me for a milksop, and were at no pains to
conceal the fact. But for F----, my life at the Shop would have been
intolerable.
Besides him, I had a few associates, boys with whom I naturally
associated for the simple reason that they, too, were left out of the
main current of the life of the place. But they were not particularly
congenial. One or two were hard workers. One was a great slacker, and
more timid, physically and morally, than even I. He was a boy with a
fatal facility for doing useless things moderately well, especially in
the musical line. He was even more frightened of gym and horses than
I was, and unlike me was not ashamed to show it. If the Shop was
purgatory to me, it must have been hell to him.
My happiest times were week-ends spent at home. I used to arrive on
Saturday evening and leave on Sunday evening. About now I began to
get to know my father much better, and to develop my theological bent
under his advice. In my disillusionment as to my capacity for military
life I began to wish I had chosen the clerical profession. I think my
father had the shrewdness to see that failure in one profession was
not necessarily the sign of a "call" in another direction. Anyway, he
did not discourage me; but spoke of five years in the Army as the best
training for a parson.
I remember avowing my intention of becoming a parson to one of my more
friendly acquaintances at the Shop, and he replied that I wouldn't set
the Thames on fire, because I had such a monotonous voice.
In spite of seeking relief from my uncongenial surroundings in
religion and theology, I did not join myself to any one else. There
was a so-called "Pi Squad," or Bible class, held weekly, but I only
went once, and didn't like it. I was always peculiarly sensitive about
priggishness in those who professed themselves to be religious openly,
and generally thought I detected priggishness in any "Bible circle"
or similar institution that I came across. I think my theology
mainly consisted in speculations about the future state--I remember
I emphatically declined to believe in hell--and my religion consisted
mainly in fairly regular attendance at Matins and Communion.
Another effect of the intensity with which I hated my surroundings was
that I read a lot of good novels--George Eliot, the Brontës, Scott,
Dickens, Jane Austen, Thackeray, Besant, etc. A book which I read
over and over again was Arthur Benson's _Hill of Trouble, and other
Stories_. Those legends, with their imaginative setting, charm of
language and beautiful religious ideas were more restful to my unquiet
spirit than anything else I read.
The actual conditions of life at the Shop were pretty barbaric. The
aim was to make it as much like barracks as possible. Each term was
housed in a different side of the square of buildings which form the
Academy, and the fourth term were spread among the houses of the other
terms as corporals. My first term I shared a room with three other
fellows. I think it was the ugliest room I have ever lived in, without
exception. It had high whitewashed brick walls. In each corner was
a bed which folded up against the wall in the day time, and was
concealed by a square of print curtains. There were a deal table, four
windsor chairs, a shelf with four basins, and a cupboard with four
lockers. All the woodwork was painted khaki. The contrast with the
little study at Rugby, with its diamond-paned window, its matchboard
panelling surmounted by a paper of one's own choosing, its ledge
for photos and ornaments ("bim ledge" so called), its eggshell blue
cupboards, baize curtains and window box, was striking.
It used to be the custom to go to and from the bathroom attired in a
sponge, in connexion with which an amusing incident once happened.
A cadet in his second year was on the bathroom landing, when he
perceived that the mother and sisters of another cadet were coming
upstairs. From sounds in the bathroom he realized that they would
meet a naked corporal just as they reached the landing. The door of
the bathroom opened outwards, and with admirable presence of mind
he rushed back, and putting his back against the door and his feet
against the wall, imprisoned the corporal. The corporal, in the
approved Shop version of Billingsgate, began to blaspheme at the top
of his voice, so when the ladies reached the top of the stairs they
saw a vision of a cadet with his feet to the wall and his back to a
door singing at the top of his voice to drown a Commotion within!
On another occasion in my second year, when I was sharing a room
with one other fellow, I had a sister to tea. On arriving in my room
I found that my stablemate had been playing hockey, and was at the
moment in the bathroom, having thoughtlessly left all his clothes in
the room--mostly on the floor.
On the last day of my first term the corporals and officers were all
absent at a farewell dinner to the former, and we received information
that the third term were going to raid our house, with a view to
"toshing" us in a cold bath. We therefore prepared for action. Every
receptacle which would hold water was taken to the upper landing,
full. Then all the chairs in the house were roped together, and
placed on the stairs as an obstacle. The defenders then took up their
position at the windows and at the top of the stairs. In due course
the enemy's forces arrived, and stormed the stairs, under a heavy fire
of water. The obstacle was at length destroyed, and a solid phalanx
of wet bodies swarmed up the stairs. We formed a similar phalanx
and charged to meet them. I happened to be first, and much to my
discomfiture the enemy's phalanx parted in the middle, and I was
rapidly passed down the stairs--a prisoner! Fortunately at the bottom
I found a relieving party from the next house, making a diversion on
the enemy's rear. With great valour we dragged down a foe, and toshed
him in the bath that had been made ready for us. "The tosher toshed!"
The next day we surveyed the damage. All the chairs and banisters were
broken, the whitewash was rubbed off the bricks by wet shoulders
and nearly all the basins were broken. That day was the day of Lord
Roberts's half-yearly inspection!
There was not such another battle until my third term, when we
were the aggressors. This time the damage was even greater, for the
defenders let down tables across the stairs as an obstacle, and we
battered our way through with scaffolding poles. There were some
casualties that day, owing to an indiscriminate use of mop handles.
On the day of Lord Roberts's inspection we had to change from parade
dress to gym dress, and it was during the change that Lord Roberts
inspected our quarters. He went into one room and found a fellow just
half-way through his change--with nothing at all on! The room was
called to attention, and with great presence of mind the boy dashed
into the bed curtains and stood to attention there, while Lord Roberts
had an animated conversation with him!
There were jolly moments in the life at the Shop. On Saturdays, after
dinner, the unfortunates who had not got away for the week-end used to
have "stodges" after dinner. Having put away a substantial dinner, we
changed into flannels, and used to crowd into some one's room, and eat
muffins and smoke cigars. I remember one night there were eighteen of
us in one small room.
In order to go away for a week-end one had to obtain (1) an
invitation, (2) permission from parent or guardian to accept the
invitation. One week my brother, who was working at the Admiralty,
offered his flat to myself and F----, as he was going to Brighton
himself. Fleming wrote to his guardian--a Scotsman--for permission
to stay with Captain Hankey. The guardian wrote back for more
information. He saw by the Army List that Captain Hankey existed, but
who were the Hankeys? etc., etc. F---- wrote back a furious letter,
saying that he expected to have his friends accepted without question,
and received the permission. We went. The awkward thing was that
Captain Hankey was not there, and we shuddered to think of the rage of
F----'s guardian if he should find out. Worse still, the guardian was
supposed to be staying at the Oriental Club in Hanover Square, and my
brother's flat was in Oxford Street! However, we didn't meet.
F---- and I neither of us knew London, and had the time of our lives.
We dined at Frascati's--a palace of splendour in our eyes--and went to
His Majesty's to see Beerbohm Tree in Ulysses. When it came to Hades,
we held each other's hands! On Sunday we went to St. Peter's, Vere
Street, but were so furious at being kept waiting for pew holders
long after service had commenced, that we went on to the Audley Street
Chapel, a most queer little place. It was full of monuments to the
dependents of peers, in which the peers figured very largely and
the dependents fared humbly--the epitome of flunkeydom. Among these
tablets was one inscribed--
"To John Wilkes,
Friend of Liberty."
Truly refreshing!
We finished the day at some old friends of mine, and voted the
week-end a huge success.
When I went to Woolwich I was just on the verge of getting keen
on games and beginning to feel self-confident, and to enjoy the
fellowship of my comrades. Woolwich nipped this in the bud. I left
with no self-confidence, having renounced games, and with a sense
of solitariness among my comrades. I was a misanthrope, and the
unhappiest sort of egotist--the kind that dislikes himself. To say
the truth, too, I was then, and always have been, a bit of a funk,
physically, which didn't make me happier. On the other hand, I was an
omnivorous reader of everything which did not concern my profession,
and a dabbler in military history.
I have sometimes thought that I was unconsciously a bit of a hero at
Woolwich, standing out for purity and religion in an atmosphere of
filth and blasphemy. I have come to the conclusion, however, that
there was nothing in this. As to the general atmosphere, there is
no doubt that it was singularly pernicious; even the officers and
instructors contributed their quota of filthy jokes, and there was no
religious instruction or influence at all except the parade service at
the garrison church on Sunday, if one happened not to be on leave. But
as to my heroism I am reluctantly compelled to be sceptical. I went
as far as I felt my inclination, and stopped after a time because
instinct was too strong the other way.
As I have said before, I have always had an insurmountable instinct
for keeping rules. At school I could never bring myself to transgress,
although I knew that transgression was the road to adventure. So
at the Shop, however much I may have wished to be in the swim, my
instinct for the moral and religious code of home was too strong for
me. It required no self-control to prevent myself from slipping into
blasphemy and filth. On the contrary, in order to do so I should have
had to violate my strongest instincts, and exercised a will to evil
much stronger than any will power that I possessed at that time. If,
when I left Woolwich, I was comparatively pure, it was because nature
did not allow me to be anything else.
To say the truth, I have never felt the sway of passions to anything
like the same extent as most men seem to. I have never cared for the
society of women for its sexual attraction. Consequently all my women
friends have been just the same to me as my men friends--friends whom
I could talk to about the things that interested me.
I don't boast of this, I only state the fact. I am not proud of it
because I know that some passion is necessary to make heroes and even
saints.
SOME NOTES ON THE FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY "HILDA"
I have before me as I write a pencil sketch, limned with considerable
care, of a rather disagreeable looking young man, and beneath it is
written--
"D.W.A.H., by Himself."
It is a profile. The eye has almost disappeared under the brow, the
mouth is tightly closed to a degree that is quite unpleasant and there
is a deliberate exaggeration of a slight defect he actually had--a
tendency for the lower jaw to protrude a little. This little defect
hardly any of his friends seem to have noticed, for most of them
execrate it as a libel in the otherwise admittedly beautiful
photograph at the beginning of this volume. The expression in the
sketch is above all--dubious.
So did Donald see himself.
For the rest of us no doubt the lessons Mr. Haselden has for us in his
caricatures, "ourselves as we see ourselves" and "as others see us,"
are necessary. But not for Donald. The drawing is pasted into an album
which contains mainly Oxford College groups, and there is a certain
unpleasant resemblance between it and his full face presentment in one
of the groups--in which he has "the group expression" rather badly.
Assuming it to have been drawn at Oxford, or not very long after he
left, I think it must belong very nearly to a time when he was going
off abroad on one of his long trips, and I had the sympathy of a
dear old lady friend of ours on having to part with him. I remember
replying, "Yes, it always seems as if peace and happiness, truth and
justice, religion and piety went with him when he goes!" She laughed
a good deal, and then said, seriously, repeating over to herself the
stately mounting sixteenth century phrases, "But it's quite true, you
know!" I hardly think, though, that I should have said it of the young
man in the sketch!
I am now going to make a comment or two on my brother's word-pictures
as I should if he were by my side. But first I should like his readers
to know and realize that both were written before the period of what
I may call Donald's "Renaissance," a period that can be roughly marked
by the publication of his first book, _The Lord of all Good Life_.
Up to then he had been struggling in vain for self-expression. How he
had worked the amount of MSS. he has left alone proves--for we have it
on a friend's testimony that "he tore up much of what he wrote"; and
he also had experienced and suffered, violating his natural "timidity"
and his in some ways, precarious health, for he had never got over
certain weaknesses engendered by his illness in Mauritius--in his
struggle to get a true basis for a solution of the meaning of life
and of religion. What cost him most was the knowledge that he
was frequently doubted and misunderstood by many of those whose
approbation would have been very dear to him. This is proved by his
constantly expressed gratitude to the one or two who never doubted him
for one moment.
With the writing of this book, as we know, all his difficulties began
to clear away, and at the same time he began to reap the harvest of
love and admiration that he had sown in his toils to produce it.
And the result was he opened out like a flower to the sun! No one
can doubt this for a moment who has read his book of a year later,
_The Student in Arms_, and rejoiced in the radiant happiness of its
inspiration.
He had more than once said to me during the past two years, "You know
it makes a _tremendous_ difference to me when people really _like_
me." No longer was it a case of "one friend at a time." The period for
that was over and done with. He had come into his own. He was ready
for a universal brotherhood, and no hand would ever be held out to him
in vain.
It is impossible to believe that he does not now know of and
appreciate all the beautiful tributes that have come to him since
his "passing"--from the perfect wreath of immortelles weaved by Mr.
Strachey to the sweet pansy of thought dropped by a little fellow
V.A.D. of mine who said beautifully and courageously--though knowing
him solely through his book--"We feel since he gave us his thought
that he belongs a tiny bit to us, too," thus voicing the feeling of
many.
I believe the paper entitled "My Home" to have been written at Oxford,
and "School" not so very long after. In any case, I have definite
proof of their both belonging to Donald's pre-"Renaissance" period,
for the friendship with F----, that began at "the Shop" and went under
a cloud for a time, was renewed with fresh vigour in 1914, and has
burned brightly ever since. Only last July was I sent by him a letter
of F----'s from the trenches, with the injunction, "Please put this
among my treasures," and there is an allusion to a story told in this
letter in the article entitled "Romance" of the present volume.
To return to "My Home," I question whether the love and devotion of
"Hilda" and "Ma" for Hugh was so entirely unselfish. For my mother I
fully believe, as for "Hilda," Hugh was the epitome of all that was
fine, splendid and joyous in life. He was the glorious knight, the
"preux chevalier" "sans peur et sans reproche," who rode forth at dawn
with clean sword and shining armour, and all the world before him, yet
keeping his heart for ever in his home. He was the child of her youth
as Donald was the child of her maturity. Deep down in her wonderfully
varied nature there were certain bottomless springs of courage, daring
and enterprise which she herself had little chance of expressing and
of which Hugh alone was the personification.
As long as I can remember Hugh had been my ideal and made all the
interest and joy of life for me. Whether he were at home or abroad I
never had a thought I did not share with him. When he died, the best
part of me died too, or was paralysed rather, and Heaven knows what
sort of a "substitute" I should have been for "Ma" to Donald, had not
the baby Hugh come, just in time, with healing in his wings to restore
life to the best part of me!
I am glad to think that Donald's "Autobiography" was written before
1914, for I know that even before that I was becoming more to him than
a "substitute." I too have my memories and pictures!
It is May, 1915. I am in the country-house--cleaning is going on at
home.
I get a letter to say that the Rifle Brigade may leave for France
at any time, and that Donald _may_ get some "leave" on Saturday or
Sunday.
I make a dash for town.
There I find a telegram of reckless and unconscionable length, running
into two pages. He cannot come up--they may leave at any moment. It
seems hardly worth while my bothering to come to Aldershot on the
chance--he may be unable to leave barracks.
I write a return telegram--also of reckless and unconscionable length,
and reply paid--it is a relief to do so--asking for a place of meeting
at Aldershot to be suggested.
I get no answer at all, and on Sunday morning, in despair, I go
over to see my aunt and cousin. My aunt is my mother's sister and a
sportswoman. She counsels, "Go at all costs." Dorothy will come with
me: Dorothy is Donald's best woman pal--she reminds him of his mother.
She is all that is wholesome and comportable.
The element of enjoyment comes in, and I go home and pack a nice
lunch.
We arrive at Aldershot.
There is no one on the platform to meet us, and we push our way
through the turnstile.
There is Donald, on the outskirts of the waiting crowd--a tall,
soldierly figure in the uniform of a private--for he has resigned his
sergeant's stripes by now.
His face is very boyish--not the face of the photograph at the
beginning of this book: that was taken after he had been to France,
and had been wounded, and had written "A Passing in June," and "The
Honour of the Brigade"--but a much younger face, really boyish.
He glances quickly and anxiously at every face that passes, and each
time he is a little more disappointed--but he tries not to show it.
I am not tall and cannot catch his eye. It is like being at a play,
watching him! All at once he sees me! Involuntarily a sudden quick
spasm of joy passes across his face, absolutely transfiguring it.
He smooths it away quickly, for he is a Briton and does not like to
show his feelings--but he has given himself away!
Dorothy and I shall never forget that look. And it was for _me_--at
first he does not see Dorothy. When he does it is an added pleasure.
With _two_ ladies to escort he assumes a lordly air.
He had thought of everything. We would like some tea? Yes, all the big
places are shut as it is Sunday, but he has marked down a little place
on his way to the station.
It is a lovely day, and we are very happy!
The girl who waits upon us at the little tea place likes us, and so do
the other Tommies and their friends who are having tea there.
We sit at little tables, but at very close quarters with each other,
and we smile at them and they at us.
I have brought Donald some letters, which pleases him, and Dorothy has
brought him some splendid socks, knitted by herself.
After tea we walk across an arid plain to a little wood, and sit down
under the trees.
Donald changes to the new socks--those he had on were wringing wet!
He picks us little bunches of violets, hyacinths and wild strawberry
flowers--we have them still.
We are very happy the whole of the day, and have my sandwiches and
cake and fruit for supper, there under the trees. And here in thought
let me leave "The Student in Arms," who was to me part son, best pal,
brother, comrade, and counsellor on all subjects--and more than a
little bit of grandpapa!
He could be so many different things because, as another friend and
cousin said, "he seemed to know everything about everybody."
I like to think of those two fine spirits--Hugh and Donald--each with
a hand to the tiny baby nephew, and a word of greeting for me when I
go over the top.
THE END