should die of appendicitis or some such quick and hidden complaint. I
can't sleep at all and I lie awake with a curious numb sort of pain
and think of death. I am all right in the daytime for the most part.
At any rate I am playing hockey and footer with all my old vigour and
I never feel bad in form. It's just at night; unfortunately it's every
night that I get seized with a real horror lest I should die uncared
for, unhonoured and unwept. I should have liked a little taste of love
and laughter, of civilized comfort--I should have liked to have written
some sort of book which would have helped mankind along the rough road
of life. I should like to have had a wife, an heir ... but as it is
Tony must be my heir. I have transmitted to him my passionate love
of literature, my keenness for beauty, my longing for a revolution in
educational practice and theory.
I have worked off my spleen on a long centenary paper on Dickens for
the _Radcastrian_, which will excite and annoy the lovers of that
novelist a good deal.
I made all the boys in my form write centenary appreciations of
Dickens, too. I got some queer stuff. He is not half as well known
as he ought to be in spite of his great name. But I do wish he had
resisted his tendency to caricature.
There have been the usual rows. By far the most disconcerting was
the expulsion of Mather, who was a school prefect and a scholar of
Magdalen, for stealing. It seems impossible to believe. It appears
that he was in a House where most of the boys have far too much
pocket-money: the very fags own to having "fivers." Poor old Mather was
one of eight sons of a penniless country parson: he never had a sou and
consequently starved when all the rest of the House were revelling in
delicacies.
More masters have been poisoning the boys' minds against me. Tony's
House-master has been lecturing him about my pernicious influence. I
wish I knew what was behind this dark conspiracy. I wish they would
give me some facts to go on, and say that just here or just there I was
doing harm, but all their accusations are nebulous. Whenever I go up to
a man's rooms and beard him in his den, he nearly always denies that
he ever said any of the things which were reported of him. It's very
difficult to know what to do.
I've discovered another wheeze which I use to get original work out
of my form. I give out a list of forty or fifty words, ostensibly
for spelling, and by the side of these they write a list of synonyms,
and then during their next prep. they weave a story round the words I
have given them. I have had wonderful results from this simple device.
Incidentally the boys love doing it. It stimulates them, especially
when they have to read their own efforts aloud.
Now that the sports are looming ahead, I get up in the very early
mornings and take people for training walks. In the afternoon I run
with them across country or round the track. Before I came no one
worried much about the sports. I have really got them keen this year,
much to Hallows' indignation, because as games master he is responsible
for the sports, and he thinks I'm taking too much upon myself in
training them daily for weeks before the events.
About a dozen of us, Tony and other boys in this House, go off every
Sunday to a nook we've found by an inland stream. We call it a training
walk: it pans out at twelve miles. By so doing we get right outside
the country we know and really begin to get a glimmering of beauty
on these glorious warm spring days. It's impossible to imagine now
that we were ever snow-bound. It is warm and sunny every day; so much
so that "Rugger," and hockey seem indescribably silly games for this
time of year. It feels "crickety" weather. I've been writing articles
on Hymns and Cross-Country Running for the London Press and had both
accepted, which is a bit of luck. Things are looking up. All the same
it's a nerve-racking process, waiting to hear one's fate by every post.
Editors are as stubborn as mules and without any sense of humanity.
We have had one great excitement lately. A schooner ran ashore just
close to my bedroom window and we had to rush out in the middle of
the night and rescue people. Poor devils, they were awfully cold and
miserable by the time we got them to bed in the sanatorium, but luckily
there were no lives lost, and most of the cargo has been salvaged.
Life at the end of the Easter term is fairly brisk. It's impossible
to get hold of boys to do anything in the way of extra work owing to
the innumerable House competitions. There is the Junior and Senior
Hockey, the Singing Competition, the Boxing, the Gym., the Corps and
Certificate "A," the Sports, and Heaven knows what besides--and every
man on the staff thinks that his pet job is the only one that matters.
The only thing about which we are all agreed is that school work
does not matter. No one thinks of that. All the same I think these
contests are good things, particularly in the Corps, though I object
to the extraordinary number of prizes and pots that are lavished upon
individual winners. There's a huge element of selfishness inspired by
the very things which we hold to eradicate it. I took two days off by
going down to Queen's Club to see the Oxford and Cambridge Sports. It
was a rare treat to meet all one's best friends of the Oxford days and
watch other people in the last stages of nervous funk as we were so
few years ago. I went to the dinner afterwards: I wonder whether one
will ever grow out of these orgies. They are very life and blood to
me now at any rate. I expect our older guests get a trifle tired with
the exuberance of our spirits before the end. It was very tame to have
to come back to Radchester and the school sports after that grand
struggle at Queen's Club.
_April 13, 1912_
Here I am back again in my beloved Bath.
The term ended well. Heatherington's won the sports and I was the
recipient of a tremendous ovation at the House Supper. I don't think I
ever felt so proud before. At the end of term I went down to Hampton
Court with Tony until Good Friday, when I went on to see Ruth: we have
spent all the rest of the time together.
It was at the Easter Ball that I saw a face which I shall never forget.
I was ragging about with Ruth in the vestibule when I saw a girl at
the far end of the room talking to young Conyngham, one of the "nuts"
of Bath, whom I cordially dislike. They seemed very pleased with one
another. I don't know what came over me but Walter Savage Landor's
phrase came into my mind, "By Jove, I'm going to marry that girl," and
before I knew what I was doing I had left Ruth and raced across to
Conyngham and asked him to introduce me to his partner. He was really
bored. She was not pleased. Apparently he realized that I meant to stay
there till he did introduce me and so he gruffly mumbled, "Oh! This is
Mr. Traherne--Miss Tetley," and walked away about two yards. "Don't go
away, Philip," she said, in a voice that thrilled me to hear.
"May I----?" I began.
"I'm afraid I've only got number 17 left."
"May I have that--and any extras?"
"If you like--I'm afraid I didn't hear your name."
"Traherne. Patrick Traherne--let me write it for you."
I did and received instant dismissal. Not a promising start, but I
was pleased just to get so much out of her. All the evening, as I was
gallivanting round with Ruth, I kept on looking at her, but she had no
eyes for me. I asked Ruth about her, but she was not interested.
"Which girl? Oh, that one. I don't know her except by sight. Her name's
Elspeth Tetley. Rather ugly, don't you think? Her name I mean. No:
she's a pretty enough little thing in herself. She seems very fond of
Mr. Conyngham."
Yes, she did--confound her. Incidentally, she cut my dance and there
were no extras, so I did not see her again that night. I wasn't going
to be defeated so easily, so I bowed to her when I passed her in the
streets, but she never even saw me. I don't quite know what it is about
her that so attracts me; she looks very quiet, she is amazingly sure of
herself, extraordinarily pretty, with any amount of humour and energy I
should think. I am still speaking without the book, for I know nothing
about her, whatever, except that I love the look of her.
Ruth and I have spent all the holidays so far watching "Rugger" matches
and picnicking and motoring and dancing. I have had Petre Mais down
to stay with me. By a strange chance he knows the Tetleys: he thinks
Elspeth, as he calls her (he has known her from childhood), the most
adorable girl he has ever met. I have tried to get him to bring her
along to see me, but something has always cropped up at the last moment
to prevent our meeting.
_May 3, 1912_
I spent the whole of the Easter holidays in Bath, mainly in the company
of Ruth. It was good to have Mais with me: we used to sit up to all
hours arguing about education: we appear to be both of us bitten with
the craze of reform, though we don't agree on points of detail. He is
a curious mixture of the very grave and sedate and the irresponsibly
gay. He gets on extraordinarily well with my father. While I am
disporting myself in company with Ruth, he takes the Gov'nor for long
walks and argues about Christian dogma and ethics. I am afraid that
Ruth interferes with my reading and writing. Mais seems to get through
a great deal and always "twits" me with being a lady-killer: he never
seems to want the companionship of the other sex. There is Elspeth
Tetley, with whom he might spend days--she is obviously very fond of
him--and instead of going about with her he gives her up to Conyngham
and buries himself in the Church Institute or the Bath and County Club,
getting up notes for some article or book that he is at work upon. He
is never happy unless he is working. As he very truly says, "his work
is his mistress and he never wants a better." All the same a man needs
some relaxation. I find mine in the company of Ruth, who grows more
alluring with every passing day. She has taken me to Bradford-on-Avon,
to Englishcombe, by motor to Badminton and over Salisbury Plain. I
have been to three point-to-point meetings and at each of them caught
a fleeting glance of Elspeth Tetley. She was always surrounded by
young men, so I couldn't speak to her. I love these country meetings
more almost than any other form of sport. The hazardous steeplechases
fill one with excitement: many men were riding whom I knew at Oxford,
but they all appeared to belong to sets of the most exclusive kind.
There is always a plentiful sprinkling of dukes and duchesses at these
shows, as well as all the farmers in the country and the riff-raff
of the town. The procession of bicycles and governess-cars and
dog-carts and motors and pedestrians miles out in the country is a
fine sight. I should like to have enough money to be able to go in
for steeplechasing: it must be one of the finest sensations in the
world to feel yourself rushing through the air, jumping these brooks
and thickset hedges, always risking your neck, while all the youth
and beauty of the country watch you, heart in mouth lest you should
take a toss, transported beyond belief when you ride past the post a
winner. Elspeth Tetley somehow fits a point-to-point meeting exactly.
Some girls look the most preposterous idiots all togged up in the
serviceable tweeds and brogues that girls wear for these shows, but she
looks just as divine at a race meeting as she does in a ballroom. I
hope to Heaven I get the chance of meeting her again some day.
_June 10, 1912_
I hated leaving Bath more than ever this time, partly because it meant
leaving Elspeth in the clutches of young Conyngham, partly because
of the summer weather and the flowers and the comfort of the south,
partly because of parting with Ruth, but mainly because of the horrid
contrast. Who, for instance, in Common Room ever rides to hounds,
or cares about point-to-point meetings? Not one of my colleagues
ever goes near a dance if he can get out of it. I wonder how they
all spend their holidays. As a consequence of my depression it took
me longer than usual to settle down this term. I had a bad fit of
restlessness, a feeling that I ought to be out in the world, risking
something, trying to make money out of rubber in the Malay, or jute
in India, experiencing the ups and downs of life in America, Spain,
China, Russia, anywhere where men really lived. There is no denying
that we do tend to stagnate here. This incessant round of cricket,
bathing, maths., English, prep., chapel, and roll isn't fit work for an
able-bodied man of active brain and ambition. The ideal schoolmaster
has to put away ambition from the start. He can never set the Thames on
fire or cause his name to ring out through the ages: it is enough for
him if a score of men go through life blessing him for what he taught
them, but a boy's memory is very short: he soon forgets his masters
when he gets out into the real world and little wonder. I've been going
into Scarborough lately and trying to find an interest in watching the
trippers, but I hate the north-country people now. Bath has spoilt my
taste for them for ever. I hate their raucous laughter, their dirty
teeth, their loud ingurgitations over their food, their louder clothes
and ghastly sense of independence, though as a Socialist I ought, I
suppose, to be thankful for the last.
I have had an offer to sub-edit a rather pleasant monthly called the
_Scrutinator_. I nearly accepted it. I don't know what held me back
unless it was Tony. I hate the thought of life without him, though of
course he will leave just as other good fellows have left and I shall
have to find some new friend and confidant.
We have had a wedding here, an unheard-of thing at Radchester. The
Bursar is leaving, and so has decided to do what he wouldn't be allowed
to do if he remained and that is to take a wife.
We had a really gay time for two days. The bridesmaids had the time of
their lives. I wonder that the Head didn't put up a list of rules about
them but it was all over before he really discovered anything about
it. It was a sight for the gods to see members of Common Room raking
up old frock-coats and top hats and white waistcoats for the occasion.
The ceremony made me very jealous and I went back to my rooms feeling
terribly lonely. Sometimes it seems to me that a man is only half a man
until he marries. It would be splendid to have some one to turn to in
every mood, some one who would sympathize and always be there ready to
console, comfort, and share your joys and griefs. Ah! But who is that
some one to be, that perhaps not impossible She?
_July 29, 1912_
This has been a wonderful summer term from the point of view of
weather. All our school matches came off, all our field-days passed
without a hitch. The summer term makes an enormous difference to life
here. Then the sea at last seems to take on some sort of colour, the
country seems less drab, people are more cheerful and human: the long
evenings on the shore are a pure joy--and then of course there are the
early morning bathes, the lazy afternoons watching the cricket, or
reading or trying to concoct an article. Every one seems to be in the
best of health, there are fewer rows, and we are less antagonistic in
Common Room.
We have started an illegitimate "rag" called the _Radchester Ram_,
which gives me unalloyed pleasure. We got tired of the everlasting
succession of accounts of matches in the _Radcastrian_, and so we have
collected all the really original literary stuff we could get and
now we bring this new periodical out once a month. There is nothing
offensive in it, as there so often is in magazines of this sort. It is
simply a medley of verse and sketches, short stories and articles of
general interest. On our first number we made about a sovereign profit.
It gives many of us something to think about and encourages boys to
write. We pay for all the contributions we use.
We have had two wonderful addresses given us here, one on Speech Day
by Lord Dunnithorne, in which he implored the boys to keep up their
ardour and energy not only in games, but in every side of life, in
keeping an eye while still at school on public affairs, and developing
a sense of proportion as to the relative values of the spiritual and
the material, the other by a Fellow of All Souls from the pulpit on the
hypocrisy that is so rampant in Public Schools. He asked us to think
for ourselves, to set ourselves against any tradition, however strong,
when and if we felt clear that it was against the principles of Christ
and Liberty. He dwelt not on the greatness of the Public Schools,
but their failure to produce the big men of the day. He brought out
name after name of men who are now leading the world in politics, in
science, in religion, in every department of life who owed nothing
to the Public Schools. He accounted for this by telling us that we
always tried to level up the many and so levelled down the few who
really mattered, that our general level was far too low and meant a
crushing of that Divine spark which alone could help us to do our duty.
It was like a breath of inspiration from another world to hear this
fine exponent of the best Oxford spirit trying to rouse us to a sense
of our shortcomings. The Head was furious about the sermon, as were
quite half the members of Common Room. I made it the text of pretty
well all my discourses for the rest of term. Most of the boys of course
didn't know what he was driving at; those who did were divided into
two great camps: the upholders of tradition and those who agreed with
him. I am afraid we who agreed with him were in a minority. Montague
and Jimmy Haye refused to speak to me for weeks. Poor devils. Probably
before very long they will come to understand what the preacher meant
and metaphorically sit in sackcloth and ashes because they heeded
not his warning. How the old men hate individuality: they fear it as
Shakespeare feared and hated the mob.
Individuality, like originality, is dangerous to custom: when people
begin to think for themselves there is usually trouble somewhere,
but unless people learn to think for themselves they will surround
themselves with unimaginable horrors. How often in the train does one
come across half-educated louts gesticulating and laying down the law
on every conceivable point, their arguments, theories and principles
all emanating from the halfpenny press. More harm has been done to the
cause of progress and good sense in this country by cheap journalism
than by any other agency. It is not drink, but the gutter press that
gnaws at the very vitals of the commonwealth. It is an appalling thing
to think that as a nation we prefer to take all our theories and
principles at second hand from the sayings of unscrupulous ink-slingers
of Grub Street who have never done an honest day's work in their lives,
but have just earned their daily bread by obeying the dictates of some
foul capitalist who thinks of nothing but filling his own pockets.
Politics may be dirty, but there is nothing quite so foul in this
country as journalism. Unless we can make boys rise above the pinchbeck
claptrap of the cheaper writers we fail entirely to educate them. To
pin one's faith to anything but one's own intellect is to fail to make
anything of life. I've tried every means in my power of late to rouse
my boys to take an interest in their work, to show them the continuity
of history, the reason why we read good literature, the reason for
exercising the faculties: we must send them out into the world with
the critical spirit fully developed, not ready to be gulled by every
shibboleth of party politics or mad cry in the market-place of people
with axes to grind. We want them to mould other people's opinions, not
to take everything ready made--as a sort of reach-me-down suit that
they can wear without question. I want them to probe all difficulties
and not to rest until they have planted the new Jerusalem in this green
and pleasant land of England.
Of all missionary work, this is the most important, to get people to
think for themselves, not to have minds like the rows of suburban
villas in which they live, each one an exact replica of its
neighbour's; dull, correct, unambitious, cramped and futile, but
to launch out in experiments, to probe for some underlying purpose
in life, to keep on searching for some Holy Grail, to work for the
amelioration of mankind and the progress of humanity, not to sit down
quietly under abuses but sword in hand to set out to destroy the
powers of evil. One gets easily worked up to preach the gospel of the
nobility of work to boys: the hard part of the task is to rouse them
from the appalling apathy and listlessness which characterize them.
They are used to being shouted at and preached to--they don't take the
trouble to listen to one quarter of what one says. They can understand
punishment, but they have very little use for a mere appeal to their
better nature, their reason or their emotion.
Every night at 6.30 I have a voluntary class for Shakespeare lovers.
We run through play after play, and those who come on the whole gain a
great deal. The difficulty is to get them to come. The great majority
of them prefer to go over to the gym. or to laze about in their
studies. They don't realize at all that I have to eat my dinner in five
instead of thirty minutes in order to give them this time. They look on
me as a sort of Shakespeare fanatic and come only when there is nothing
else to do. They have no idea that Shakespeare has something very
definite to say to them, some principle of life to disclose for their
benefit, if only they will do their part. They all think that there is
some royal road to learning by which all virtue can be achieved without
ardour, energy or suffering. If they could only hear the complaints
of Old Boys who come back and discuss over the fireside their wasted
opportunities it would do them a world of good. I try every means I
can think of to interest my forms. I lecture on a century of English
literature and get each boy to select a subject and make it his own by
reading up and writing a paper on his favourite author in that century.
These papers are read aloud before the rest of the form, who comment
favourably or adversely, and debates are held to try the opinion of the
House on the different verdicts formed by each member of the class.
I find my system of entertaining boys to tea a very expensive one. I
gave a large party to my form _en bloc_ at the end of term: it cost me
£2 10s. I shouldn't mind if I were earning a living wage, but £40 a
year out of my £150 is docked for a pension scheme in which I take no
interest, and Oxford bills still come in and I can never meet them. The
holidays, too, eat such a hole into one's salary. I am always "broke"
and always in debt. I wish I could learn to save. Some men seem to have
put by quite a lot for the inevitable rainy day. I have had one good
excursion lately. Our team won the Rapid Firing Competition at Bisley
and I was sent down with the team to claim the cast of the Winged
Victory which it is our good fortune to have won. I have never seen a
more motley crew than the different competitors who went up for prizes.
Tony has got into the Shooting VIII, so I had him with me during this
tour, which gave me tremendous joy. I managed to read Edith Wharton's
wonderful romance of "Ethan Frome" in the train on the way down and
"The Innocence of Father Brown" coming back. I have read the latter
book to my form since. They simply gloat over it. It makes admirable
material for reproduction: another good idea is to read half of one of
the stories and make them finish it in their own words--a sort of Edwin
Drood idea. Thank God this term is over: the tiredness of my brain
can be guessed by the virulent language of my reports. I had to write
several of them over again because the Head objected to my candour.
XI
_August 12, 1912_