been bickering freely and I had been feeling rotten, we decided that
it would be a good thing for both of us if I went to see them for
the week-end. I have always been irresolute, but I cannot remember
ever weighing anything so carefully as I did the pros and cons of
this ridiculously small matter. In the end I went. I was intensely
miserable and lonely in the train. All sorts of horrors crossed my
mind, accidents to Elspeth while I was away, accidents to the train. By
the time I got to Cheltenham I was in an abject state. I just embraced
my parents and then stated that I was going straight back home. They
did their best to prevail upon me at least to stay for one night, but
I was adamant. I walked with them, arguing all the way, to their hotel
and then straight back to the station, where I caught the last train
of the night for London. I arrived at Marlton at two in the morning
and had to rouse Elspeth by throwing stones at her window. Sobbing
and half-demented I was put to bed. She was in a terrible state: she
thought I had gone out of my mind. I am not certain that I wasn't.
All I know is that though I quarrel with her in this absurd way, I
cannot bear to leave her for more than a few hours at most. It is a
most extraordinary state of mind to have got into. I wish I could
explain it. No one could have been saner than I was up to the time
of my engagement: now I seem to be more nearly approaching insanity
with every passing hour. I cannot believe that every newly married
man suffers as I am suffering. All this tells on Elspeth too. Such
behaviour as mine only lessens her love for me. She does not really
sympathize at all. She is becoming cold. My God! please show me the way
to keep her love.
So ends my first term at Marlton.
I have read a good deal and bought a few books. I have made a start
at writing. My health is becoming very bad. I have not learnt how
to control myself or my wife. I want happiness and, straining after
it, only attain misery. I like the boys but they are slack and don't
really want to learn anything. I have joined the Corps, but it is not
so smart or popular here as it was at Radchester. I have enjoyed most
of all watching the school "Rugger" matches. It is considered part
of every one's duty to go down to the fields to watch all matches,
which irritates me. I don't want to watch because I'm expected to, but
because I want to. Neither Elspeth nor I are very popular: we have
made enemies by accepting an invitation to a House supper and then not
turning up because we left a day before the end of term. We had no idea
that these House suppers were only annual events and that invitations
to them are considered the highest honour possible when extended to
masters who don't own a House. It would be useless to explain.
The boys are far more civilized than they were at Radchester owing to
the fact that their House-masters are married and that quite frequently
they meet members of the other sex. They are more urbane and polished:
they acquire a kind of _savoir faire_ in their demeanour, a smartness
in their dress which was noticeably lacking at Radchester. There is
not so great a cleavage between home and school; they spend quite a
number of afternoons in drawing-rooms; they entertain the small sons
and daughters of the staff, they come into contact to a certain extent
with the life of the streets, they are allowed to buy whatever they
like in any shops, they are encouraged to explore the beauties of the
countryside on bicycles. Some of the prefects have motor-bicycles.
They are allowed to play golf and to go out to tea at the houses of
private residents in the town. Altogether they are made as happy as
it is possible for boys to be. In a word, I could not imagine any
boy committing suicide at Marlton, whereas they might at Radchester.
Nevertheless there are several things that are wrong about the place.
The lack of energy is by far the most noticeable. The lack of reading
is perhaps the next and may follow from it. The school library is very
old and well stocked with mediæval books of all sorts, being peculiarly
rich in archæological, historical and theological works, but it seems
to have stopped stocking new books about 1890. The amount of modern
stuff in it is composed entirely of books of little value which have
been presented to it. There is no system on which books are bought
at all: I looked in vain for Meredith, Swift, Hazlitt, Stevenson, or
Conrad, to mention a few names at random. There are but few purely
literary works and boys are certainly not encouraged to keep up with
the newest thought in philosophy, poetry, drama, essays and so on. Only
the senior boys are allowed to take books out; the bulk of the school
use the building on Sundays and then only when it is wet. They rarely
read anything except contemporary magazines. One thing that has pleased
me about my work is that I have been put on to teach history. This
seems to me one of the vitally important subjects. Domestic politics
rather than long descriptions of foreign wars, however, seem to me
to be the first essential. I have tried to make my forms realize the
continuity of history, its applicability to modern life, so that they
may not be led astray by any illogical sophistries in unscrupulous
newspapers. I find that they become really interested in the history
of the Home Rule question, the beginnings of the war between capital
and labour, electoral reform, the decentralization of government, the
power of the Cabinet, the Crown, the House of Lords and the Commons. I
want to equip them so that they will be able really to form their own
judgments when they grow up and not accept party shibboleths and be at
the mercy of any witty scoundrel.
Side by side with the history we read the famous literary works of the
time. Each boy (I did this at Radchester) selects one author or book
and writes descriptive criticism on him and it, which he afterwards
reads aloud, and comments are made by the rest. Boys are astonishingly
poor debaters, they cannot articulate clearly: even when they read
aloud they stammer over all except the simplest words.
Every night of the term I hold a voluntary class for Shakespeare
and drama-lovers in general: these readings of plays would go down
infinitely better if only boys knew how to pronounce words, how to get
up the meanings of passages, or even the meaning and use of stops. One
would think that an educated boy of sixteen or seventeen would really
know how to read, but only in the very rarest cases can he do so with
intelligence. Nowhere is this more clearly shown than in chapel, where
the prefects of the week read the lesson: they mumble over and spoil
some of the most dramatic and poetic passages in the Bible. It isn't
through lack of reverence or care but simply because they have never
been taught. Incidentally they have never been taught how to read to
themselves: they cannot concentrate on anything that requires thought
or hard work. A short story in a magazine they appreciate, and good
literature they can tolerate when it is read aloud to them by their
form masters; but they cannot tackle anything solid by themselves. They
distrust all standard authors as likely to be dull. Their surprise
when they are introduced to such a book as "Wuthering Heights" is
indescribably comic. In mathematics I still seem to have the horrid
trick of going so fast that no one learns anything. At any rate I
interest them: I wish I could get the stuff to stick in their minds.
XV
_January 13, 1914_
Elspeth is now with me at my father's home and in bed with "flu." While
we were there I got an invitation from Gregson's to write a book for
them on education, so Elspeth and I went straight down to Bath, and I
shut myself and wrote "Reform in Education" in ten days. It amounts
to 50,000 words. I find that I simply cannot write slowly. I start to
plan a thing out, then my brain refuses to take in anything except
matter for the book. I look on meals as a needless interruption. I want
to write all day and all night. The MSS. is now being typed for me,
and I am resting, by reading novels and magazines, playing bridge and
billiards with my father-in-law, and alternately quarrelling and making
it up with Elspeth.
_March 3, 1914_
There have been endless rows in the school this term and wholesale
expulsions. House-masters are told all about them, and the rest of us
kept in ignorance. What the whole body of the school knows is hidden
from us poor juniors. On what principle I wonder? Elspeth and I fight
daily over books. She dislikes any papers, magazines or books in the
drawing-room, and I hate to see the best room in the house given over
to nothing but clothes in the making. Having sold under compulsion all
the books that I so much valued I am now trying to build up another
library. This naturally costs money, but, as I frequently tell Elspeth,
I can't get ideas to write about unless I read a good deal.
My neurasthenia has been so acute lately that I have had to see the
school doctor: he wants me to go into a sort of retreat for the Easter
holidays alone. I'd far rather die. Because I attended every debate and
dramatic reading at the School Debating Society last term I have been
elected president. We have had debates on conscription, Lloyd George,
and classical and modern subjects. I have brought up the average
attendance from forty to about a hundred. I shall not be content until
we get the majority of the school to attend. These debates, etc.,
take place in Big School on alternate Saturday evenings from 7 till
8.45. That means dinner at 6.30, which precludes the possibility of
many members of Common Room attending. When I first began to go the
meetings were rather disorderly and riotous, and no one cared much
about the subject. There were long and awkward pauses, but now we
have managed to rouse a good deal of opposition, and people come with
very carefully prepared speeches, and there are less irrelevancies. I
have had one severe attack of appendicitis, but it passed off after a
few hours. Of course the school has had the usual diseases, mumps and
diphtheria. The whole town is down with the latter: it is said that the
water is bad, the milk is bad, and the sanitary arrangements mediæval.
It is really the most backward, sleepy place I ever came across. The
District Council fight among themselves, but never do anything for the
public weal. Most of the members are drapers, butchers, and bakers, and
consider nothing but their own interests.
I have been elected to the Sunday Afternoon Literary Society. There
are eight boy members and eight masters. We meet at 3.15 on alternate
Sunday afternoons, and a paper is read for an hour, and afterwards
there is tea. This society has been in existence for fifty years. There
is never any discussion, which is a great pity. At the end of term a
Shakespeare play is read.
The first papers I heard were on "The Schoolmaster in Literature,"
Francis Thompson and Kipling, and they were all extremely interesting.
Elspeth and I have dined with various members of the staff. They give
good dinners, but the conversation is not very thrilling; they dislike
anything out of the ordinary; they "never get the time to read," and
consequently won't talk "book-shop," which I am beginning to fear is my
only subject. They disapprove of my beagling because it takes me away
from the games; they don't know, of course, that I've been forbidden
to play games. As a matter of fact, I frequently referee the "kids'"
games, which are really amusing. They have a quaint habit here of
playing all their school matches in the Christmas term, and all their
House matches this term. Ingleby, who runs the games, is a passionate
devotee of "Rugger," and puts the fear of God into every boy who
comes near him. He is altogether delightful, and has a most charming
wife, but he cannot brook being "crossed." He dislikes and distrusts
me because I said somewhere that I thought games were overdone at
the Public Schools. His belief is that games have been, and are, the
saving of England, the one outstanding glory of our national life. To
this idea he clings through thick and thin, and opposition to it only
rouses him to fury. He has a strong face, and is one of the giants
here. His influence is enormous. He is an ideal schoolmaster of the old
swashbuckling type; he rules by fear and the rod; all his boys love
him almost as much as they dread him; he always looks as if he were
going to knock any man down who ventured to disagree with him. I like
him, but the devil that is in me always prompts me to get up against
him; he is a great stickler for convention; the first time we crossed
swords was on a very minute point of etiquette. A boy in his House,
who is taking the Army exam., wanted special coaching in English, and
so, not being able to find any classroom vacant in which to take him
I agreed to visit him in his study. Of course I ought to have asked
Ingleby's leave. I forgot, and he got furiously angry. "Young upstarts
disregarding rules of a thousand years' growth," and so on.
I like my Army class work. The English required for Sandhurst and
Woolwich is of a very low standard, but it is amusing. These general
questions, précis, reproductions, and so on, give me a chance of
introducing favourite passages from great authors, and I try my hardest
to make them read for themselves by running a sort of library in my
classroom. I fill up all my vacant shelves with "likely" books, and
just let them help themselves. The worst of it is that they nearly
always forget to bring them back. I find this as expensive a hobby as
having boys continually to tea at Radchester used to be.
My other English form are preparing for the London Matriculation,
which, as things stand, is the best examination in English that I
know. I concentrate all my powers on literature. I try to build up a
coherent idea of the history of English literature all through, and
most of the boys respond to the idea splendidly. The worst of it is
that they come to me, for the most part, desperately ignorant; three or
four plays of Shakespeare, and Sheridan and Goldsmith comprise their
whole stock of knowledge. On the other hand, there is a handsome prize
awarded annually (£20 worth of books), called the "Carfax," for the
boy who shows the best knowledge on Shakespeare, three set authors,
and a general paper on all the best authors from 1800 to the present
time. This stimulates the senior boys, and in this, the Lent term,
every year, some twenty or thirty boys really try to make up for the
lamentable deficiency in this branch of their education.
_May 5, 1914_
I find that I am getting slack in writing up my diary. I don't quite
know the reason unless it is that "happy is the nation that has no
history" applies equally to individuals. Elspeth and I are getting on
much better, by fits and starts. We still quarrel, but more rarely,
and only when I forget to show her some of those "little, unremembered
acts of kindness and of love" which make so great a difference to life.
We had one wonderful day at the Oxford and Cambridge Sports, when
I introduced her to all the old Oxford gang. She was thoroughly in
her element there. She was not born to be a schoolmaster's wife. She
needs gaiety, amusement, heaps of friends, and an incessant round of
youthful pleasures. I wish I could get a job in London if only for her
sake. She gets very tired of the everlasting topics of conversation at
Marlton, bulbs and babies. All true Marltonians are keen gardeners,
and they all have large families. I suppose four years of Radchester
made me forget the joys of a garden ... because really the gardens
of Marlton are a joy for ever; apparently the very rarest and most
delicate flowers will bloom in Marlton when they would die in any other
soil in England.
As soon as the holidays started Elspeth and I went to London in order
that I might continue to bombard the editors and publishers with
copy. There wasn't much doing, but we saw numbers of quite excellent
plays. I received a commission from Goddard's to edit a dozen plays of
Shakespeare and other dramatists for use in schools, for which they
promised me £50. I didn't spend as much time over them as I could
have wished. My old disease of hurry made me write Introductions
which I ought to have done much better, but my object was to say as
little as possible and not to overburden the juvenile mind with a
million unnecessary notes. It was an easily earned £50. I finished my
anthology, which I called "A Cluster of Grapes," and started to produce
a School Mathematical Course, which I eventually gave up because it
bored me.
Elspeth and I went as usual to the point-to-point meetings this year,
and the Bath dances, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. There are still
the same old cliques to be seen parading up and down Milsom Street,
weaving petty scandals over the tea-table at Fortt's, girls becoming
engaged and breaking it off, strange, unaccountable weddings and
stranger divorces. We are now looked upon as an old married couple and
no longer interesting.
_July 14, 1914_
This has been a good summer term; it was pleasant to come farther
south at the beginning of May instead of having to cut oneself off
from all the joys of summer by going to Radchester. Marlton in the
summer is exquisite: the town is just one blaze of colour: it is much
too hot, but luckily Elspeth loves the heat, and I don't mind it much.
Besides there is splendid bathing in the open-air school swimming-bath.
Financial affairs have been a constant thorn in my flesh. Here I
get £200, and on that I have to keep Elspeth, and a servant at £18
a year, a house the rent of which is £35 and the taxes £15. I give
her £2 a week on which to keep house, and we spend money like water
by travelling in the holidays. Worst of all I am still paying off
old Oxford debts, which drag us down still further, and my books and
tobacco bill average about £3 a term. All the other masters have
private means and live like princes. I suppose we ought to economize by
having no people to stay with us, but it would be deadly for Elspeth
while I was in school if she was always alone, and I, too, like old
friends to talk to at night. Consequently we are never free from
visitors. Her father and mother and brothers and sisters have all been
down, and several old Radcastrians, including Jimmy Haye and Montague,
both of whom love it.
I have had the luck to get Tony's first forty poems, that he showed
up to me for work at Radchester, printed in a monthly review. I am
now waiting to be operated on for appendicitis. I am going into the
nursing home on the 27th, as soon as ever I have finished correcting
all my exams. I am funking it horribly. It would be dreadful if this
were to be the end before I've really come to understand Elspeth and
treat her as she ought to be treated. I do so want also to write
something worth writing before I die. It's no good being morbid over
it. I only hope that the taking out of this offending member will
mean the eradication of all uncleanness and offence in me. It ought
to make me better tempered, more long-suffering, more loving and
lovable, and altogether more Christian and chivalrous. I read a paper
to the Sunday Afternoon Society on "The Predecessors of Shakespeare";
as usual I prepared it too hastily. I had far too much to say to get
through it in an hour. Before I knew about my operation I had accepted
an invitation to lecture at Stratford-on-Avon on the teaching of
English. These summer conferences are extraordinarily good things,
and one learns heaps of "tips" about how to tackle a subject in the
proper way. I still go on experimenting with my form. I have no reason
to be displeased with their progress in literature. I have had quite
a number of original pieces of work shown up. I have got to know two
boys in particular very well. Every week they read papers to me on any
subject, and we sit round a schoolhouse study table and argue. They
are as different as possible from each other. One is a brusque, quite
clever, very athletic lover of sensuous poetry; he pins his faith to
Byron, Swinburne, Rossetti, William Morris, Edward Dowson, and Arthur
Symons; his name is O'Dowd. The other, Raynes, is a quiet, demure
scholar, who does not get on very well in his House; his passion is
Meredith. I get more pleasure out of these two than out of any other
boys in the school. By far the rottenest thing I have to do is private
tuition. This means taking two or three very backward boys, usually in
mathematics, for an hour three times a week. For this we get extra pay,
£2 2s. for each boy! That is six guineas for thirty-nine hours' work.
Whereas I have before now got six guineas for an article which hasn't
taken me more than thirty-nine minutes. I grudge the time I have to
devote to these boys more than I can say; they know nothing, they never
will know anything, they don't want to know anything. And yet one can't
refuse to take them because every penny is important.
We have one great function here in the summer term before which
everything else fades, and that is Speech Day. This consists of a
wonderful service in the Priory, then we go to Big School, where
prizewinners read their papers, prizes are awarded, and speeches are
made and large luncheon-parties are given in each House-master's house.
The vast concourse then wanders slowly down to the fields to watch
the old boys' cricket match, and at night there is a school concert.
The music here is world-famous. The school concerts are magnificently
done. We have a large album of school songs, and selections are
taken from these, and there is usually some oratorio or cantata. The
festivities leave one slightly limp, and there is not much work done
during the rest of the term. The most surprising feature about it all
to me was the comparison between the Radchester Speech Day and the
Marlton Speech Day. The Radchester parent was a sight for the gods;
he was always wealthy, nearly always possessed of a distinct accent,
and wore clothes to match; he was hearty, bluff, and a good fellow;
his womenfolk gave me no pleasure. At Marlton the parents seemed to
be the salt of the earth; they were all aristocrats in name if not in
money. The majority of them are parsons and soldiers, and practically
to a man old Marltonians. Loyalty to his school is the one shining
characteristic of the Marltonian; to them there is simply no other
Public School in England. I don't wonder; the boys are perfectly happy.
They live secluded from the rotten side of the world in a valley which
takes the breath away for sheer loveliness. They have a great tradition
extending from the dark ages. There is a saying that no matter where he
is or in what circumstances an old Marltonian can be detected at once
by his geniality, his good-breeding, his entire absence of "side," and
soft, slow, lazy way of speaking. Quietly and insidiously the place is
beginning to take hold of me. There is no doubt whatever that I enjoy
life much more than I used to; I am beginning to observe beautiful
things, nature particularly. I find myself standing stock-still looking
at the clouds racing past the moon on a clear night behind the Priory;
the lilac and laburnum thrill me like an exquisite melody; the green of
the fields, the thickly leaved trees, flowers in a garden, all sorts of
things that didn't seem to me to matter much are now becoming ineffably
precious. The lights in the schoolhouse studies late at night, seen
as one crosses the court on the way home from school and chapel, are
amazingly beautiful and peaceful.
_July 24, 1914_
Here I am on the eve of being operated on. I wish it could be postponed
for a bit. There seems to be the chance of civil war in Ireland, and
the row in the Balkans looks like spreading. Elspeth and I are thinking
of going to Scotland when I am convalescent, but I should like to
cross over to Ireland and see really what is happening. We really have
treated Ireland throughout the ages damnably. I wonder what will come
of it all. I have finished correcting all my examination papers, and
done my reports, added up my marks, and now all is over. Elspeth has
been kindness itself to me lately; there is no doubt of the depth of
our love for each other. I have been making a will, which seems silly
because I don't leave much; about £150 worth of debts, and £1000 to
pay them with from my insurance. Of course there'll be the furniture,
but that's not much of an heirloom. I have had several horrible qualms
about death, but, good heavens! it's no good worrying. I wonder whether
Elspeth will marry again. After all, it won't matter to me when I'm
gone. This is a silly way to talk. This has been a rotten day. I
have said good-bye to a few boys, packed up what I shall want for
the nursing home, a volume of Chesterton and a volume of Stevenson.
I bicycled up to the golf links to say good-bye to the country that
I have now so learnt to love; and after tea, in a bowler hat and
"going-away" suit and suit-case, I walked up to the nursing home. It's
a rotten game doing all this in cold blood. Elspeth stayed with me
in my room, which is clean, comfortable, and faces south, until the
nurse turned her out. I am now left alone, and Elspeth isn't to be
allowed to see me until after the operation. It was agonizing parting
from her, and I dread the night. I haven't slept for a very long time
decently, and I certainly don't expect to to-night. I've been allowed
as a special concession to finish writing up my diary to date. It
seems all very futile now. I've made jolly little of my life. I've
loved a few boys, taught a few of them something, taught a great many
nothing. I have irritated some very good people by giving publicity to
ill-considered judgments, and I have given of my all to one girl; I
live in and for and by Elspeth alone. She is the whole of life to me.
God grant that we may be spared to one another and learn to be truly
and always happy together.
XVI