Two pictures come into my memory. I have climbed to the top of a tree by
the edge of the playing field, and am looking at my school-fellows and am
as proud of myself as a March cock when it crows to its first sunrise. I
am saying to myself, "if when I grow up I am as clever among grown-up men
as I am among these boys, I shall be a famous man." I remind myself how
they think all the same things and cover the school walls at election
times with the opinions their fathers find in the newspapers. I remind
myself that I am an artist's son and must take some work as the whole end
of life and not think as the others do of becoming well off and living
pleasantly. The other picture is of a hotel sitting-room in the Strand,
where a man is hunched up over the fire. He is a cousin who has speculated
with another cousin's money and has fled from Ireland in danger of arrest.
My father has brought us to spend the evening with him, to distract him
from the remorse my father knows that he must be suffering.