BREAKING UP FOR THE HOLIDAYS.
Unromantic as it sounds to say it, I know of few things more disgusting
than to revisit one's old school after some twenty or thirty years. Let
that dubious decade still remain as to the number of years that have
elapsed since I left school. In fact, it matters to nobody when I left
it; I revisited it lately. I went to see the boys break up, as I once
broke up, and I felt disgusted--not with the school, or the breaking up,
but with myself. I felt disgracefully old. In fact, I went home, and
began a poem with these words:--
My years, I feel, are getting on:
Yet, ere the trembling balance kicks, I
Will imitate the dying swan,
And sing an ode threnodic--vixi.
I never got any farther than that. By the way, I shall have to mention
eventually that the school was King's College, in the Strand. I am not
going to unbosom beyond this, or to add anything in the way of an
autobiography; but the locale would have to come out anon, and there is
no possible reason for concealment.
Well, I went to see them break up for the holidays, and only got over my
antediluvian feelings by seeing one of the masters still on the staff
who was there when I was a boy. It was a comfort to think what a
Methuselah he must be; and yet, if he will excuse the personality, he
looked as rosy and smooth-faced as when he used to stand me outside his
door with my coat-sleeves turned inside out. It was a way he had. Well,
the presence of that particular master made me feel an Adonis forthwith.
I will not go into the prizes. There were lots of them, and they were
very nice, and the boys looked very happy, and their mammas legitimately
proud. What I want to speak of is the school speeches or recitations, as
they are termed. King's College School speeches are, to my thinking, a
model of what such things ought to be.
Some schools--I name no names--go in for mere scholastic recitations
which nobody understands, and the boys hate. Others burst out in
full-blown theatricals. King's College acts on the motto, Medio
tutissimus ibis. It keeps the old scholastic recitations, but gilds the
pill by adding the accessory of costume. I can quote Latin as well as
Dr. Pangloss, and certain lines were running in my mind all the time I
was in King's College Hall. They were
Pueris olim dant crustula blandi
Doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima.
First we had a bit of German in the shape of an extract from Kotzebue's
"Die Schlaue Wittwe," or "Temperaments." I wish I had my programme, I
would compliment by name the lad who played the charming young Frau.
Suffice it to say the whole thing went off sparkling like a firework. It
was short, and made you wish for more--a great virtue in speeches and
sermons. The dancing-master was perfect. Then came a bit of Colman's
"Heir at Law." Dr. Pangloss--again I regret the absence of the
programme--was a creation, and--notwithstanding the proximity of King's
College to the Strand Theatre--the youth wisely abstained from copying
even so excellent a model as Mr. Clarke. Of course, the bits of Latinity
came out with a genuine scholastic ring. Then a bit of a Greek play, at
which--mirabile dictu!--everybody laughed, and with which everybody was
pleased. And why? Because the adjuncts of costume and properties added
to the correct enunciation of the text, prevented even those, who knew
little Latin and less Greek, from being one moment in the dark as to
what was going on. The passage was one from the "Birds" of Aristophanes;
and the fact of a treaty being concluded between the Olympians and
terrestrials, led to the introduction of some interpolations as to the
Washington Treaty, which, when interpreted by the production of the
American flag and English Union Jack, brought down thunders of applause.
The final chorus was sung to "Yankee Doodle," and accompanied by a
fiddle. The acting and accessories were perfect; and what poor Robson
used to term the "horgan" of Triballos, was wonderful. That youth would
be a nice young man for a small tea party. It is to be hoped that, like
Bottom the weaver, he can modulate his voice, and roar as gently as any
sucking-dove.
Most wonderful, however, of all the marvels--that met me at my old
school--was a scene from the "Critic," played by the most Lilliputian
boys. Puff--played by Powell (I don't forget that name)--was simply
marvellous. And yet Powell, if he will forgive me for saying so, was the
merest whipper-snapper. Sir Christopher Hatton could scarcely have
emerged from the nursery; and yet the idea of utter stolidity never
found a better exponent than that same homoeopathic boy.
Last of all came the conventional scene from Molière's "L'Avare." Maître
Jacques was good; Harpagon more than good. I came away well satisfied,
only regretting I had not brought my eldest boy to see it. My eldest
boy! Egad, and I was just such as he is now, when I used to creep like a
snail unwillingly to those scholastic shades. The spirit of Pangloss
came upon me again as I thought of all I had seen that day,--there was
nothing like it in my day. King's College keeps pace with the times.
"Tempora mutantur!" I mentally exclaimed; and added, not without a
pleasant scepticism, as I gazed once more on the pippin-faced master, "I
wonder whether--nos mutamur in illis?"