A consoling scrap of wisdom which unfortunately children do not find
written large in their copybooks is that sorrow is as transitory as
happiness. Although my childhood was strewn with the memorial wreaths
of dead miseries, I always had a morbid sense that my present
discomforts were immortal. So I had quite made up my mind that I
would continue to be unhappy at school, when the intervention of two
beings whom I had thought utterly remote from me, gave me a new
philosophy and reconciled me to life. The first was a master, who
found me grieving in one of my oubliettes and took me into his study
and tried to draw me out. Kindness always made me ineloquent, and
as I sat in his big basket chair and sniffed the delightful odour of
his pipe, I expressed myself chiefly in woe-begone monosyllables and
hiccoughs. Nevertheless he seemed to understand me very well, and
though he did not say much, I felt by the way in which he puffed out
great, generous clouds of smoke, that he sympathised with me. He told
me to come and see him twice a week, and that I was at liberty to
read any of his books, and in general gave me a sense that I was
unfortunate rather than criminal. This did me good, because a large
part of my unhappiness was due to the fact that constant suppression
by majorities had robbed me of my self-respect. It is better for a
boy to be conceited than to be ashamed of his own nature, and to
shudder when he sees his face reflected in a glass.
My second benefactor was nominally a boy, though in reality he was
nearly as old as the master, and was leaving at the end of the term
to go up to Oxford. He took me by the shoulder one evening in the
dusk, and walked me round and round the big clump of rhododendrons
that stood in the drive in front of the school. I did not understand
half he said, but to my great astonishment I heard him confessing
that he had always been unhappy at school, although at the end he
was captain in lessons, in games, in everything. I was, of course,
highly flattered that this giant should speak to me as an equal, and
admit me to his confidences. But I was even more delighted with the
encouraging light he threw on school life. "You're only here for a
little spell, you know; you'll be surprised how short it is. And
don't be miserable just because you're different. I'm different; it's
a jolly good thing to be different." I was not used, to people who
took this wide view of circumstance, and his voice in the shadows
sounded like some one speaking in a story-book. Yet although his
monologue gave me an entirely new conception of life, no more of it
lingers in my mind, save his last reflective criticism. "All the
same, I don't see why you should always have dirty nails." He never
confided in me again, and I would have died rather than have reminded
him of his kindly indiscretion; but when he passed me in the
playground he seemed to look at me with a kind of reticent interest,
and it occurred to me that after all my queerness might not be such a
bad thing, might even be something to be proud of.
The value of this discovery to me can hardly be exaggerated. Hitherto
in my relationships with the boys I had fought nothing but losing
battles, for I had taken it for granted that they were right and I
was wrong. But now that I had hit on the astonishing theory that the
individual has the right to think for himself, I saw quite clearly
that most of their standards of conduct sprang from their sheep-like
stupidity. They moved in flocks because they had not the courage to
choose a line for themselves. The material result of this new theory
of life was to make me enormously conceited, and I moved among my
comrades with a mysterious confidence, and gave myself the airs of a
Byron in knickerbockers. My unpopularity increased by leaps and
bounds, but so did my moral courage, and I accepted the belated
efforts of my school-fellows to knock the intelligence out of me as
so many tributes to the force of my individuality. I no longer cried
in my bed at night, but lay awake enraptured at the profundity of my
thoughts. After years of unquestioning humility I enjoyed a prolonged
debauch of intellectual pride, and I marvelled at the little boy of
yesterday who had wept because he could not be an imbecile. It was
the apotheosis of the ugly duckling, and I saw my swan's plumage
reflected in the placid faces of the boys around me, as in the vacant
waters of a pool. As yet I did not dream of a moulting season, still
less that a day would come when I should envy the ducks their
domestic ease and the unthinking tranquillity of their lives. A
little boy may be excused for not realising that Hans Andersen's
story is only the prelude to a sadder story that he had not the heart
to write.
My new freedom of spirit gave me courage to re-examine the emotional
and æesthetic values of my environment. I could not persuade myself
that I liked the sound of bells, and the greyness of the country in
winter-time still revolted me, as though I had not yet forgotten the
cheerful reds and greens and blues of the picture-books that filled
my mind as a child with dreams of a delightful world. But now that I
was wise enough to make the best of my unboyish emotionalism, I began
to take pleasure in certain phases of school-life. Though I was
devoid of any recognisable religious sense I liked the wide words in
the Psalms that we read at night in the school chapel. This was not
due to any precocious recognition of their poetry, but to the fact
that their intense imagery conjured up all sorts of precious visions
in my mind, I could see the hart panting after the water-brooks, in
the valleys of Exmoor, where I had once spent an enchanted holiday. I
could see the men going down to the sea in ships, and the stormy
waves, and the staggering, fearful mariners, for I had witnessed a
great tempest off Flamborough Head. Even such vague phrases as "the
hills" gave me an intense joy. I could see them so clearly, those
hills, chalky hills covered with wild pansies, and with an all-blue
sky overhead, like the lid of a chocolate-box. I liked, too, the
services in the old church on Sunday nights, when the lights were
lowered for the sermon, and I would put my hands over my ears and
hear the voice of the preacher like the drone of a distant bee. After
church the choral society used to practise in the Great Hall, and as
I walked round the school buildings, snatches of their singing would
beat against my face like sudden gusts of wind. When I listened at
the doors of my form-room I heard the boys talking about football
matches, or indulging their tireless passion for unimaginative
personalities; I would stand on the mat outside wondering whether I
would be allowed to read if I went in.
I looked forward to Tuesday night, which was my bath-night,
almost as much as to Sunday. The school sanitary arrangements
were primitive, and all the water had to be fetched in pails,
and I used to like to see the man tipping the hot water into the
bath and flinging his great body back to avoid the steam that
made his grey flannel shirt-sleeves cling to his hairy arms.
Most of the boys added a lot of cold water, but I liked to boil
myself because the subsequent languor was so pleasant. The
matron would bring our own bath towels warm from the fire, and I
would press mine against my face because it smelt of childhood
and of home. I always thought my body looked pretty after a
really hot bath; its rosiness enabled me to forgive myself for
being fat.
One very strong impression was connected with the only master in the
school whom I did not like. He was a German, and as is the case with
others of his nationality, a spray of saliva flew from his lips when
he was angry, and seeing this, I would edge away from him in alarm.
Perhaps it was on this account that he treated me with systematic
unfairness and set himself the unnecessary task of making me
ridiculous in the eyes of the other boys. One night I was wandering
in the playground and heard him playing the violin in his study. My
taste in music was barbarian; I liked comic songs, which I used to
sing to myself in a lugubrious voice, and in London the plaintive
clamour of the street-organs had helped to make my sorrows
rhythmical. But now, perhaps for the first time, I became aware of
the illimitable melancholy that lies at the heart of all great
music. It seemed to me that the German master, the man whom I hated,
had shut himself up alone in his study, and was crying aloud. I knew
that if he was unhappy, it must be because he too was an Ishmael, a
personality, one of the different ones. A great sympathy woke within
me, and I peeped through the window and saw him playing with his
face all shiny with perspiration and a silk handkerchief tucked
under his chin. I would have liked to have knocked at his door and
told him that I knew all about these things, but I was afraid that
he would think me cheeky and splutter in my face.
The next day in his class, I looked at him hopefully, in the light
of my new understanding, but it did not seem to make any difference.
He only told me to get on with my work.
The term drew to a close, and most of the boys in my form-room
ticked off the days on lists, in which the Sundays were written in
red ink to show that they did not really count. As time went on they
grew more and more boisterous, and wherever I went I heard them
telling one another how they were going to spend their holidays. It
was surprising to me that these boys who were so ordinary during
term-time should lead such adventurous lives in the holidays, and I
felt a little envious of their good fortune. They talked of visiting
the theatre and foreign travel in a matter-of-fact way that made me
think that perhaps after all my home-life was incomplete. I had
never been out of England, and my dramatic knowledge was limited to
pantomimes, for which these enthusiastic students of musical comedy
expressed a large contempt. Some of them were allowed to shoot with
real guns in the holidays, which reminded me of the worst excesses
of my brother in Yorkshire. Examining my own life, I had often come
to the conclusion that adventures did not exist outside books. But
the boys shook this comforting theory with their boastful
prophecies, and I thought once more that perhaps it was my
misfortune that they did not happen to me. I began to fear that I
would find the holidays tame.
There were other considerations that made me look forward to the end
of the term with misgiving. Since it had been made plain to me that I
was a remarkable boy, I had rather enjoyed my life at school. I had
conceived myself as strutting with a measured dignity before a
background of the other boys--a background that moved and did not
change, like a wind-swept tapestry; but I was quite sure that I would
not be allowed to give myself airs at home. It seemed to me that a
youngest brother's portion of freedom would compare but poorly with
the measure of intellectual liberty that I had secured for myself at
school. My brothers were all very well in their way, but I would be
expected to take my place in the background and do what I was told. I
should miss my sense of being superior to my environment, and my
intensely emotional Sundays would no longer divide time into weeks.
The more I thought of it, the more I realised that I did not want to
go home.
On the last night of the term, when the dormitory had at length
become quiet, I considered the whole case dispassionately in my bed.
The labour of packing my play-box and writing labels for my luggage
had given me a momentary thrill, but for the rest I had moved among
my insurgent comrades with a chilled heart. I knew now that I was
too greedy of life, that I always thought of the pleasant side of
things when they were no longer within my grasp; but at the I same
time my discontent was not wholly unreasonable. I had learnt more
of myself in three months than I had in all my life before, and from
being a nervous, hysterical boy I had arrived at a complete
understanding of my emotions, which I studied with an almost adult
calmness of mind. I knew that in returning to the society of my
healthy, boyish brothers, I was going back to a kind of life for
which I was no longer fitted. I had changed, but I had the sense to
see that it was a change that would not appeal to them, and that in
consequence I would have another and harder battle to fight before I
was allowed to go my own way.
I saw further still. I saw that after a month at home I would
not want to come back to school, and that I should have to
endure another period of despondency. I saw that my whole school
life would be punctuated by these violent uprootings, that the
alternation of term-time and holidays would make it impossible
for me to change life into a comfortable habit, and that even to
the end of my school-days it would be necessary for me to
preserve my new-found courage.
As I lay thinking in the dark I was proud of the clarity of my
mind, and glad that I had at last outwitted the tears that had made
my childhood so unhappy. I heard, the boys breathing softly around
me--those wonderful boys who could sleep even when they were
excited--and I felt that I was getting the better of them in thinking
while they slept. I remembered the prefect who had told me that we
were there only for a spell, but I did not speculate as to what
would follow afterwards. All that I had to do was to watch myself
ceaselessly, and be able to explain to myself everything that I felt
I and did. In that way I should always be strong I enough to guard
my weaknesses from the eyes of the jealous world in which I moved.
The church bells chimed the hour, and I turned over and went to
sleep.