Part 1 (1/2)
Confessions of an Etonian.
by I. E. M.
PREFACE.
The author is anxious to request any person who may meet with this trifling volume to bear in mind that it contains the memoir of an unworthy member of the place to which it alludes--that many years have now elapsed since he quitted the spot where its regulations with regard to education have been as much altered as improved. For Eton!
”my heart is thine though my shadow falls on a distant land.” But should these pages influence the judgment of any mistaken but well-meaning parent, as to his son's future destination, the writer will hope that he has not exposed himself in vain.
THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ETONIAN.
BOOK THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
”Here's Harry crying!” And on the instant, my brother awoke the elder ones to witness and enjoy the astounding truth.
”What makes you think that?” I replied, in as resolute a tone as a throat choking with anguish would admit of.
”Why, you're crying now,” added another brother; ”I see the tears s.h.i.+ning in the moonlight.”
”Only a little,” I at length admitted; and, satisfied with the concession, my numerous brethren composed themselves once more to sleep in the corners of the carriage, on their way to Eton, leaving my eldest brother's pointer and myself at the bottom, to our own reflections As for old Carlo, his still and regular breathing evinced that his mind was as easy and comfortable as his body, sagaciously satisfying himself with the evil of the day as it pa.s.sed over him.
Here Carlo had the advantage of me,--I antic.i.p.ated the morrow. Strange and boisterous school-boys, tight-pantalooned ushers, with menacing canes, were, to my yet unsophisticated mind, anything but agreeable subjects for a reverie, and I felt proportionately doleful; I turned my thoughts on the past, and I was very miserable.
I now learnt that I had been happy, and, for the first time, appreciated that happiness. The hours of this long, weary day had appeared to be as many months; and when I ruminated on former scenes, and their dear little events, I sighed in bitterness, ”What a time ago all this seems!” And as I peered up at the moon from my abyss through the window, my eyes unconsciously swam with tears, when I reflected that, if at home, I should at this moment be taking tea with my dear nurse, Lucy, and my sister's governess, just before I went to bed.
I had now bid an eternal farewell to, doubtless, by far the dearest,--happiest period of our existence, the dawn of life's day--that enviable time when ”we have no lessons;” when the colt presses, with his unshod foot, the fresh and verdant meadow, while he wonders at the team toiling under a noontide sun, over the parched and arid fallow in the distance.
This, then, was my first lesson of experience; and on reflection, perhaps many of us will agree that, after all the vaunted troubles and anxieties incident to manhood, few surpa.s.s in intensity and hopelessness the sad separation from home for a detested school; it is real and wringing anguish, though, fortunately, like flayed eels, we eventually become inured to it.
I now went through, for three years at a private school, the usual routine of punishment and bullying preparatory for Eton; and as these were of the ordinary kind, I will at once omit this epoch of my life, and commence with my _debut_ at that great capital of England's schools.
It may not be out of place to give here a slight and rapid sketch of the scene to which these immediate pages are confined, as well as of other matters connected with it.
Every one knows where Windsor is, and that Eton was separated from it by the Thames, until united by Windsor Bridge. But, with regard to the latter town, there may be some confusion, for it is divided into Eton, and Eton proper. This last will hereafter be distinguished as ”College,” and is situated about half a mile from the bridge, to which it is connected by the town.
”College,” I think, may be said to comprehend ”the school-yard,” the suburbs, and ”the playing fields.”
”The school-yard” is a s.p.a.cious and respectable quadrangle; the upper school, the church, the cloisters, and long chamber, each respectively forming a side of it. In the centre is placed the statue of the founder, Henry VI.
”The upper school” is placed over an arched cloister, and an ominous-looking region, in which, I suspect, is the magazine of birch.
The school is nothing more than an extensive room, with its floor lined with fixed forms, and the wainscot with sculptured names innumerable. One is guilty of a sad omission should he quit Eton without giving a crown to Cartland to perpetuate his name on the immortal oak. Perhaps the loss of few olden records would be more deplored than its destruction, for here are registered many of Eton's worthiest sons; C.I. FOX, as in after life, is here pre-eminent.
Adjoining the upper end is another room, called ”the library,” in which there is not a book, but there is ”the block,” which speaks volumes; and as a library may, by a little forcing, be defined to be a chamber set apart for the acquirement of learning, this room is not, perhaps, misnamed.
This block is a very simple machine--merely a couple of steps. The victim places his knees on the lower, and his elbows on the upper step; but if the reader will thus place himself in his imagination, he will enter more immediately into the spirit of the thing.
In front of him he sees a couple of little collegers, to hold aside the skirts of his coat. On his left is Keate, like Jupiter about to hurl his thunderbolt; on his right ”the birch cupboard;” and though he can see nothing, he has little doubt of what is in his rear, the instant he is operated on. ”Neither intemperance nor old age hae, in gout or rheumatic, an agony to compare wi' a weel-laid-on whack of the tawse, on a part that for manners shall be nameless.”