Confessions of an Etonian

It is but yesterday, when I felt that to be "a pot-hunter"[1] was the lowest step of degradation; and I was quite right, for then I lived at home; my father had an admirable ken...

"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 w...

Though ever leading a life very much at variance with the established discipline of the college, it was seldom that I was detected; but about this time, though really living in...

In spite of the ingenuity I expended, in order to imbibe as small a quantity of Latin and Greek as was possible, and of the number of persons, whom I have so frequently heard de...

"Well, you are placed in the upper Greek; be in eight-o'clock-school to-morrow. Graham," calling me back, "take this order to the book-seller, and he will give you the requisite...

On reaching Bourges, my attention was attracted by an object widely differing from the venerable Abbot. Judging from my own experience, I may confidently affirm that not an Engl...

Of the seven days in the week, probably more flogging occurs on Friday than during all the others put together. On the unfortunate, the shuffling, and the dense, the effect of t...

The youngest of a numerous family,--now that every profession is overstocked,--has no right to entertain considerable expectations. Therefore, when my father endured the expense...

It was on my way to London, in company with her father, that, as the sun rose, I caught a glimpse in the horizon of the hill, on the other side of which the abode of my family w...

Knowing, at that time, so little of the language of those who surrounded me, as actually to envy the fluency of a parrot which I heard chattering with, I suspect, the true Paris...

A few weeks previous to the holidays, "the old Queen" gave a magnificent _fête_ at Frogmore, when, to form a prominent feature in the day's amusements, her favourites, the Etoni...

We are aware that, when we "train up a child in the way he should go, he will not depart from it;" but fortunately, when it is that in which he ought not to go, he certainly wil...

So long as I followed the course of the Loire, I was each day surrounded, though not by magnificent, yet by a beautiful and happy kind of scenery; but as often as I quitted its...

Though by no means superstitious, there was one circumstance, and only one, with regard to which I sometimes doubted whether it was not influenced by some fatality, and the pres...

The sole thing connected with my days on this spot, attended by a satisfactory feeling, is the remembrance of my long and quiet evenings, when I did happen to spend the week in...

Six years have now glided away, and my station as an Etonian has experienced a still greater revolution. In place of being a fag, I was now the puissant "captain of my dames," a...

My first half-year as an Etonian had now expired. Brief as it was, it has been to me the most portentous period of my existence. I sometimes feel that my fate, here and hereafte...

When I look back at this period of my life, though it must be with a feeling of disapprobation--and when I coldly say disapprobation, I insinuate remorse--let me confess that I...

A school-fellow and friend had there been drowned, and I had heard his piercing shriek as he fell from his boat. His body had not yet been recovered. This morning we had been pl...