Chapter 5

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 hereafter, has hinged upon it--this world is globular for the same reason that a woman's tear is. Are we the creatures of the merest chance, or of eternal predestination through all time, if there be such a thing as time at all? The question is idle; for as we have never yet solved it, I begin to think we never shall. The Almighty has willed this obscurity, and therefore it is for the best.

I sensitively felt that I was launched amid the crowd of a bustling world, to steer and shift for myself as I best might. Like other boys, I had a tutor; but, though a thoroughly conscientious man, he was worse than useless; for he was to be practised on with such facility, that I, with his other pupils, imposed upon him as we chose.

When I returned for the holidays to the paternal roof, it was only to be fagged by my elder brethren; for here the fagging system, I regret to say, was not only tolerated, but carried out to its most deplorable extreme.

Ever distant then in our days of boyhood, and that, too, while under the same roof, now that the casualties of after-life have dispersed us, we are become, to all intents and purposes, entire strangers one towards the other.

As to my father, he was, of course, wholly engaged in the cares of providing for so large and expensive a family; and though a man, I am persuaded, of strong and ardent affection for his children, I can barely say that I was acquainted with him.

Accustomed to this sort of distant intercourse from my infancy, I was desirous of no other, until the following occasion, which happened a year or two subsequent to the present time.

I had been engaged in rather an arduous expedition, and, in consequence, was laid up a day or two afterwards with a fever, and in considerable danger of my life. As soon as I could be removed, I was sent to my father's house. In the evening, as we ranged ourselves round the fire, the rest of the family, from prudential motives, removed themselves to a distance. My father drew my chair towards his own, asserting that in illness one should not desert the other.

By the time that I returned home, I had moreover become a confirmed "shuffler."

This word bears, indeed, an ominous insinuation; but at Eton it is not so disreputable as it sounds. The shuffler ever employs what ingenuity he may be gifted with, in contriving how he may do as little in school, and as much out of it, with the least possible flogging; and it is astonishing to what a nicety this calculation can be reduced, and to what a degree of perfection a boy's powers for it may be brought, by constant and careful cultivation.

Yet I was, I think, far from being an idle boy. I neglected my studies, not to become listless and unemployed, but that I might earn more time for other, and, as most persons would think, less edifying pursuits, and was therefore invariably devoted to cricket, rowing, and foot-ball matches.

This, then, was the good or ill effect which resulted from the chance of circumstance. My father had at once concluded, that send a boy to Eton, pay the yearly bills, and his education was infallibly insured.

From the moment that I entered the college, I had been carelessly placed far above my acquirements; and constant flogging was inevitable, for a year or two at least, until, perhaps, by close application, I had made myself equal to my daily tasks. But this was a prospect by far too distant to be entertained by a boy of nine years old; for it is the ambition of a boy not to be flogged at all--not as little as possible.

An objection to sending a boy early to Eton is, that should he have the hardihood to brave frequent punishment, he may be very nearly as idle as he pleases; and at this early age, too, he has not the sense to apply himself to study of his own will, and that, too, while surrounded by so many temptations to the contrary.

One flogging, without the slightest stigma attaching to it, or reprimand, is the certain penalty of failure in his task. With hardihood or without it, I then had no chance, though, at all events, I acquired it, and that too, to such a degree, and I deemed the penalty so trivial, that I henceforth enjoyed a delightful sense of freedom and independence in its way.

If I bestowed a thought on the subject at all, it was to be flogged not more than once in a day, if I could conveniently do otherwise.

Yet, in an irrational mood, I would read--I would frequently steal off to some quiet spot in the neighbourhood, and employ myself in various histories, of which reading I was always very fond. My favourite retreat was up in an old pollarded willow-tree, secure from fagging, and therefore enjoying the distant voices in the playing-fields, delightfully contrasting with the quiet splash of the trout leaping in the river beneath me.

Thus I obtained a respectably accurate knowledge of the Roman, Grecian, and English histories, and a somewhat precocious insight too of the characters of their various and prominent actors.

As for the heroes of the fabulous ages, I was completely conversant with each of their circumstances, and for this reason. I must acknowledge, that, as the hour approached for punishment, I was apt to be troubled in mind, similarly to a patient about to undergo a disagreeable operation; but no sooner had I opened Lempriere's classical dictionary, than every unpleasing anticipation was dissolved, and I became totally unconscious of vulgar realities, and absorbed in its poetical but unequivocal immorality.