13

The school was recognized for its high moral tone, one of the symptoms being an absence of bad language. One boy invented and used 'blam'; 'blast' was permissible if not used to excess; 'drat' was used by masters. On one occasion the Headmaster, whose expression was unruffled no matter what the state of affairs, was demonstrating in a mathematics class while a traction engine in the lane outside was puffing and snorting and grinding gravel into the surface. It was certainly difficult to hear for the Headmaster was not given to shouting. For once composure settled on us and did not leave us throughout the exposition—which we could not hear—of the intracacies of vulgar fractions. At last he surrendered. Ruffled rather than soothed by our occasional but well placed complaints that we had not heard, he burst out, "Oh drat that traction engine!" We were aghast, both at the mildness of the expletive and that it should be uttered at all. He sent a boy out with a message to the driver, but the boy failed to convey his headmaster's wishes effectively. For the rest of the period we watched the Headmaster—we could at least watch even if we could not hear him—without his usually noble expression. For he had a noble expression which often showed to advantage, particularly when he was preaching, or making a speech on Prize Day or other occasions when parents or visitors were present. 'A fine face' it was generally agreed, except by that small group of carping critics where envy and detraction are at work. Later on, when a wellknown artist was commissioned to paint his portrait, it was generally agreed by friends and foes alike that he had caught his expression perfectly; the friends averred that the fineness of the underlying character shone out from the canvas with an inner radiance; the few others agreed about the revelation, but insisted that it showed him as he might be if he were straining at stool. When I became an undergraduate at his old college at Oxford I met a don who had known him from those early days and who made to me the remark that "he was a downy old bird". I was slightly shocked because I was a supporter of the noble' school of thought—81and still am. Searching my mind for some criticism which would make the portrait more credible, less open to the criticism that it is vitiated by hero-worship, I think he may remind me of my ambition to soar into the empyrean without adequate down or its counterpart. In my schooldays, my fledgling period, religion provided me with a soft mental down. Such hardness of character that I had was more akin to bits of shell that continued to adhere than to the development of a character that was a 'spine'.