THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE MAYFAIR SET 
 
 I 
 
 THE 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 OF A BOY
 
 THE MAYFAIR SET 
 
 Foolscap Svo. 3s. 6d. each. 
 
 1. The Autobiography of a Boy, by G. S. 
 STREET, with Title-page designed by 
 C. W. FURSE. 
 
 2. The Joneses and the Asterisks, a Story 
 in Monologue, by GERALD CASIPBELL, 
 with six Illustrations and a Title-page 
 by F. H. TOWNSEND. 
 
 3. Select Conversations with an Uncle 
 (now extinct), by H. G. WELLS, with a 
 Title-page by F. H. TOWNSEND. 
 
 (IN PREPARATION) 
 
 4. For Plain Women only, by GEORGE 
 FLEMING. 
 
 5. Mrs. Albert Grundy, Observations in 
 Philistia, by HAROLD FREDERIC. 
 
 6. The Feasts of Autolycus, the Diary of 
 a Greedy Woman, edited by ELIZABETH 
 ROBINS PENNELL.
 
 THE 
 
 AVTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 OP A BOY 
 
 PASSAGES 
 SELECTED 
 BYH15FRIEND 
 
 GSSTREET 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHNLTINE- 
 
 TACMERRIflM
 
 Fifth Edition 
 
 Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty
 
 THE EDITOR'S APOLOGY 
 
 IN fulfilling a promise made to my friend, 
 whom by your leave I will call simply 
 Tubby, I have been conscious of a some- 
 what difficult dilemma. When he went to 
 Canada, he placed the manuscript of his 
 autobiography in my hands, with power to 
 select and abridge. I perceived that if I 
 published it in all its length nobody would 
 read it : his life in England was not various, 
 his orbit was circumscribed, the people he 
 met and the situations he faced had a cer- 
 tain sameness, the comments he made on 
 them dealt in repetitions. On the other 
 hand, having made my selections on the 
 principle of giving you none but typical 
 
 G! 
 ^'^
 
 viii AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 incidents, and these but once, I find the 
 result is meagre, and fear you may be angry 
 at being troubled with it at all. Tubby 
 himself was for publishing the whole. But 
 craving your pardon, if you be angry, I 
 think it is better to be amused (if amused 
 you be) for an hour or so than to be bored 
 for a day. I do assure you, you could have 
 borne no more. 
 
 The autobiography covers only the period 
 from his leaving Oxford to the other day, 
 and it may therefore be well to give you a 
 few facts of his earlier life, and perhaps a 
 word or two concerning the period men- 
 tioned above, since I may be deceived by my 
 intimate acquaintance with him in thinking 
 that his mode of life, his point of view, and 
 his peculiar qualities are indicated suffi- 
 ciently by himself. 
 
 He was expelled from two private and 
 one public school ; but his private tutor
 
 THE EDITOR'S APOLOGY ix 
 
 gave him an excellent character, proving 
 that the rough and ready methods of school- 
 masters'* appreciation were unsuited to the 
 fineness of his nature. As a young boy he 
 was not remarkable for distinction of the 
 ordinary sort at his prescribed studies and 
 at games involving muscular strength and 
 activity. But in very early life the infinite 
 indulgence of his smile was famous, and as 
 in after years was often misunderstood; it 
 was even thought by his schoolfellows that 
 its effect at a crisis in his career was largely 
 responsible for the rigour with which he 
 was treated by the authorities : ' they were 
 not men of the world, 1 was the harshest 
 comment he himself was ever known to 
 make on them. He spoke with invariable 
 kindness also of the dons at Oxford (who 
 sent him down in his third year), com- 
 plaining only that they had not absorbed 
 the true atmosphere of the place, which he
 
 x AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP A BOY 
 
 loved. He was thought eccentric there, and 
 was well known only in a small and very 
 exclusive set. But a certain amount of 
 general popularity was secured to him by 
 the disfavour of the powers, his reputation 
 for wickedness, and the supposed magni- 
 ficence of his debts. His theory of life 
 also compelled him to be sometimes drunk. 
 In his first year he was a severe ritualist, in 
 his second an anarchist and an atheist, in 
 his third wearily indifferent to all things, in 
 which attitude he remained in the two 
 years since he left the University until now 
 when he is gone from us. His humour of 
 being carried in a sedan chair, swathed in 
 blankets and reading a Latin poet, from his 
 rooms to the Turkish bath, is still remem- 
 bered in his college. 
 
 When he came to live in town, he used 
 to quote ' Ambition was my idol, which was 
 broken'; but I think he never really
 
 THE EDITOR'S APOLOGY xi 
 
 thought of it, certainly not in its common 
 forms, but lived his artistic life naturally, 
 as a bird sings. One or two ambitions he 
 did, however, confide to his intimates. He 
 desired to be regarded as a man to whom 
 no chaste woman should be allowed to 
 speak, an aim he would mention wistfully, 
 in a manner inexpressibly touching, for he 
 never achieved it. I did indeed persuade a 
 friend of his and mine to cut him in the 
 park one crowded afternoon; but his joy, 
 which was as unrestrained as his proud 
 nature permitted, was short-lived, for she 
 was cruelly forgetful, and asked him to 
 dinner the next day. 
 
 He confessed to me once that he regretted 
 he had played ill his part in the drama of 
 domestic life. It is true that no member 
 of his family, except his mother, will allow 
 you to mention his name now. There are 
 a few women who look perplexed when
 
 xii AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 they hear it, and many who laugh. Some 
 men there are who disliked the smiling toler- 
 ance I have mentioned above ; but those 
 who took advantage of his real humility to 
 swear at and romp with him perhaps it 
 was a higher pride that made him allow 
 it were fond of his society. People with 
 a common reputation of being artistic re- 
 garded him, I believe, with suspicion, since 
 his own devotion to art went far deeper 
 than theirs. Children bullied him, and he 
 was charming with old ladies. 
 
 The end was dramatic in its swiftness. A 
 little speech he made to a bishop who was 
 dining with his people was taken in ill 
 part by his father. He said it was the last 
 straw, and under cover of the metaphor sent 
 Tubby away from home, giving him but five 
 pounds a week on which to live his life. 
 The cruel injustice of his proceeding but 
 served to invigorate the spirits of my friend.
 
 THE EDITOR'S APOLOGY xiii 
 
 He made a noble effort to take the vulgar 
 burden of toil on to his shoulders. I pro- 
 cured him that beginning of a literary 
 career, a parcel of books to review. But 
 his devotion to art prevented his success. 
 He ranged the books on his table, forming 
 a charming harmony of colour, and spoke 
 of them wittily and well. His review was 
 merely a quotation from Shelley 
 
 ( I looked on them nine several days, 
 And then I saw that they were bad.' 
 
 It was all his self-respect allowed him to 
 say ; but they sent him no more books. On 
 leaving home he went into a delightful 
 little flat in Jermyn Street, which the friend 
 whom he calls Bobby had just left, and 
 gave Thursday supper-parties, at which he 
 was an ideal host. But troubles came thick 
 upon him. His man refused to wear a dress 
 which Tubby had spent many hours in de-
 
 xiv AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 signing. Nobody would print his poems. 
 His expenditure exceeded his income. 
 
 Finally, he accepted his father's proposal 
 he should go to Canada. It is supposed 
 that the capital he has taken with him will 
 serve him for at least six months, at the end 
 of which we look to see him in our midst 
 again. G. S. S.
 
 NOTE 
 
 What follows has been printed, with 
 the exception of a few pages, in the 
 ' National Observer,' as it was selected 
 from time to time, and is reprinted 
 by the kind permission of that journal.
 
 ALAS!
 
 I SHALL never forget the horror of the 
 moment when I knew that Juliet loved me. 
 Our intercourse had been so pleasant; it 
 was hard that this barrier should be raised 
 between us. Not, of course, that I realised 
 its effect at once ; I confess to a thrill of 
 common humanity ; I believe I even kissed 
 her ; I know I am only a man. But the 
 rush of despondency was upon me soon : 
 my mind, before my sense, had grasped the 
 inevitable conclusion. 
 
 I had worshipped this woman. That 
 subtle delight which (I dare to say) most 
 strong natures feel in yielding them captive 
 to a weaker had been mine for several 
 months. I had gloried in fetching and 
 carrying, and smiled at my contentment 
 with her little words of thanks. As I turn
 
 4 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 the pages of my diary I find noted down 
 all her rudenesses and rebuffs, and my 
 musings not cynical, but large-hearted 
 on the perversity of her sex. I had grown 
 quite accustomed to her being unmarried, 
 and was unreservedly happy. And now it 
 was all over ! 
 
 It was but last Thursday that, when I 
 put my customary question, * Can you not 
 love me a little ? ' instead of her delightful 
 ' I 'm sorry, but I 'm afraid I can't, 1 she 
 hung her head and stammered, ' I don't 
 know.' As I have confessed, I was gratified 
 at first and went through the interview in 
 an orthodox sort of way. It was as I sat 
 in the smoking-room at my club nobody 
 seemed inclined to talk that night that 
 the ghastliness of the situation flashed upon 
 me. If she had been married, one might 
 have found a temporary solution ; there 
 would have been an experience, at least, in 
 the sordid notoriety of the Divorce Court. 
 (Ah, why did I abandon my caution, and 
 venture off the track ?) Even then, how- 
 ever, I knew that my nature could never
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 5 
 
 have supported a mutual passion for long. 
 To have my every movement followed by 
 loving eyes, to be adored, and to meet with 
 constant gratitude it would have bored 
 me to death. Still, I could have risked 
 that and gone through with the matter. 
 But an unmarried girl ! She would expect 
 a proposal of marriage. Me, engaged to be 
 married ! Even in my misery I smiled at 
 the idea. The inevitable suggestion of the 
 4 young man ' and the ' Sunday out,' the 
 horrible stereotyped vulgarities, the foolish 
 engagement ring, the dreadful sense of being 
 imprisoned, the constant necessity of leav- 
 ing charming strangers to talk to somebody 
 you know by heart (I thought of this view 
 impersonally, for I really loved Juliet) the 
 utter impossibility of the whole business 
 simply confounded me, and I could not 
 allow myself to think of it. I have never 
 affected a superiority over other men in the 
 common things of life, nor studied to seem 
 different from them, but this thing I could 
 not face ; it would make even me ridiculous. 
 To marry in secret and to go to some re-
 
 6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 mote place until the time for congratula- 
 tion was over was conceivable. . . . But I 
 knew she would not ; no, no, some worthy, 
 common man was her proper mate ; I was 
 not made for constancy. If I pained her 
 now, it was that she might escape a greater 
 pain when her love increased as mine 
 diminished. So I wrote a letter to Juliet, 
 I will copy down her answer, for it seems 
 an indication of a curiously frequent phase 
 in women. ' Dear Harry,' she wrote, ' you 
 are delightful ! I hoped that Thursday 
 would lead to some agreeable variety in the 
 monotonous course of your foolishness, but 
 I never expected anything quite so delicious 
 as your letter. Of course I knew before it 
 arrived that your protestations meant no- 
 thing, or I should not have acted as I did. 
 Your idea of " sparing me future pain " is 
 most amusing, and I cannot be angry with 
 you. You can hardly think I need 
 apologise for humbugging you on Thurs- 
 day ; your vanity made it so absurdly easy. 
 If you would do some honest work, and 
 acquire an elementary sense of humour, you
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 7 
 
 would be quite a nice boy. You see I am 
 very indulgently yours, J. C. 1 
 
 Ah, the vanity of women, and the pains 
 they are at to save it ! I fear she must 
 have suffered keenly to deceive herself (or 
 to try to deceive me) so grossly. Poor 
 child, poor child !
 
 THE OLD GENERATION
 
 IT seems worth the pains to make a note of 
 my experience of to-day; for though it is 
 trivial as regards my history, there is some 
 instruction in this contact of a worthy, 
 middle-aged pedagogue, with his curious 
 narrowness of outlook and mediocre in- 
 telligence, and one like myself. 
 
 Even all those years ago, at school, I 
 think that I differed from the others in 
 seeing the excellent creature as he was. 
 To some few he was of course the Doctor, 
 a subject for abuse, but not for detailed 
 criticism ; to others he was a kindly superior 
 or a great scholar; to me he was simply 
 John Herbert Baxter, a poor human engine, 
 striving with imperfect powers to do what 
 an uninstructed habit of mind told him 
 was his duty, a man of some reading doubt-
 
 12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 less, and a distinct ability for organisation, 
 as impartial as his prejudices those queer, 
 unlovely prejudices ! allowed ; one who, 
 Heaven help the poor fellow, had never 
 lived. As for his scholarship, such a stamp 
 as University honours might put on a man 
 was his, but even then I was more exigent 
 in that matter and saw no trace in him of 
 a comprehension of the Greek spirit; it 
 is true I was never in the sixth, and so 
 had no close observation of the result of 
 his reading, but I often listened to his 
 sermons in the chapel. I used to try to 
 cultivate him in those days, and took an 
 interest, a weary interest, perhaps, in his 
 wife : poor dear, she was a sweet person in 
 many ways. When the rupture came, and 
 his ridiculous, natural prejudices and absurd 
 reverence for his silly rules inflicted an 
 agreeable but undoubted injury upon me, 
 and we parted, as I thought, for ever, my 
 judgment of him was unaltered; I felt as 
 some Charles the First towards his execu- 
 tioner, and could find it in my heart to 
 praise while I pitied him. So when we met
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 13 
 
 to-day there was no malice in my mind, 
 and I was ready to observe kindly this 
 specimen of a class that I have passed, as 
 it were, in the race of development. 
 
 I recognised him at once when he came 
 into my railway carriage (we were alone in 
 it), and I smiled at him as he sat down 
 opposite to me. As I expected, after greet- 
 ing me, his first question was : ' What are 
 you doing now?' To explain the folly of 
 it would have been to explain a philosophy 
 quite . unknown to him ; so I merely waved 
 my hands, and inquired about his wife, 
 calling her dear lady, as indeed she was. 
 He answered stiffly, and I saw he remem- 
 bered our ridiculous quarrel. But I wished 
 to have some profit from this encounter, 
 and even hoped he might go from it a 
 fresher and more clearly thinking man, 
 and therefore I tried, with gently search- 
 ing questions, to draw him out about his 
 work and its effects upon his mind. His 
 answers told me more than he (with that 
 bluff defensiveness which marks the national 
 character in the rough, and is so sad a com-
 
 14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 ment on our egotism) intended that they 
 should, and the gulf between us seemed 
 indeed impassable. I felt myself half angry 
 at this imprisonment of an intellect I knew 
 to be fairly capable, but also sorrowful 
 sorrowful almost to tears. At length our 
 conversation came to this. He said to me : 
 'You spoke just now of "the elect." May 
 I ask if you are one of them, and if so, who 
 elected you and for what purpose ? ' I have 
 a habit, when rude or sarcastic questions are 
 addressed to me, of looking at the questioner 
 with half-closed lids. It seemed to irritate 
 the poor Doctor, and he asked me angrily if 
 I were going to sleep. This gave me ani- 
 mation to speak plainly, and risking his 
 affection for me I determined to throw a 
 rope to this poor ignorant swimmer. 'I 
 am elected,' I said smiling, ' to try to show 
 you how inadequate are the ideas implied 
 by your remarks; to restore to you what 
 might have been. We have been talking 
 for some time with a wall between us; I 
 want you to scale it. I may seem to pre- 
 sume on too slight an acquaintance, but
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 15 
 
 from boyhood you have interested me. 
 Baxter, 1 I said, leaning forward and tap- 
 ping him on the knee, and speaking fami- 
 liarly, as to an equal, ' Baxter, do you never 
 feel that your life is wasted ? It is wholly 
 spent in fulfilling a mechanical function 
 that hundreds of others would fulfil as 
 well as you. Doctrinal prejudices shut 
 you off from the joy of untrammelled 
 thinking, moral prejudices from the joy 
 of untrammelled living. Believe me both 
 sorts are foolish, and they are so dull. 
 You munch the dry bones of life ; the 
 taste and the colour of it might not exist 
 for you. Be one of us; perform, if you 
 must, the vulgar duties of your calling, 
 but perform them with your mind set on 
 what is fine and rare. Rouse yourself. . . .' 
 Alas ! He interrupted me. 4 1 suppose,' 
 he said, 'there are people who think this 
 sort of thing amusing, but I think it grossly 
 impertinent. But I won't resent it, as I 
 might. You used to be a fool, and now 
 you are a mass of conceit as well, and seem to 
 be fast losing your manners. Probably, what
 
 16 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 little brains you have will go with them. 
 It 's a waste of words, but I may as well tell 
 you, you are preparing for yourself a dis- 
 contented manhood and a friendless old 
 age. 1 
 
 I put down his ipsissima verba, to be a 
 standing warning to me that I never again 
 try to fight against the perversity of his 
 generation. It is all very sad and terribly 
 disappointing. But the lesson is useful : we 
 must live our lives and beware of altruism. 
 I wished to be of service to this foolish 
 brother, but after all I was not his keeper.
 
 * BREATHE CLOSE UPON THE ASHES
 
 MY host and I were left alone, and presently 
 he went yawning to bed. I took a volume 
 from the shelves at random, stretched my 
 feet to the fire, and enjoyed the luxury of 
 sorrowful retrospect. So we had met again. 
 Romantic ! A beautiful woman, certainly, 
 but what things we read into them when a 
 mere passing affection like a cold or the 
 gout has possession of us. Yet I had not 
 been deceived ; she was very beautiful. 
 But her gaiety and ease annoyed me ; a 
 wistful timidity of manner, and in place of 
 her abundant health a worn and wasted 
 appearance would have been more seemly. 
 She must I said to myself be tired of 
 her unlovely mediocrity by this time, because 
 or though he seemed to treat her well. Once 
 bit was twice shy, but I was not assured of it.
 
 20 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 It was well for some things to be middle- 
 aged, but, ah ! le beau temps . . . ! Then 
 the door opened, and she came in most 
 naturally, in a wondrous dark dressing- 
 gown, the sleeves turned up with white 
 silk : her hands were always perfect. The 
 following is an exact account of this critical 
 interview, as far as my memory serves me. 
 
 ' I was with Nora in her room, and her 
 husband said at the door he had left you 
 alone. So I thought I would go and talk 
 to you.' 
 
 She was perfectly calm, and I answered 
 coldly : ' It is very good of you. Do you 
 mind my smoking ? ' 
 
 4 Do I mind ... I thought you might 
 like to talk to me : we go away to-morrow. 
 You did once, I think. 1 
 
 The complacent smile in her untroubled 
 face irritated me exceedingly. ' It is always 
 charming to talk to you." 1 
 
 * Harry, have you not forgiven me ? ' Her 
 confidence was purely outrageous. ' What,' 
 I asked, ' do you think I have to forgive in 
 you ? ' ' Oh, 1 she replied, without the least
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 21 
 
 sign of contrition ; ' I think perhaps I was 
 rather unkind to you. I did not know you 
 were so much in earnest.' 
 
 ' If, 1 I rejoined, and I felt my opening was 
 clear ' If you wish me to tell you frankly 
 what I think I have to forgive, it is that you 
 made life a simple hell to me for weeks. 
 Good God, how I suffered ! ' 
 
 ' You are growing terribly stout, Harry.' 
 ' No,' I said sternly, ' I can't laugh it off. 
 I don't wish to talk about it. Let us change 
 the subject.' * Oh dear,' she said, and I felt 
 it useless to strive against her levity ; ' you 
 are as bad as ever. Harry, I want to be 
 friends.' She held out her hand. As I 
 said, it was a very pretty hand, and I held 
 it dubiously a moment. Then I shook it 
 conventionally, and somehow it was I, and 
 not she, who looked supremely ridiculous. 
 She smiled more provokingly than ever. 
 ' How is the world treating you, Harry ? ' 
 ' All right, thank you.' I was quite un- 
 concerned now. ' Have you been here long ? 
 I always think it the pleasantest house I 
 know.'
 
 22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 ' Only a week,' she replied, ' and we leave 
 to-morrow. My husband is never happy 
 away from home.' 
 
 * Isn't he ? ' I said. ' I 'm never happy any- 
 where ! ' 
 
 The childish sentimentality of it ! I 
 nearly choked with anger at my folly. She 
 was clearly gratified. She said softly, * I wish 
 I could help you to be happy ; I would do 
 almost anything to make you so. 1 She looked 
 appealingly. I felt the blood quick in me. 
 I leaned forward and held one of her hands. 
 ' Gwen, you can help me. You can make 
 me very happy. If you knew how I loved 
 
 you ' She laid the other hand on 
 
 my head, very lightly. I felt I was tremb- 
 ling when I heard her voice. ' My poor 
 boy, I will be an elder sister to you.' 
 
 I looked up : she was smiling with the 
 air of an affable angel. I could have sworn 
 at her. l l don't want a sister.' She dis- 
 engaged her hand. 'You tortured me once ; 
 you can make me amends a thousand times, 
 
 if ' ' If what ? ' 'If you will accept, 
 
 really accept my love, if . . . .' She had
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 23 
 
 risen to her feet. ' It is very late ; I must 
 go to bed. Good-night.' She was gone 
 with her last word. 
 
 I considered the alternatives. If her idea 
 had been to amuse herself with the sight of 
 a renewed but discreet passion, to keep me 
 her lowly worshipper for ever, I was glad of 
 the result. But if she had meant in good 
 faith to make an advance to intimacy again, 
 to atone for what was past, I feared I had 
 been a little unamiable. This became a 
 conviction, and I was eager to apologise. 
 I spoke with her the next day for a minute 
 apart as she went through the hall to dress 
 for her departure. ' I have thought, 1 I 
 said, * about our conversation last night, and 
 I wish to thank you.' ' Last night ? ' She 
 looked straight at me. ' You forget I had 
 gone to bed when you came into the draw- 
 ing-room. Nora ! Harry says he saw a 
 vision or something in the library last night. 
 You must make him write a story about it. 1 
 Did I hear her laugh as she went upstairs ?
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND
 
 SOMETIMES I am concerned, thinking of my 
 contemporaries those, I mean, who are not 
 of Us, and are yet from the accidents of life 
 more or less my intimates. I mean those 
 frank young barbarians who were some of 
 my comrades at school and at Oxford, or 
 from family or other ties familiar to me, 
 whom I meet at my barbarian club (as I 
 call it), or at dinners or country houses, who, 
 knowing that I am young in mere years, 
 and seeing that I take a part in their con- 
 versation, think me one of themselves. In 
 truth, I find it restful to listen to their 
 simple, homely talk, even to share their 
 kindly, honest pleasures. I like to see their 
 fresh young faces sparkle with merriment, 
 as I suit some piece of simple irony to their 
 comprehension, to watch their pathetic (is
 
 28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 it not ?) appreciation of their little successes 
 in love and sport. Yet often, as I sit listen- 
 ing to their prattle, I feel wistful, thinking 
 of what I have lost to gain my difference 
 from them, wistful and almost regretful ; I 
 feel old, so old, sad, and very weary. I 
 have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, or 
 rather of Thought, and lo ! it is bitter in 
 my mouth. But these are not the reflec- 
 tions I intended to make : I have chosen my 
 part ; le jeu est fait ... I was saying I am 
 sometimes concerned when I think of my 
 contemporaries. It is not that I feel I 
 neglect any duty of making them even as 
 myself. The poor Doctor was warning of 
 that futility : and moreover these young 
 lives are better as they are. Should I cloud 
 their unsophisticated happiness with ques- 
 tions they can never answer, with doubts 
 they can never solve ? Ah, no indeed. Not 
 from heaven, as the poet feigned, came the 
 precept 'Know thyself. 1 But I sometimes 
 ask myself : Is it fair ? I take their all, as 
 it were, and give them so little of myself. 
 They open themselves to me and keep
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 29 
 
 nothing back, while I show them but one 
 side, and an unimportant side, of my life 
 and character. Now, as I would wish to be 
 remembered with kindness by my fellows, I 
 set down in this place my justification. It 
 shows how I tried to be frank and to leave 
 no possibility of suspicion of deceit or re- 
 serve, and how it was proved to me that a 
 lower cannot grasp a higher mind, and is 
 in fact impatient of its existence, so that 
 one may fairly give his comrades only what 
 they are fitted to receive. So far as my 
 memory serves me, I set down the incident 
 exactly as it occurred, even to the curious 
 and sometimes coarse dialect of my young 
 friend. 
 
 I was arranging my room after breakfast, 
 repairing the ungracious stiffness which is 
 always the beginning of the trials of my 
 day, when it struck me that my new rug 
 matched ill with my smoking suit. The 
 better to test it I had sat down on the floor, 
 when the door was flung violently open, 
 and a needlessly loud voice proclaimed a 
 typical barbarian. ' Hullo, Tubby, as bad
 
 30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 as all that ? ' It was not the meaningless 
 nickname that distressed me: I permit it 
 for its obvious affection. But my nerves 
 are not what they were, and I felt helpless 
 as I watched him hang his hat on my little 
 Ganymede, and pull so irrationally the 
 chair I call my Lady's Chair from the spot 
 where long thought had placed it, and fill 
 the room with the smoke of his cigar : I had 
 denied myself a cigarette for my roses' sake. 
 He was a dear creature, but he was the 
 World, which had stormed my little fort of 
 individuality. My cat came purring to 
 comfort me, and I took courage to say what 
 was on my mind. 'Sit down, Frank,' I 
 said; 'I have something to say to you.' 
 'Look here, Tubby, I want you to come 
 racing.' Racing, racing ! How dear and 
 how distant it all was ! ' Ah, Frank,' I 
 said, 'when you have heard me you will 
 understand why I cannot go with you ' for 
 to the dust and the noise of a racecourse I 
 can no longer accommodate myself. 'Not 
 bad news, old man ? ' His sympathy 
 touched me ; I rose and looked down at him
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 31 
 
 sadly. ' I fear it will be so to you.' Then 
 I thought I would prepare him, and going 
 to the table, took from the secret drawer 
 my Ballad of Shameful Kisses. ' Read it," 1 I 
 said simply. I watched his face, but his 
 class is trained to conceal emotion, and he 
 covered his with foolish jests. 'Poetry ! ' he 
 said. ' Tubby the Troubadour . . . O Lord ! 
 . . . Thanks very much, old man ; Fm not a 
 good judge, but it seems to rhyme all right. 
 Rather steep, though, isn't it ? What you 
 might call indecent ; what ? But are you 
 coming racing ?' 'I showed you my Ballad,' 
 I said slowly, ' that you may know what a 
 gulf there is between us.' ' You mean,' he 
 rejoined with his vacant laugh, 'that it's a 
 record of your experiences. I blush for you, 
 Tubby. I think you're a very wicked 
 young man. But will you come racing or 
 not ? ' ' Frank, I beg your pardon. You 
 see do you not ? that our intercourse has 
 been one-sided. You have told me without 
 
 reserve all your life ' * I'm damned if I 
 
 have,' the poor boy interrupted : but I con- 
 tinued pitilessly, 'And I, my dear child,
 
 32 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 have lived a life apart, which you can never 
 enter. Art, my poor Frank . . .' Here he 
 broke in with a laugh, and threw a cushion 
 at me, and his horseplay finally stopped me. 
 ' Shut up, Tubby. I give you ten minutes 
 to dress. As for art and all those sort of 
 things, if you take my advice you'd chuck 
 the whole boiling. It's all very well for 
 some chaps, but it 's not in your line ; you 
 don't understand it, and people laugh at 
 you I mean they will laugh at you, don't 
 you know ? You don't look like it ; you do 
 yourself too well, and all that.' 
 
 Poor Frank ! I let him have his way and 
 we went racing together, and I soothed his 
 jealousy. I suppose he could not under- 
 stand why I was so gentle with him that 
 day.
 
 VARIUM ET MUTABILE
 
 I COUNT myself experienced in the ways of 
 women, but I am yet at a loss to account 
 for the changes that chanced at Bramleigh. 
 It is, by the way, a pleasant house, where 
 you are sure to find, in the midst of the 
 stupid, idealess people who are everywhere, 
 one or two poor spirits who have lived and 
 can respond. It was there that, a week ago, 
 I met Gwendoline yet again did, in fact, 
 take her in to dinner on the evening of my 
 arrival. I took the liberty of an old friend 
 to speak but little during the essential part 
 of dinner, having little I cared to say to her 
 while a need that, however dignified by art, 
 is yet animal was in process of satisfaction. 
 Then she rallied me, pretending to think 
 my silence a question of preference for 
 material things (an ancient joke against
 
 36 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 me, at which I can afford to smile), and 
 we fell into the old manner. Neither 
 alluded to the past : we began, as it were, 
 a new game; but I saw she had not as 
 how could she have? forgotten. A talk 
 in the conservatory cemented, as I thought, 
 this basis of intimacy. But the next morn- 
 ing brought a change. She had promised 
 to walk with me to the Ruin, and I had 
 pondered much on my procedure. But 
 when she joined me in the hall, it was 
 to say as though it were a matter of 
 course 'Charlie is coming; it's his first 
 visit, and he has never seen it.' Now I 
 can bear with their husbands, poor dears, 
 as a rule ; but this creature is insufferable, 
 a rude person, a clown. I said rather 
 bitterly : ' I designed a comedy for two, 
 and you have made it a farce for three.' 
 She frowned and said : ' Would you like a 
 tragedy for one ? ' meaning, I suppose, that 
 she was afraid. An uncivilised touch in 
 her ; but, it may be, some poor woman who 
 had known me ... or her stupid husband 
 had shown jealousy. The walk was futile,
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 37 
 
 of course, and I confess my irritation pre- 
 vented me from condescending to his level, 
 and even his piteous attempts at sarcasm 
 could not move me to relent. From that 
 time Gwendolen's manner became cold, dis- 
 tant, somewhat stupid, not elect. I sup- 
 posed she was adopting an immemorial 
 device, and smiled at the incapacity for 
 change of tactics in her sex. 
 
 So I turned myself to a charming little 
 thing who was one of the party. She was 
 very pretty, and had little graceful move- 
 ments and little eager glances in her inno- 
 cent blue eyes. An appealing child ! And 
 she could be taught, and took me for 
 teacher, and I found the office agreeable for 
 a week. There was a curious pleasure in 
 watching her wondering gaze, as I smiled 
 away her gods and illusions and showed her 
 a glimpse of what life might be. 
 
 And then came that atrocious cricket- 
 match. Bramleigh was to be matched with 
 some near place, and the men were con- 
 tinually making lists. I like to encourage 
 these things : to chat with a group while
 
 38 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 the game is in progress, and cheer the 
 tedious affair with good-natured ridicule of 
 the players, and joke with them afterwards 
 about their feats and failures. This is, I 
 think, all that can be fairly expected of me, 
 and so when I was asked to play, of course 
 I laughingly declined. On the morning of 
 the game I was watching a merry little 
 group round Gwendolen, when presently she 
 came to me and begged me in her sweetest 
 manner to play as a favour to herself. The 
 very fact that she had been unamiable com- 
 pelled me to acquiesce, for I had to avoid 
 any appearance of sulking (as of course she 
 knew), and thus QO women gain their ends. 
 * Dear lady, 1 I said, ' I can refuse you no- 
 thing." 1 But I was glad when I saw what 
 pleasure my complaisance gave these simple 
 folk. Doubtless, in some vague, dull way 
 they felt the difference between us, and 
 were proud that I should share their sport. 
 I heard them say : ' Tubby is going to play,"* 
 and laugh in gleeful gratitude. . . . The 
 absurd mania for outdoor sports that afflicts 
 this country, and the ridiculous importance
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 39 
 
 attached to proficiency in them, make me a 
 little sad. They were, no doubt, sorry that 
 the accidents of the game repaid my kind- 
 ness with continuous exertion and actual 
 physical pain, and it was a charming thought 
 that prompted them to laugh at me and say 
 I had lost the match, by way of giving me 
 the role of culprit which is less annoying 
 than his who forgives. I laughed with 
 them, but I was weary, and sought my 
 child early that evening for refreshment 
 in her (I confess) pleasant admiration. 
 
 It was an odd experience. My little 
 blue-eyed disciple would no more of my 
 teaching; she turned our converse to that 
 inane cricket-match, and made Boeotian jokes 
 at my expense. She was utterly changed, 
 no longer the admirer of a master, but the 
 critic of an equal nay, of an inferior ! 
 that ignorant child of twenty. And yet 
 nothing but a silly game had intervened. 
 And Gwendolen came to me the next day, 
 before I left, to make an odd little speech. 
 'Harry, 1 she said, 'I am penitent. I thought 
 you had changed, and your conceit ' ah !
 
 40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 that old tribute to wisdom ! c seemed to 
 have become genuine and not an affectation 
 any more. One or two things you said to 
 me seemed to imply . . . never mind ! And 
 then you were so absurd and irritating with 
 Charlie. I wanted him to like you, and I 
 was very cross indeed. But I admired the 
 good-natured way in which you made a fool 
 of yourself yesterday, and you stood our 
 chaff very well. Only, my dear boy, please 
 don't . . . you understand ? * 
 
 Yes, I think I did. Divested of its odd 
 artifices to conceal defeat, the little speech 
 was plain, and my meeting with Gwendolen 
 in the autumn will be interesting. She 
 meant I was not to return her coldness, 
 and I can afford a little magnanimity. But 
 I am yet puzzled over the meaning of my 
 blue-eyed child.
 
 THE COMMON CURSE
 
 TO-NIGHT I have passed through a crisis, and 
 though it was of a sordid and undignified 
 kind, and one at which I can already laugh, 
 it is fitting I should record it. Thinking to 
 find the house empty when I came to sleep 
 a night in it on my way through town, I 
 came upon my father in the hall. He was 
 in town on business, he told me, having left 
 my mother and sisters in the country. I 
 begged he would not allow my unexpected 
 presence to keep him at home, for I in- 
 tended to dine at the club. He asked me 
 to dine with him tete-a-tete at home. I was 
 surprised, for I had always believed him to 
 be a little nervous in my society, although 
 I was ever anxious to put him at his ease ; I 
 was also somewhat regretful, for in the pre- 
 sent state of the house I could hardly expect
 
 44 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 to eat there with that freedom from anxiety 
 and irritation which is all I require. But in 
 a way I was interested. I have never fallen 
 into the mistake of despising my father be- 
 cause he is old-fashioned and a little dull. 
 One's intellect is often tired and one craves 
 for a contrast, and the dear fellow's bluff, 
 downright manner and homely good sense 
 are often amusing and acceptable. More- 
 over, the savage virtues courage and en- 
 durance of which he has given proof 
 command an instinctive respect, and I like 
 to feel I must have them in my blood. In- 
 tellectually, also, noblesse oblige. But my 
 boyish dream of making him my companion 
 has long gone the way of all others. I tried 
 long and patiently, but the verdict of the 
 balance was irresistible. And long and 
 patiently I tried to be his companion, and 
 discussed ah me, those discussions ! the 
 stupid, tedious questions of politics that 
 seemingly sufficed for his mental food, but 
 the wolf of originality would in spite of me 
 appear, as it were, under my sheep's clothing 
 of commonplaceness. No : good, worthy
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 45 
 
 man ! The conviction was sorrowful but 
 sure that he was better left to his politics 
 and newspapers and sport and friends such 
 friends ! and I to my thoughts and my art. 
 Now and then I have observed him curi- 
 ously, ready to welcome any development, 
 but save that increasing years render him 
 less and less tolerant of what he does not 
 understand, my father is almost Oriental in 
 his unchangeableness. To-night I was ready 
 for a fresh inspection. 
 
 Imperturbable as I believe my temper to 
 be, I could not trust myself to speak during 
 dinner. It is idle to deny that physical 
 causes shape our lives, and the thought of 
 how much of my better self must be warped 
 and wasted by that ghastly travesty of a 
 dinner, that criminal neglect of the most 
 elementary principles . . . who knows what 
 bitter trains of thought and evil impulses, 
 started to-night, may work unconsciously in 
 my brain and come back upon me to sour 
 my middle life? But when we were left 
 alone over our coffee I braced myself to talk 
 good-humouredly. ' It 's a good opportu-
 
 46 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 nity,' my excellent parent began, 'to talk 
 over something seriously with you.' ' Seri- 
 ousness always involves a risk,' I answered, 
 smiling, ' but if I can help you in any per- 
 plexity . . .' 'I want to know how long 
 this sort of thing's to go on. 1 I smiled 
 again at his simplicity. ' Dismissing a de- 
 pendant is an ungracious action,' I said, 
 * but surely not an impossible. I will sup- 
 port you, and I'm sure she cannot defend 
 this dinner.' ' Don't pretend to be a greater 
 fool than you are. How long do you pro- 
 pose to loaf about town ? When am I to 
 hear of your earning some money?' The 
 utter unreason and irrelevancy of it silenced 
 me for a moment, and, in fact, having 
 generally deputed my mother (who can bear 
 with his absurd humours more easily than I) 
 to answer such questions, I was for a mo- 
 ment at a loss. He went on : ' Now, attend 
 to me, Harry.' The ex cathedra pose was 
 laughable, dear, honest man ! ' Of course 
 this reading for the Bar is all humbug. 
 Some day you must earn your living. So 
 long as I live you can have a home here,
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 47 
 
 but if I die your mother won't be able to 
 keep you.' His robust health is such a re- 
 proach to my poor overtaxed nerves that I 
 could hardly feel his speech pathetic, and 
 the coarseness of his phrases jarred painfully. 
 I tried to turn the conversation into a 
 general vein. 'Surely it is a mistake, 1 I 
 said, 'to be haunted by these remote con- 
 tingencies. Do you know, I rather wonder 
 that a soldier like yourself is not free from 
 it ? Of course it is as true as it is obvious 
 that we must all die, even so hale a man as 
 you. "Death laughs, 11 ' I murmured, half 
 to myself 
 
 ' ' ' Death laughs, breathing close and relentless 
 In the nostrils and eyelids of lust " ' 
 
 4 Never mind your poetry now, 1 he said, and 
 I ended in a sigh. ' This is a question of 
 business. You know I 'm a plain, unculti- 
 vated person.' He is somewhat over-fond 
 of parading his ignorance, but I was fain to 
 re-assure him, and told him simply I re- 
 spected him none the less on that account. 
 My calmness seemed to irritate him, and I 
 knew he would say more than he meant. I
 
 48 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 was never deficient in a sense of humour, 
 and my amusement was fortunate, for his 
 remark was outrageous : ' I intend that you 
 shall go into a bank.' 
 
 The actual proposition was nothing, 
 merely an idle expression of anger, though 
 the hideous picture called up by my ima- 
 gination was painful, and will, I fear, come 
 back to me. But I felt that I must deal 
 firmly with the situation, and prevent its 
 recurrence. ' You will excuse me,' I said, 
 ' if I do not follow you into details. I have 
 no right to stultify myself with the me- 
 chanical drudgery you indicate, if it is 
 necessary to notice that suggestion; and, 
 by the way, the law has long ceased to 
 interest me. But you may be at ease. I 
 have a gift which may be sold for silver and 
 gold the gift of song, father though 
 nothing but the needs of those dear to me 
 would induce me to sell my child. Or if 
 need be, I can live on a crust in an attic." 1 
 The good father had pursued some train of 
 confused associations which prevented him 
 from understanding me, for he said : * If
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 49 
 
 you expect anything from your grandfather, 
 you may give that idea up. He says he 
 prefers a fit of the gout to listening to you. 1 
 'It must be sad, 1 I said, 'to witness the 
 mental decay of a parent; I feel for you, 
 father. But I repeat ; if need be, I can live 
 by my pen, live on bread and water in a 
 garret. So that is settled. 1 I glanced at 
 the clock. ' It 's my belief, Harry, 1 he said, 
 with a recognisable flash of uncouth humour, 
 'that when you can't cadge any longer 
 you '11 steal. 1 I thought it best to indulge 
 him with a laugh, and to end the interview, 
 having dealt manfully with the crisis, and 
 being in truth rather bored. 
 
 ' Where are you going ? ' he asked. He 
 may have been sad that I did not stay with 
 him, but his absurdity to-night deserved a 
 mild recognition. ' To sup at the club,' I 
 answered. ' Go to the devil ! ' he said, the 
 dear, choleric old-world father! A sordid 
 crisis ; but I am glad to have passed it.
 
 'AGAINST STUPIDITY . . .'
 
 I HAVE never shared that iconoclastic spirit 
 of ridicule which some of my more thought- 
 ful acquaintances show towards the Church. 
 In truth, I take such a spirit to be an im- 
 perfection in their culture, a sign that taste 
 is not equal to intellect, and I profess I 
 would rather my own mind were as that 
 of an ordinary bishop than that my cul- 
 ture should be merely intellectual. From 
 a purely aesthetic point of view, there is 
 much that is acceptable in the Church's 
 ritual and surroundings. Why trouble about 
 the import of her teachings ? I never listen 
 to them, or merely smile when some frag- 
 ment of quaint dogmatism breaks in on my 
 repose. But I love to sit in some old 
 cathedral and fancy myself a knight of the 
 middle ages, ready to die dear foolish 
 fellow ! for his simple faith.
 
 54 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 But this charm of medisevalism that I am 
 content should excuse the existence of an 
 institution which, as a thinker, I am forced 
 to pronounce an anachronism, is so rudely 
 broken by individual clergymen. I would 
 gladly listen if they talked to me of pale, 
 pure saints and quaint, ascetic martyrs, or 
 told me of beautiful, useless miracles which 
 they had read of in their curious lore. But, 
 to speak roughly, I find them painfully 
 modern. Their fare should be a manchet 
 of bread and a cup of spring water ; as it is 
 they join in our lunches and dinners. They 
 should know nothing of what has happened 
 for hundreds of years ; I find them inter- 
 ested in all the tedious subjects which 
 oppress me in the newspapers. Such an one 
 is Fairford, who is staying in this house. A 
 fine savage, beyond question, tall and broad : 
 he ( rowed stroke ' or did something of the 
 sort in my college boat at Oxford, and I 
 liked to count this young Hercules one of my 
 friends so strong and noble as an animal, 
 and with all his sinews and muscles so utterly 
 my inferior. Intellectual, of course, the
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 65 
 
 good fellow could never be ; but what, from 
 my point of view, absolutely unfits him for 
 his calling is his full-blooded, hearty nature. 
 I seek in a clergyman some faint echo of 
 mediaeval mystery and spirituality ; I think 
 of that and then turn to this big, healthy 
 creature talking of cricket and agriculture. 
 The contrast is comical, but yet annoying ; 
 and I made up my mind to try if I could 
 not communicate to this honest Fairford 
 some sense of the true fitness of things. 
 
 My opportunity came to-day when I found 
 him smoking a pipe after luncheon in front 
 of the house. A gentle stroll at this time 
 is part of the wholesome discipline to which 
 I subject myself, and I invited him to 
 accompany me as far as the gate. ' Fairford, 1 
 I began, ' I want to talk to you on a subject 
 that demands some apology. You will 
 acquit me, I am sure, of any wish to be im- 
 pertinent, if I say it is about yourself in 
 connection with your profession. 1 My manner 
 was designedly courtier-like ; he answered 
 in his inappropriate English fashion : * All 
 right, fire away. 1 * Well, then, 1 I said, f mj
 
 66 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 dear Fairford, conceive my shot to be the 
 lightest of arrows ; I only wish to suggest. 
 I will not of course speak to you of your 
 faith ; that would be obtrusive and un- 
 necessary ; besides, in many ways your faith 
 is charming. It is in you, in the outward 
 Fairford, that I would like to see some 
 difference. You have many excellent 
 qualities, my good Fairford, but you are 
 not mediaeval. 1 ' Why should I be ? ' said 
 my puzzled friend. (The obvious idea was 
 quite new to him !) ' Because,' I said, and 
 warmed to my task, ' because, my dear, 
 good Fairford, you represent an institution 
 whose charm and meaning are that it keeps 
 the remote past with us. In a sense you 
 are past too ; you are not modern as I am 
 modern. But in the ordinary sense you are 
 very modern indeed. What are your in- 
 terests ? you talk sport and politics for all the 
 world like my father ; you should be twenty 
 generations earlier. You laugh ; you sing 
 great noisy songs ; you say you would shoot 
 if you had time. All that is wrong. You 
 should never speak above a murmur ; I
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 57 
 
 think you should not be seen save in the 
 dimness of twilight. 1 
 
 I knew of course he would not argue with 
 me, and desired merely to let my words sink 
 in. I was even prepared for some irrelevant 
 protestation. But I could not have ima- 
 gined the savage, animal outburst of un- 
 reasoning brute force with which he expressed 
 his impotent disagreement. Stopping sud- 
 denly, he said to me, ' Tubby, do you 
 wrestle ? ' I smiled and said, ' Nay, good 
 friend, I will wrestle with you in argument ' 
 when he, appearing not to hear my con- 
 cluding words, and throwing down his pipe, 
 sprang at me, grasped me with his great 
 bony arms, and flung me to the ground with 
 such violence that my straw hat fell off. I 
 was hurt physically ; my breath came with 
 difficulty, and I feared the shock might have 
 injured my lungs ; it was but a few minutes 
 after lunch. I looked up at him, and he, 
 great hulking savage, was laughing in 
 ignorant, stupid triumph. I was on the 
 point of addressing him with a sarcasm 
 which would have turned his triumph to
 
 58 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 defeat, when I heard feminine laughter, and 
 my hostess and Gwendolen came up. 
 ' Harry, 1 said the latter, ' your beautiful tie 
 is disarranged : what has happened ? 1 Fair- 
 ford said : ' Tubby insisted on wrestling 
 with the Church militant, and is out of 
 training. 1 I remembered the attraction 
 physical prowess has for all women, even, 
 no doubt, for Gwendolen, and said with a 
 laugh : ' We must wrestle again when I 'm 
 in practice, Fairford. For the present I 
 yield to Christian muscularity. 1 I looked at 
 Gwendolen with a little ironical smile, and 
 she laughed again. After all, poor blunder- 
 ing Fairford^ wild-beast-like resentment of 
 enlightenment may not have been amiss.
 
 LALAGE, THE BORE
 
 I CANXOT call the heroine of last night by 
 the name I heard ; it is inexpressibly painful 
 like some flaunting jeweller's shop. That 
 which of right belongs to her is probably 
 far less odious, suggestive, it may be, of a 
 squalid and sordid life in some dismal, 
 monotonous slum a life that to a spectator 
 from my own world might have some 
 whimsical charm of contrast and be the basis 
 of an odd romance. It might have recalled 
 Hazlitt to my memory, and his wayward 
 erotic fever. But the name I heard is 
 dreadful, dreadful in itself, and terribly 
 appropriate. I will call her Lalage. Dulce 
 ridentem! It was indeed a clear laugh, 
 coming across the thick buzz of conversa- 
 tion and the noise of knives and glasses, 
 which first induced me to regard her. Men
 
 62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 act from mingled motives; even I cannot 
 always determine which it was that pre- 
 dominated in me. It was so last night. It 
 was partly no doubt the warmth and gaiety 
 of the little supper-party, which finished one 
 of those boyish evenings I now and then 
 permit myself; we had been merry and 
 joyous, and I had bent to the humour of 
 my companions more than is my wont. It 
 was partly that laugh which seemed so 
 pleasant then. 
 
 But there was another motive. I have 
 never cared for the society of Lalage and 
 her like. My reason is simple: they bore 
 me to death. It is not that they are vulgar, 
 or coarse, or mercenary. It is that from 
 my point of view they are painfully, nay, 
 shockingly respectable. 
 
 This may sound a paradox, but it is sadly 
 true. Words are more than lives. Their 
 lives are as they are; but they appear to 
 keep intact the silly bourgeois prejudices in 
 which they were bred. I say to them things 
 which some women I know would argue 
 about or smile at as the case might be ;
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 63 
 
 those others cannot conceive that I am seri- 
 ous. They cannot understand that I do not 
 share traditional interpretations of right 
 and wrong; they insist tacitly on my re- 
 garding myself as a sinner and them as out- 
 casts. Then again they are snobbish, 
 reverencing accidental advantages of wealth 
 and rank : some foolish companion richer 
 than I though quite uneducated has fre- 
 quently been preferred to me. So I avoid 
 their society. But this avoidance has often 
 been misunderstood by my friends, and 
 attributed to a foolish morality at which I 
 should be the first to blush. And last night 
 they sported with my reluctance until I was 
 grieved, and so I was introduced to Lalage. 
 Ah ! how unspeakably tedious she was ! 
 I had hoped for a moment to find her a 
 Faustine, or at least with something of 
 Herodias' daughter. She was merely a re- 
 spectable Cockney playing truant. I wanted 
 her to be wild and wicked and abandoned, 
 and she was nothing of the sort. I was 
 inclined to be free and gay ; the vapid 
 vulgarity with which she joked with Bobby,
 
 64 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 who introduced us, sobered me at once. As 
 I took my seat in the little brougham I felt 
 I was going to execution. Her prettiness 
 was fast ebbing away. 6 1 like Bobby,' she 
 began ; ( he 's a great swell, isn't he ? 
 Hasn't he a chance of being a duke ? ' I 
 saw her drift and answered decisively : ' I 
 trust not. Most dukes are middle-class, 
 and Bobby might be absorbed.' She stared, 
 and said : < What a funny old thing you 
 are ! ' I looked out of the window. i Give 
 me a cigarette,' she said next ; ' I 'm longing 
 to smoke. I didn't smoke in there ; I don't 
 think ladies ought to in public, do you ? ' 
 I groaned, and she said : ' Cheer up, dear 
 boy.' ' Child,' I said, ' let us forget the 
 world and its conventions ; let us be joyous 
 and free. Let us think we are Greeks of 
 old, before cold ascetics came to cloud the 
 
 lives of men. Let us .' ' This beastly 
 
 cigarette ash has fallen on my cloak,' she 
 interrupted ; ' brush it off ! ' I was silent 
 awhile, and then she called my attention to 
 the merits of the brougham and told me 
 how much she had to pay for it. I tried
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 65 
 
 desperately to enjoy the situation. I looked 
 at Lalage ; decidedly she was pretty no 
 longer. And then I shuddered when I re- 
 membered how the brand of champagne we 
 had drunk was chosen against my advice. 
 Yes ; I had indigestion. And then suddenly 
 the thought of Gwendolen came to com- 
 plete my discomfiture. It was utterly 
 Philistine and commonplace that the 
 thought of her should make me dislike my 
 position ; I hated myself for it, but so it 
 was. On a sudden impulse I stopped the 
 brougham, explained that I was ill, and 
 found means to appease Lalage's anger. 
 For a moment as I strolled home I thought 
 that perhaps my companions were right in 
 a sense, and some idiotic principle I had 
 learned in childhood had unconsciously re- 
 strained me. I felt guiltily moral and 
 utterly dejected. Then I remembered that 
 Rossetti had acted much as I had done, 
 though perhaps our points of view were 
 different.
 
 A VICTORY OVER SELF
 
 ' MY dear Harry, I was very angry when 1 
 read your letter. You must have been mad 
 to write to me like that. It shows that you 
 utterly failed to understand what I meant 
 at Bramleigh, and it is just that the sort 
 of thing your letter is full of, I mean 
 which makes it impossible to keep up our 
 old friendship. I am so very, very sorry, 
 I liked you so much we used to have such 
 good fun together. These horrid new ideas 
 of yours have quite spoiled you. Once and 
 for all, Harry, I can't allow you to talk or 
 write to me as you have been doing. How 
 far it is real, and how far you think it clever 
 or something, I don't know ; in any case, I 
 think it bad taste. Oh dear ! Do be sensible,
 
 70 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 Harry, and say you are sorry, and don't 
 do it again, and please very much yours, 
 Gwendolen. P.S. You see, I can't forget 
 your mother is like my elder sister. P.P.S. 
 Charlie saw your letter. I am sorry, be- 
 cause I know you did not mean anything, 
 and he doesn't understand quite, and says 
 he is going to speak to you about it. He 
 is going to town to-day. You must not 
 quarrel with him; you know he is rather 
 quick-tempered.' 
 
 I think I read this curious document of 
 femininity a dozen times. I copy it down, 
 for it explains my forbearance with the 
 absurd Charlie. It was the postscript which 
 troubled me. I conceived the worthy man 
 would have understood my letter to his 
 wife as a bull understands a red rag. I 
 have never thought it part of my role to 
 dislike the intractable thing; it is not my 
 fault that he is personally all that is bour- 
 geois and hopeless. As for Gwendolen, I 
 believe she was made to write that foolish 
 letter, and I smiled as I saw how her de- 
 sire to be appreciative struggled with the
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 71 
 
 commands of her preposterous husband. For 
 her sake I determined to control my temper, 
 which I knew to be naturally sarcastic, if 
 we should meet. But I thought it wiser 
 to avoid a scene of silly recrimination alto- 
 gether, and gave orders that I was not at 
 home to him, and when I saw him coming 
 towards me this morning in Piccadilly he 
 ought to have been killing things miles 
 away ! I took a cab. All this trouble for 
 a woman ! But as I passed him with his 
 inane, important swagger and his great red 
 face, I was glad I had escaped the infliction 
 of conversing with him. 
 
 But the stars in their courses fought against 
 my benevolent intentions. When I went 
 this afternoon to call on the only woman 
 in London, he was in the room, and alone. 
 After all, if I had to meet him it was well 
 to do so thus ; he could hardly make a very 
 vulgar or violent display in the house of a 
 woman who might come in at any moment. 
 He looked so agricultural and uncomfort- 
 able that I rather pitied him, but could not 
 deny myself the amusement of treating him
 
 72 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 as a man of the world. ' Oh ! ' he said, ' I 
 wanted to see you. I happened to see 
 a letter you wrote to Gwendolen.' I sat 
 down and (I hope) regarded him com- 
 placently. * Look here ! ' he went on in 
 his irritating, jerky manner, 'it may be 
 cursedly clever and all that, but I object 
 to it.' ' So strange, 1 1 murmured. 'What ? ' 
 he said in his thick, dictatorial tones. ' So 
 strange,' I repeated, ' that you should object, 
 who are her husband. If you were a man 
 who was interested in her I could under- 
 stand. But I forgot: I think you like 
 Gwendolen ? ' ' Like ? ' he asked, and gave 
 me one of his vacant, animal looks. ' Ah,' 
 I said, * that is so refreshing of you ! Most 
 of my married acquaintances loathe their 
 wives/ ' Be good enough to drop that 
 tone with me.' He drew himself up : 'Of 
 course you 're only a boy,' I smiled at his 
 method of retreat, 'and you're an old 
 friend of hers, and all that. But you've 
 annoyed her, and therefore annoyed me, 
 and without wishing to be ridiculous I 
 insist on your ceasing to do so.' He was
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 73 
 
 not without an element of rude dignity as 
 he said this, and I was pleased that he was 
 not violent. I am always the slave of the 
 passing emotion, and said at once with 
 a sigh : ' You touch me, Charles ; I will 
 spare her.' 
 
 I suppose it was the feeling that he had 
 been outdone in courtesy that angered him. 
 He made a step towards me frowning ludi- 
 crously. We both heard a frou-frou on the 
 stairs, and I remarked that our interesting 
 conversation seemed to be at an end. * Oh 
 no, it's not,' he said, 'well continue it 
 when we go.' But I was determined to 
 stay him out, and not to give him an 
 opportunity to make himself more absurd 
 than he had already. After a while I asked 
 leave to visit the schoolroom, and spent an 
 hour there, dissipating the foolish ideas and 
 superstitions I found the poor children had 
 imbibed from their governess. When I 
 came down the agreeable Charles was gone. 
 There was a cab just outside the house and 
 I walked straight into it. It was not too 
 soon ; the creature had actually been walk-
 
 74 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 ing about the square ! Poor Gwendolen, to 
 be tied to so dreadful a wretch as this ! 
 He swore vulgarly as I drove away. I was 
 bored, but rather amused on the whole.
 
 DISILLUSIONED
 
 I HATE philanthropists. Chiefly, of 
 course, as a question of principle. One's 
 own associates are monotonous, on the 
 whole; they have an air of freedom from 
 conventional restraint, but merely because it 
 is the mode, and I often suspect the reality 
 of their immorality. Even those few who 
 are the saving salt of society, and with 
 whom the unloveliness of virtue is a matter 
 of course, would, I fear, hang back if I put 
 myself at their head for a career of flaunt- 
 ing, beautiful crime. I had one hope, 
 which the philanthropists have taken away. 
 I used to hope in the criminal class, in those 
 who have taken no taint of respectability at 
 their births. They are the patch of glorious 
 red in the dull grey of our stupid civilisa- 
 tion so absurd were it not so pitiful, and
 
 78 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 my blood boils when I hear of these un- 
 speakable philanthropists pulling down hot- 
 beds of vice and teaching helpless children 
 inane facts and antiquated ideas of pro- 
 perty. In my own home I meet with little 
 sympathy. My father is chairman of a 
 board or something, and investigates deserv- 
 ing cases. My sister, too, is engaged to be 
 married to an embryo arch-fiend of philan- 
 thropy, and I am reminded that individually 
 and as a question of personal experience, I 
 think philanthropists impossible. I have in 
 their society an uneasy feeling that they 
 find something wanting in me, such a feel- 
 ing as many years ago I had in the society 
 of clergymen ; one outgrows dogmas before 
 their indirect results, and thus I may not be 
 wholly regenerate in this matter. Then if 
 you would not be thought guilty of a para- 
 dox, you have constantly to applaud the 
 lapse into virtue of some amusing sinner. 
 And they will suddenly demand money, or 
 ask you to share in some preposterous or 
 uncomfortable expedition. 
 
 But this creature who is engaged to be
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 79 
 
 married to my sister ! I shall never forget 
 how, when I was a boy at Oxford, he per- 
 suaded my easy nature to conduct a party 
 of East-enders over the place, and give them 
 a meat-tea in my rooms. I had thought 
 they would get drunk and sing songs in the 
 quad, but I found them hopelessly respect- 
 able and most exasperatingly intelligent. I 
 had to explain my course of reading to 
 them, and when I tried to infuse a little 
 reason into their soulless and mission-ridden 
 existences they thought I was jesting, and 
 when I offered them brandy one of them 
 made me a speech. And the wretch who 
 had sent them wrote me a furious letter 
 when they returned. But for his philan- 
 thropy he would have been a tolerable 
 young man, as young men go. As it is, I 
 have heard him described as s an earnest 
 fellow, 1 and as 'the ideal of a Christian 
 gentleman, 1 than which I can imagine no- 
 thing more pompous and tiresome and 
 ridiculous. He comes red-handed from his 
 settlement, or whatever it is called, and 
 bores us with accounts of the unfortunate
 
 80 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 people he has snared into his nets, much as 
 Gwendolen's bucolic husband discusses his 
 bag when he has been out shooting. 
 
 One day he induced me to visit him 
 there, to take part in a sort of entertain- 
 ment. It meant dining in the middle of the 
 afternoon, but I went because I thought I 
 might meet members of the criminal class 
 not wholly converted. I was disgusted. 
 The people with whom I was made to play 
 chess reeked of virtue a coarse expression 
 may be pardoned for a shock of disillusion, 
 and one who looked more promising than 
 the others, and whom I asked to relate his 
 experiences as a burglar or a pickpocket, 
 complained that I had insulted him. It 
 ended in my being practically turned out, 
 and the next day my whole family harangued 
 me all through lunch. 
 
 I mention these things that my dis- 
 appointment of to-day may be the better 
 understood. I thought at last I was in 
 converse with unfettered criminals. He had 
 a big red scarf tied round his neck, a pecu- 
 liarity I had always associated with house-
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 81 
 
 breakers, and the woman with him was so 
 neat that I thought she must be a decoy. 
 The train was full, and the guard put them 
 into my carriage, apologising. I said I was 
 charmed, and at once began to talk with 
 them. The beginning was not easy, for he 
 seemed to resent being called 'my good 
 man, 1 which I had intended to put him at 
 his ease, and addressed me with a foolish 
 sarcasm as ' Yer rile 'ighness.' But they soon 
 thawed. I gave the man a cigar, and com- 
 plimented the woman's bonnet, and they were 
 all smiles. Then, being but a few minutes 
 from my destination, I plunged in medias 
 res, and pronounced a eulogy on a life of 
 crime. Perhaps they did not understand 
 me at first, for the man said it was 'like 
 being in church, 1 but all at once came a 
 catastrophe. Something I said, more par- 
 ticularly to the woman, angered them. 
 ' Look 'ere, mister,' the man said (the dialect 
 does not amuse me, but I am told it does 
 others), 'you jest dry up. You may be a 
 dook, or as near as makes no bleedin' differ- 
 ence, but there ain't one of yer fine ladies 
 F
 
 82 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 that "s better than my old woman/ I had 
 no time to comment on the spurious senti- 
 mentality of his remark, and merely said 
 with a pleasant laugh : * My worthy fellow, 
 they are not so good. They are mostly 
 tedious and respectable. 1 Then they stormed 
 at me, the woman inciting the man to 
 assault me. Explanation was wasted, but 
 the question was finally settled with what 
 he called 'the price of a pint.' We ex- 
 changed commonplaces awhile, and then I 
 became silent, and the man produced a 
 Philistine paper. 
 
 I suppose the criminal class does exist, 
 but I despair of meeting with it.
 
 A FEMININE QUESTION
 
 I HAVE acquired a very subtle understanding 
 of woman, and the mistakes of my boyhood 
 are quite impossible to me now. I can play 
 upon her as upon an instrument of music, 
 and smile as I touch the keys. But the 
 smile is a little sad, for there was a romance 
 in that strange, passionate discord I made 
 once, which is gone. My case is the reverse 
 of Byron's, who said he wished to love 
 though he was no more beloved in turn: 
 there are still young eyes that look wistfully 
 on mine, but my love-making is over. ' No 
 more on me the freshness of the heart can 
 fall like dew ' how curious it all is ! Did 
 Nature keep pace with thought my hair 
 would long ago have been grey. 
 
 Some such mournful reflections were run- 
 ning in my head this afternoon when Hughy
 
 86 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 introduced me to his cousin. She seemed a 
 mirthful, frank young creature, and I know 
 how strong, often how sad, an attraction 
 there is for such gay, hopeful spirits in my 
 own world-weary melancholy. I thought I 
 too would be light and gay, and make no 
 sinister impression on her sunny existence. 
 It was an extraordinary experience. She 
 was quite different from other women, a 
 lusus naturae. There was none of that 
 charming inconsequence to which I am ac- 
 customed, especially hi philosophical women. 
 She was literal and logical. I was so ab- 
 solutely unprepared for it that possibly I 
 failed to show her how foolish a thing logic 
 is in the face of that deeper insight which 
 comes from life's experience. 
 
 She began by quoting some foolish ques- 
 tion Hughy had just put to her, showing 
 the poor fellow's complete lack of all read- 
 ing. ' Ah,' I said gaily, 'to be in the 
 Guards covers a multitude of ignorances : 
 Hughy looks sweet in his tunic. You must 
 not expect too much ! ' 'I expect,' she 
 answered, 'a great deal of you, because he
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 87 
 
 says you're very philosophical. I want so 
 much somebody to explain to me this theory 
 of .' She mentioned some horrid Ger- 
 man name which I had never heard. I do 
 not attempt to follow all the vagaries of 
 modern philosophy ; there are so many 
 things to do in life, and mere book-learn- 
 ing is so futile. I do not at all value my 
 reputation for philosophy, which is surely 
 secure with those who can discriminate, but 
 I thought it a social duty to continue 
 the subject this pedantic girl had chosen. 
 'Which theory?' I asked her. She told 
 me ; there was nothing charming in it, and 
 I have forgotten it now. 4 It is not worth 
 explaining,' I said; 'what germ of truth 
 there is in it simply amounts to the only 
 practical outcome of all sound philosophy.' 
 4 What is that ? ' she asked me, smiling for 
 some reason, thinking perhaps I would make 
 some silly joke, as Hughy would. ' It is,' I 
 said, folding my hands and speaking slowly, 
 * that you must live your life.' 
 
 There was never such a literal and per- 
 sistent girl. She caught me up at once.
 
 88 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 ' Surely that is obvious : of course I must 
 live my life.' ' Obvious indeed, 1 1 said sadly, 
 ' but how difficult ! 1 ' But what do you 
 mean ? You might as well say I must dine 
 on my dinner. 1 A hopeless girl, but I tried 
 to make her see a minute particle of my 
 meaning. * I mean you must be free and 
 joyous, not tyrannised over by foolish dogmas 
 of altruism, but fulfilling your own instincts 
 and desires. 1 ' Do just what I please ? Be 
 thoroughly selfish? But that wouldn't be 
 my life. Why should you say that is 
 more my life than acting naturally, as one 
 is accustomed to act ? One has certain in- 
 herited tendencies 1 I smiled at the foolish 
 catchword ' and education forms them into 
 habits, and one's natural life is to act as 
 they direct. 1 ' Dear lady, 1 1 said, desperately, 
 ' don't let us quarrel about it. When you 
 have had my experience you will see what a 
 beautiful thing egotism is. Then you will 
 live your life; until then not. 1 'What do 
 
 you ' she began, but broke off, and 
 
 asked, with a laugh, this utterly irrelevant 
 question : * Do you wear a tunic too ? And
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 89 
 
 do you look sweet in it?' How women 
 care for these trifles ! 
 
 A quite irrelevant question, but the only 
 feminine thing she had said. I suppose she 
 was posing ; but she was an uncomfortable 
 girl, and I do not want to meet her again.
 
 BROUGHT BACK TO EARTH
 
 How true it is that genius, to give the 
 world of its sweetest, must be unhampered 
 by sordid cares. Of late my muse has had no 
 heart to sing. I came across a paper, tossed 
 aside a while ago, which almost brought 
 tears to my eyes. On the top I had written 
 a title: 'A Dirge of Desire Dead,' and 
 there followed a few lines which Sorrow 
 herself seemed to have dictated to Song, 
 and then rows of squalid, hideous figures, 
 and vulgar commercial symbols. Surely, I 
 mused, here is all the pathos of life. 
 
 A care that had some romance or great- 
 ness in it an unfaithful wife it might be, 
 or a capricious mistress I could have 
 borne. Indeed, I have had my share of 
 such sorrows, and those who have known 
 the secret have wondered at my power of
 
 94 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 seeming to enjoy dinners and the like with 
 a wolf gnawing my heart, as in the story of 
 the Spartan boy. It was the sordid, petty 
 nature of my troubles that destroyed my 
 peace and harassed my nerves. It made the 
 whole scheme of things, the whole frame- 
 work of society, seem so monstrous and 
 futile. Of mere debt, as such, I have 
 always made light. Nay, to be poor, as 
 the folly of the world condemns me to be 
 who might have used riches so graciously 
 to be poor and not to be in debt has seemed 
 mean-spirited ; and I cannot remember a 
 time since my schooldays when I was what I 
 believe is called solvent. Debts sat lightly 
 and gracefully upon me, and I used to laugh 
 with my friends over imaginary trials. But 
 of late there seemed to have been a con- 
 spiracy to cause me absolute personal incon- 
 venience. I received threatening letters, in 
 which what chiefly annoyed me was the 
 obvious assumption that I should feel the 
 insults of the absurd writers ; of course I 
 ignored them, but I am sure the effect on 
 me was depressing. A dreadful man was in
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 95 
 
 the habit of calling while I was at breakfast 
 and demanding money, and I had consider- 
 able difficulty in dismissing him from my 
 mind. When I should have been meditat- 
 ing in quietude, I was forced to hold con- 
 versations with money-lenders, the very 
 furniture of whose rooms upset me for 
 the day, and of late even these labours 
 had been useless. Perhaps the hardest, 
 because the most persistent wrong, was 
 that I was deprived of the simple enjoy- 
 ments of my fellows. Life is hard to bear 
 very often, in any case, and that one should 
 lack the paltry distractions of town seemed 
 almost inconceivable. I could not even go 
 to the silly things they call plays, and 
 because I owed money at places where we 
 dine and sup, I had often to eat my meals 
 ' meals ' is the horribly appropriate word 
 at home. I had even to go to the man 
 but why record these horrors ? It is morbid 
 to describe them fully; to indicate their 
 nature is enough. 
 
 It was only a week ago that Apollo freed 
 me, and as yet the nightmare of it all still
 
 96 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 oppresses me. A sort of crisis had come, 
 one man announcing his intention of writ- 
 ing to my father. My mother and my sister 
 both refused to sell their jewels to help me ; 
 their barbaric preference of stones (for they 
 know nothing of their beautiful symbolism) 
 to my peace of mind wounded me, but I am 
 a man of strong natural affection, and I 
 have forgiven them before they have asked 
 forgiveness. Then I went to my father 
 with my rows of figures. On the whole, the 
 scene was artistic. I am naturally dramatic, 
 and like to play the parts of life with zest. 
 The repentant prodigal is a foolish and con- 
 temptible person, but I felt I owed it to my 
 father to act it vigorously. My father's 
 rage was all that the most exacting critic 
 could have demanded. It was a pleasant 
 little comedy, and not until quite the end 
 of it did I drop unthinkingly into my 
 natural manner and smile at my father's 
 solemnity about the 'last time. 1 I felt 
 disproportionately grateful to him for re- 
 moving my cares, for it cost him but little 
 thought or pains, and I agreed readily to
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 97 
 
 conform to the wish which haunts him that 
 I should 'do some work.' How far a sort 
 of half promise made in such a trite little 
 domestic play can bind one in real life, I am 
 not casuist enough to determine. In the 
 true sense of the word there is more ' work ' 
 in a ballad of mine than in years of his 
 soldiering. But work in his sense would 
 be an experience which I am seriously in- 
 clined to invite, 
 
 G
 
 FRONTIS NULLA FIDES
 
 I HAVE long passed that stage of intellec- 
 tual development in which we fret at middle- 
 class conventions. I contemplate them now 
 with infinite delight in their absurdities. By 
 ' middle-class ' I do not, of course, mean to 
 imply any ridiculous social distinction : my 
 own father, excellent person that he is, is 
 quite middle-class in his attitude towards 
 life, and the boyish zeal which used to prompt 
 me to make a proselyte of him is gone alas ! 
 with the snows of yesteryear. On the 
 other hand, I conversed but last week with 
 a person in the street, a quite uneducated 
 person without ideals, who seemed free from 
 commonplace restrictions. By middle-class 
 conventions I mean chiefly respect for so- 
 called virtues truth, for instance, which is 
 simply want of imagination, or prudence in
 
 102 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 money matters, which is simply grovelling 
 cowardice and that curious reticence about 
 things which may be made charming in con- 
 versation. I no longer fret at these follies, 
 but try to amuse myself with them, and have 
 often beguiled the weariness of a dinner at 
 home by leading my father to the verge of 
 some forbidden topic and observing his con- 
 fusion. I even congratulated my aunt with 
 a perfectly grave and sympathetic face on 
 her ' silver marriage,' as though twenty-five 
 years of tedious constancy were a credit to 
 her. It was therefore doubly hard on me 
 that an alleged want of respect for 'propriety 1 
 I really think they are quite capable of 
 using the word should be made the excuse 
 for one of those vulgar domestic brawls 
 which my nerves have been latterly unable 
 to bear. 
 
 I was deceived in a little woman who 
 came to stay with us the other day. Of 
 course you can never be quite sure what 
 things will please a woman in conversation. 
 Things which I think disgusting they do not 
 mind I have heard one discuss the food
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 103 
 
 provided in some workhouse, while they 
 will look scandalised at little quaint ro- 
 mances, little harmless vagaries of passion. 
 But this one was so prettily arch and talked 
 so gaily that I took her for an artistic, un- 
 prejudiced person, for one of ourselves. She 
 came into the smoking-room in the after- 
 noon and smoked a cigarette with me. We 
 talked unaffectedly, and laughed at the follies 
 of some vicar's wife she told me about, and 
 I thought she would be amused with a story 
 of something which happened to Hughy 
 in Paris, the pink silk story. There is a 
 strain of odd humorous pathos in it, and I 
 told it as a little idyll of a city, as it is, with 
 no idea that she would see anything in it 
 that any modern person would dislike. Be- 
 fore I had arrived at the end she rose, said 
 something about ' going too far,' and left 
 me. Of course I supposed she was in fun, 
 and admired the art with which she managed 
 to blush. I resumed a diverting book about 
 the early Fathers, and forgot her. 
 
 In half an hour a storm was upon me. It 
 seems the deceptive little thing had sug-
 
 104 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 gested to my mother that I ought to be 
 cautioned for my own sake not to tell such 
 
 * improper stories,' and that my father had 
 overheard her. He came into the smoking- 
 room simply foaming, and most ridiculous. 
 
 * Are you drunk, sir ? ' he shouted. * Dear 
 father, 1 1 replied with dignity, ' I am never 
 drunk with wine, nor at present am I drunk 
 with love. One may be drunk with life, but 
 
 alas ! "" * What the devil do you mean 
 
 by insulting a lady under my roof ? ' I love 
 his melodramatic expressions, but when he 
 talks about his roof it is always the prelude 
 to a tedious harangue. In this instance I 
 endured it meekly, since I could only defend 
 myself at the expense (in his eyes) of our 
 guest. But I happened to be alone with her 
 in the drawing-room before dinner, and could 
 not forbear to turn a Philistine weapon 
 against herself. ' I am so sorry, 1 1 said con- 
 tritely, ' that I annoyed you this afternoon. 
 But you know you must have misunderstood 
 my little idyll. I must have told it badly ; 
 it is really quite free from anything horrid. 1 
 She looked a little confused, and I smiled 
 inwardly.
 
 THE CLOSING SCENE
 
 THIS day I leave my native land. It is five 
 in the morning, the last of the companions 
 who spent the evening with me is gone, and 
 I sit in my lonely room to end this account 
 of my life so far before sleeping a few hours. 
 When they dine to-night I shall be far away. 
 It is intensely dramatic. A weaker man 
 might well shed tears, but my eyes are dry. 
 I look round the room and observe the 
 artistic confusion in the soft light of the 
 lamps my fur coat lying carelessly on the 
 sofa, my gloves thrown on the floor. I look 
 at myself in the glass, and see a white shirt 
 and tie symbols of civilisation, such as it 
 is, perhaps worn for the last time the 
 soft dreamy satin of my sinoking-coat, and 
 above a face, white indeed, but resolute. 
 I suppose my friends meant to be sympa-
 
 108 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 thetic to-night, but sometimes their tone 
 jarred on me a little. Themselves children 
 of luxury, they can hardly realise what it is 
 to thread impenetrable forests and fight 
 with the naked forces of nature. Hughy, 
 indeed, in the little speech he made at 
 supper, spoke of me lassoing wild horses 
 and duelling across a handkerchief with 
 desperadoes, and his voice for a moment 
 trembled ; but the others laughed. Perhaps 
 they think I am insincere and that I shall 
 avoid doing these things. How little they 
 know me ! We dined together and went to 
 the barbarous, plush place I am so weary of, 
 and had supper in a private room. I talked 
 gaily and naturally, and played my part of 
 devil-may-care indifference. All perhaps for 
 the last time ! Well, I am tired of it : let 
 it go. I suppose it is of no use to take my 
 evening clothes to Canada. 
 
 The changes of the last few weeks rise 
 clearly in my head, as they say happens to 
 drowning men. I see myself, because of his 
 wretched intolerance, leaving my father's 
 house. Then these rooms which needed so
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 109 
 
 much thought after Bobby's crude tastes 
 to make them seemly, and the sickening 
 obstinacy of the man, who refused to 
 harmonise himself with my plan of colour. 
 I was determined to earn my bread, and 
 speedily found how hopeless the idea was, 
 unless I would abandon my better self. 
 And then the discovery of the miserable 
 inadequacy of the pittance my father gave 
 me to the needs of life, and the crueller 
 discovery of the dark side of human nature, 
 when I went to him and to my other relations 
 for aid. I have never thought very highly 
 of my fellow-creatures they are far less 
 graceful than cats but I had given them 
 credit for a few ordinary virtues. My ex- 
 perience when I needed a little paltry money 
 robbed me of my faith in man, and 
 Gwendolen has taken from me my faith 
 in woman. I had forgiven her the reticence 
 and subterfuges which her intolerable 
 husband made necessary, but that she 
 should fail me when the crisis came and 
 refuse to go with me to a freer life across 
 the seas pained me bitterly. Perhaps,
 
 110 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 
 
 though, she was right artistically : the idea 
 was rather conventional and trite. But 
 morally she was utterly disappointing. 
 
 In my last interview with my father, in 
 which he utterly failed to rise to the 
 situation, he said that I had wasted my life, 
 and curiously enough the thought has 
 recurred to me, though of course from a 
 point of view very different from his. It 
 may be that my life has been warped by 
 the conventions of my country. I have 
 merely humoured them good-naturedly from 
 the principle of noblesse oblige, but they may 
 have unconsciously hampered my inner life. 
 Yes, my nature will expand in this wild 
 land. Of course I have avoided, so far as I 
 could, learning anything about it, that my 
 impressions might be absolutely free. My 
 father spoke of an agent whom I was to see 
 on my arrival : I think he wants me to go 
 into a bank out there. But I shall make 
 straight for the forests, or the mountains, or 
 whatever they are, and try to forget. I 
 believe people shoot one another there : I 
 have never killed a man, and it may be an
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY 111 
 
 experience the lust for slaughter. They 
 dress picturesquely : probably a red sash 
 will be the keynote of my scheme. 
 
 But I must bring these thoughts to a 
 conclusion. A page in my life is turned for 
 ever. I have tried to compromise between 
 the imperfect civilisation I found and my 
 own nature, and the compromise has failed. 
 My relations of course when did they ever 
 appreciate such an one as I ? I went among 
 the abandoned, the outcasts of society, and 
 found them as tame and conventional as 
 those I had left, only less polite. I loved 
 a woman, and she allowed all sorts of ana- 
 chronistic fantasies to stand between us. 
 Even my friends, even Bobby and Hughy 
 and the others, failed to stand shoulder to 
 shoulder with me in my sordid difficulties, 
 although they knew I had no bourgeois 
 prejudices on the subject. It is well : I 
 will go from them all, and perhaps among 
 savage Indians may find peace. And perhaps 
 when some of those I have left read what I 
 have written, and see what they have lost, 
 they will weep for what might have been.
 
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