TONO-BUNGAY
by
H.G.
Wells
BOOK
THE
FIRST
THE
DAYS
BEFORE
TONO-BUNGAY
WAS
INVENTED
CHAPTER
THE
FIRST
OF
BLADESOVER
HOUSE
,
AND
MY
MOTHER
;
AND
THE
CONSTITUTION
OF
SOCIETY
Most
people
in
this
world
seem
to
live
"
in
character
"
;
they
have
a
beginning
,
a
middle
and
an
end
,
and
the
three
are
congruous
one
with
another
and
true
to
the
rules
of
their
type
.
You
can
speak
of
them
as
being
of
this
sort
of
people
or
that
.
They
are
,
as
theatrical
people
say
,
no
more
(
and
no
less
)
than
"
character
actors
.
"
They
have
a
class
,
they
have
a
place
,
they
know
what
is
becoming
in
them
and
what
is
due
to
them
,
and
their
proper
size
of
tombstone
tells
at
last
how
properly
they
have
played
the
part
.
But
there
is
also
another
kind
of
life
that
is
not
so
much
living
as
a
miscellaneous
tasting
of
life
.
One
gets
hit
by
some
unusual
transverse
force
,
one
is
jerked
out
of
one
's
stratum
and
lives
crosswise
for
the
rest
of
the
time
,
and
,
as
it
were
,
in
a
succession
of
samples
.
That
has
been
my
lot
,
and
that
is
what
has
set
me
at
last
writing
something
in
the
nature
of
a
novel
.
I
have
got
an
unusual
series
of
impressions
that
I
want
very
urgently
to
tell
.
I
have
seen
life
at
very
different
levels
,
and
at
all
these
levels
I
have
seen
it
with
a
sort
of
intimacy
and
in
good
faith
.
I
have
been
a
native
in
many
social
countries
.
I
have
been
the
unwelcome
guest
of
a
working
baker
,
my
cousin
,
who
has
since
died
in
the
Chatham
infirmary
;
I
have
eaten
illegal
snacks
—
the
unjustifiable
gifts
of
footmen
—
in
pantries
,
and
been
despised
for
my
want
of
style
(
and
subsequently
married
and
divorced
)
by
the
daughter
of
a
gasworks
clerk
;
and
—
to
go
to
my
other
extreme
—
I
was
once
—
oh
,
glittering
days
!
—
an
item
in
the
house
—
party
of
a
countess
.
She
was
,
I
admit
,
a
countess
with
a
financial
aspect
,
but
still
,
you
know
,
a
countess
.
I
've
seen
these
people
at
various
angles
.
At
the
dinner-table
I
've
met
not
simply
the
titled
but
the
great
.
On
one
occasion
—
it
is
my
brightest
memory
—
I
upset
my
champagne
over
the
trousers
of
the
greatest
statesman
in
the
empire
—
Heaven
forbid
I
should
be
so
invidious
as
to
name
him
!
—
in
the
warmth
of
our
mutual
admiration
.
And
once
(
though
it
is
the
most
incidental
thing
in
my
life
)
I
murdered
a
man
...
.
Yes
,
I
've
seen
a
curious
variety
of
people
and
ways
of
living
altogether
.
Odd
people
they
all
are
great
and
small
,
very
much
alike
at
bottom
and
curiously
different
on
their
surfaces
.
I
wish
I
had
ranged
just
a
little
further
both
up
and
down
,
seeing
I
have
ranged
so
far
.
Royalty
must
be
worth
knowing
and
very
great
fun
.
But
my
contacts
with
princes
have
been
limited
to
quite
public
occasions
,
nor
at
the
other
end
of
the
scale
have
I
had
what
I
should
call
an
inside
acquaintance
with
that
dusty
but
attractive
class
of
people
who
go
about
on
the
high-roads
drunk
but
enfamille
(
so
redeeming
the
minor
lapse
)
,
in
the
summertime
,
with
a
perambulator
,
lavender
to
sell
,
sun-brown
children
,
a
smell
,
and
ambiguous
bundles
that
fire
the
imagination
.
Navvies
,
farm-labourers
,
sailormen
and
stokers
,
all
such
as
sit
in
1834
beer-houses
,
are
beyond
me
also
,
and
I
suppose
must
remain
so
now
for
ever
.
My
intercourse
with
the
ducal
rank
too
has
been
negligible
;
I
once
went
shooting
with
a
duke
,
and
in
an
outburst
of
what
was
no
doubt
snobbishness
,
did
my
best
to
get
him
in
the
legs
.
But
that
failed
.
I
'm
sorry
I
have
n't
done
the
whole
lot
though
...
.
You
will
ask
by
what
merit
I
achieved
this
remarkable
social
range
,
this
extensive
cross-section
of
the
British
social
organism
.
It
was
the
Accident
of
Birth
.
It
always
is
in
England
.
Indeed
,
if
I
may
make
the
remark
so
cosmic
,
everything
is
.
But
that
is
by
the
way
.
I
was
my
uncle
's
nephew
,
and
my
uncle
was
no
less
a
person
than
Edward
Ponderevo
,
whose
comet-like
transit
of
the
financial
heavens
happened
—
it
is
now
ten
years
ago
!
Do
you
remember
the
days
of
Ponderevo
,
the
great
days
,
I
mean
,
of
Ponderevo
?
Perhaps
you
had
a
trifle
in
some
world-shaking
enterprise
!
Then
you
know
him
only
too
well
.
Astraddle
on
Tono-Bungay
,
he
flashed
athwart
the
empty
heavens
—
like
a
comet
—
rather
,
like
a
stupendous
rocket
!
—
and
overawed
investors
spoke
of
his
star
.
At
his
zenith
he
burst
into
a
cloud
of
the
most
magnificent
promotions
.
What
a
time
that
was
!
The
Napoleon
of
domestic
conveniences
!
I
was
his
nephew
,
his
peculiar
and
intimate
nephew
.
I
was
hanging
on
to
his
coat-tails
all
the
way
through
.
I
made
pills
with
him
in
the
chemist
's
shop
at
Wimblehurst
before
he
began
.
I
was
,
you
might
say
,
the
stick
of
his
rocket
;
and
after
our
tremendous
soar
,
after
he
had
played
with
millions
,
a
golden
rain
in
the
sky
,
after
my
bird's-eye
view
of
the
modern
world
,
I
fell
again
,
a
little
scarred
and
blistered
perhaps
,
two
and
twenty
years
older
,
with
my
youth
gone
,
my
manhood
eaten
in
upon
,
but
greatly
edified
,
into
this
Thames-side
yard
,
into
these
white
heats
and
hammerings
,
amidst
the
fine
realites
of
steel
—
to
think
it
all
over
in
my
leisure
and
jot
down
the
notes
and
inconsecutive
observations
that
make
this
book
.
It
was
more
,
you
know
,
than
a
figurative
soar
.
The
zenith
of
that
career
was
surely
our
flight
across
the
channel
in
the
Lord
Roberts
B
...
.
I
warn
you
this
book
is
going
to
be
something
of
an
agglomeration
.
I
want
to
trace
my
social
trajectory
(
and
my
uncle
's
)
as
the
main
line
of
my
story
,
but
as
this
is
my
first
novel
and
almost
certainly
my
last
,
I
want
to
get
in
,
too
,
all
sorts
of
things
that
struck
me
,
things
that
amused
me
and
impressions
I
got
—
even
although
they
do
n't
minister
directly
to
my
narrative
at
all
.
I
want
to
set
out
my
own
queer
love
experiences
too
,
such
as
they
are
,
for
they
troubled
and
distressed
and
swayed
me
hugely
,
and
they
still
seem
to
me
to
contain
all
sorts
of
irrational
and
debatable
elements
that
I
shall
be
the
clearer-headed
for
getting
on
paper
.
And
possibly
I
may
even
flow
into
descriptions
of
people
who
are
really
no
more
than
people
seen
in
transit
,
just
because
it
amuses
me
to
recall
what
they
said
and
did
to
us
,
and
more
particularly
how
they
behaved
in
the
brief
but
splendid
glare
of
Tono-Bungay
and
its
still
more
glaring
offspring
.
It
lit
some
of
them
up
,
I
can
assure
you
!
Indeed
,
I
want
to
get
in
all
sorts
of
things
.
My
ideas
of
a
novel
all
through
are
comprehensive
rather
than
austere
...
.
Tono-Bungay
still
figures
on
the
hoardings
,
it
stands
in
rows
in
every
chemist
's
storeroom
,
it
still
assuages
the
coughs
of
age
and
brightens
the
elderly
eye
and
loosens
the
elderly
tongue
;
but
its
social
glory
,
its
financial
illumination
,
have
faded
from
the
world
for
ever
.
And
I
,
sole
scorched
survivor
from
the
blaze
,
sit
writing
of
it
here
in
an
air
that
is
never
still
for
the
clang
and
thunder
of
machines
,
on
a
table
littered
with
working
drawings
,
and
amid
fragments
of
models
and
notes
about
velocities
and
air
and
water
pressures
and
trajectories
—
of
an
altogether
different
sort
from
that
of
Tono-Bungay
.
I
write
that
much
and
look
at
it
,
and
wonder
whether
,
after
all
,
this
is
any
fair
statement
of
what
I
am
attempting
in
this
book
.
I
've
given
,
I
see
,
an
impression
that
I
want
to
make
simply
a
hotch-potch
of
anecdotes
and
experiences
with
my
uncle
swimming
in
the
middle
as
the
largest
lump
of
victual
.
I
'll
own
that
here
,
with
the
pen
already
started
,
I
realise
what
a
fermenting
mass
of
things
learnt
and
emotions
experienced
and
theories
formed
I
've
got
to
deal
with
,
and
how
,
in
a
sense
,
hopeless
my
book
must
be
from
the
very
outset
.
I
suppose
what
I
'm
really
trying
to
render
is
nothing
more
nor
less
than
Life
—
as
one
man
has
found
it
.
I
want
to
tell
—
MYSELF
,
and
my
impressions
of
the
thing
as
a
whole
,
to
say
things
I
have
come
to
feel
intensely
of
the
laws
,
traditions
,
usages
,
and
ideas
we
call
society
,
and
how
we
poor
individuals
get
driven
and
lured
and
stranded
among
these
windy
,
perplexing
shoals
and
channels
.
I
've
got
,
I
suppose
,
to
a
time
of
life
when
things
begin
to
take
on
shapes
that
have
an
air
of
reality
,
and
become
no
longer
material
for
dreaming
,
but
interesting
in
themselves
.
I
've
reached
the
criticising
,
novel-writing
age
,
and
here
I
am
writing
mine
—
my
one
novel
—
without
having
any
of
the
discipline
to
refrain
and
omit
that
I
suppose
the
regular
novel-writer
acquires
.
I
've
read
an
average
share
of
novels
and
made
some
starts
before
this
beginning
,
and
I
've
found
the
restraints
and
rules
of
the
art
(
as
I
made
them
out
)
impossible
for
me
.
I
like
to
write
,
I
am
keenly
interested
in
writing
,
but
it
is
not
my
technique
.
I
'm
an
engineer
with
a
patent
or
two
and
a
set
of
ideas
;
most
of
whatever
artist
there
is
in
me
has
been
given
to
turbine
machines
and
boat
building
and
the
problem
of
flying
,
and
do
what
I
will
I
fail
to
see
how
I
can
be
other
than
a
lax
,
undisciplined
story-teller
.
I
must
sprawl
and
flounder
,
comment
and
theorise
,
if
I
am
to
get
the
thing
out
I
have
in
mind
.
And
it
is
n't
a
constructed
tale
I
have
to
tell
,
but
unmanageable
realities
.
My
love-story
—
and
if
only
I
can
keep
up
the
spirit
of
truth-telling
all
through
as
strongly
as
I
have
now
,
you
shall
have
it
all
—
falls
into
no
sort
of
neat
scheme
of
telling
.
It
involves
three
separate
feminine
persons
.
It
's
all
mixed
up
with
the
other
things
...
.
But
I
've
said
enough
,
I
hope
,
to
excuse
myself
for
the
method
or
want
of
method
in
what
follows
,
and
I
think
I
had
better
tell
without
further
delay
of
my
boyhood
and
my
early
impressions
in
the
shadow
of
Bladesover
House
.
There
came
a
time
when
I
realised
that
Bladesover
House
was
not
all
it
seemed
,
but
when
I
was
a
little
boy
I
took
the
place
with
the
entirest
faith
as
a
complete
authentic
microcosm
.
I
believed
that
the
Bladesover
system
was
a
little
working-model
—
and
not
so
very
little
either
—
of
the
whole
world
.
Let
me
try
and
give
you
the
effect
of
it
.
Bladesover
lies
up
on
the
Kentish
Downs
,
eight
miles
perhaps
from
Ashborough
;
and
its
old
pavilion
,
a
little
wooden
parody
of
the
temple
of
Vesta
at
Tibur
,
upon
the
hill
crest
behind
the
house
,
commands
in
theory
at
least
a
view
of
either
sea
,
of
the
Channel
southward
and
the
Thames
to
the
northeast
.
The
park
is
the
second
largest
in
Kent
,
finely
wooded
with
well-placed
beeches
,
many
elms
and
some
sweet
chestnuts
,
abounding
in
little
valleys
and
hollows
of
bracken
,
with
springs
and
a
stream
and
three
fine
ponds
and
multitudes
of
fallow
deer
.
The
house
was
built
in
the
eighteenth
century
,
it
is
of
pale
red
brick
in
the
style
of
a
French
chateau
,
and
save
for
one
pass
among
the
crests
which
opens
to
blue
distances
,
to
minute
,
remote
,
oast-set
farm-houses
and
copses
and
wheat
fields
and
the
occasional
gleam
of
water
,
its
hundred
and
seventeen
windows
look
on
nothing
but
its
own
wide
and
handsome
territories
.
A
semi-circular
screen
of
great
beeches
masks
the
church
and
village
,
which
cluster
picturesquely
about
the
high
road
along
the
skirts
of
the
great
park
.
Northward
,
at
the
remotest
corner
of
that
enclosure
,
is
a
second
dependent
village
,
Ropedean
,
less
fortunate
in
its
greater
distance
and
also
on
account
of
a
rector
.
This
divine
was
indeed
rich
,
but
he
was
vindictively
economical
because
of
some
shrinkage
of
his
tithes
;
and
by
reason
of
his
use
of
the
word
Eucharist
for
the
Lord
's
Supper
he
had
become
altogether
estranged
from
the
great
ladies
of
Bladesover
.
So
that
Ropedean
was
in
the
shadows
through
all
that
youthful
time
.
Now
the
unavoidable
suggestion
of
that
wide
park
and
that
fair
large
house
,
dominating
church
,
village
and
the
country
side
,
was
that
they
represented
the
thing
that
mattered
supremely
in
the
world
,
and
that
all
other
things
had
significance
only
in
relation
to
them
.
They
represented
the
Gentry
,
the
Quality
,
by
and
through
and
for
whom
the
rest
of
the
world
,
the
farming
folk
and
the
labouring
folk
,
the
trades-people
of
Ashborough
,
and
the
upper
servants
and
the
lower
servants
and
the
servants
of
the
estate
,
breathed
and
lived
and
were
permitted
.
And
the
Quality
did
it
so
quietly
and
thoroughly
,
the
great
house
mingled
so
solidly
and
effectually
earth
and
sky
,
the
contrast
of
its
spacious
hall
and
saloon
and
galleries
,
its
airy
housekeeper
's
room
and
warren
of
offices
with
the
meagre
dignities
of
the
vicar
,
and
the
pinched
and
stuffy
rooms
of
even
the
post-office
people
and
the
grocer
,
so
enforced
these
suggestions
,
that
it
was
only
when
I
was
a
boy
of
thirteen
or
fourteen
and
some
queer
inherited
strain
of
scepticism
had
set
me
doubting
whether
Mr.
Bartlett
,
the
vicar
,
did
really
know
with
certainty
all
about
God
,
that
as
a
further
and
deeper
step
in
doubting
I
began
to
question
the
final
rightness
of
the
gentlefolks
,
their
primary
necessity
in
the
scheme
of
things
.
But
once
that
scepticism
had
awakened
it
took
me
fast
and
far
.
By
fourteen
I
had
achieved
terrible
blasphemies
and
sacrilege
;
I
had
resolved
to
marry
a
viscount
's
daughter
,
and
I
had
blacked
the
left
eye
—
I
think
it
was
the
left
—
of
her
half-brother
,
in
open
and
declared
rebellion
.
But
of
that
in
its
place
.
The
great
house
,
the
church
,
the
village
,
and
the
labourers
and
the
servants
in
their
stations
and
degrees
,
seemed
to
me
,
I
say
,
to
be
a
closed
and
complete
social
system
.
About
us
were
other
villages
and
great
estates
,
and
from
house
to
house
,
interlacing
,
correlated
,
the
Gentry
,
the
fine
Olympians
,
came
and
went
.
The
country
towns
seemed
mere
collections
of
ships
,
marketing
places
for
the
tenantry
,
centres
for
such
education
as
they
needed
,
as
entirely
dependent
on
the
gentry
as
the
village
and
scarcely
less
directly
so
.
I
thought
this
was
the
order
of
the
whole
world
.
I
thought
London
was
only
a
greater
country
town
where
the
gentle-folk
kept
town-houses
and
did
their
greater
shopping
under
the
magnificent
shadow
of
the
greatest
of
all
fine
gentlewomen
,
the
Queen
.
It
seemed
to
be
in
the
divine
order
.
That
all
this
fine
appearance
was
already
sapped
,
that
there
were
forces
at
work
that
might
presently
carry
all
this
elaborate
social
system
in
which
my
mother
instructed
me
so
carefully
that
I
might
understand
my
"
place
,
"
to
Limbo
,
had
scarcely
dawned
upon
me
even
by
the
time
that
Tono-Bungay
was
fairly
launched
upon
the
world
.
There
are
many
people
in
England
to-day
upon
whom
it
has
not
yet
dawned
.
There
are
times
when
I
doubt
whether
any
but
a
very
inconsiderable
minority
of
English
people
realise
how
extensively
this
ostensible
order
has
even
now
passed
away
.
The
great
houses
stand
in
the
parks
still
,
the
cottages
cluster
respectfully
on
their
borders
,
touching
their
eaves
with
their
creepers
,
the
English
countryside
—
you
can
range
through
Kent
from
Bladesover
northward
and
see
persists
obstinately
in
looking
what
it
was
.
It
is
like
an
early
day
in
a
fine
October
.
The
hand
of
change
rests
on
it
all
,
unfelt
,
unseen
;
resting
for
awhile
,
as
it
were
half
reluctantly
,
before
it
grips
and
ends
the
thing
for
ever
.
One
frost
and
the
whole
face
of
things
will
be
bare
,
links
snap
,
patience
end
,
our
fine
foliage
of
pretences
lie
glowing
in
the
mire
.
For
that
we
have
still
to
wait
a
little
while
.
The
new
order
may
have
gone
far
towards
shaping
itself
,
but
just
as
in
that
sort
of
lantern
show
that
used
to
be
known
in
the
village
as
the
"
Dissolving
Views
,
"
the
scene
that
is
going
remains
upon
the
mind
,
traceable
and
evident
,
and
the
newer
picture
is
yet
enigmatical
long
after
the
lines
that
are
to
replace
those
former
ones
have
grown
bright
and
strong
,
so
that
the
new
England
of
our
children
's
children
is
still
a
riddle
to
me
.
The
ideas
of
democracy
,
of
equality
,
and
above
all
of
promiscuous
fraternity
have
certainly
never
really
entered
into
the
English
mind
.
But
what
IS
coming
into
it
?
All
this
book
,
I
hope
,
will
bear
a
little
on
that
.
Our
people
never
formulates
;
it
keeps
words
for
jests
and
ironies
.
In
the
meanwhile
the
old
shapes
,
the
old
attitudes
remain
,
subtly
changed
and
changing
still
,
sheltering
strange
tenants
.
Bladesover
House
is
now
let
furnished
to
Sir
Reuben
Lichtenstein
,
and
has
been
since
old
Lady
Drew
died
;
it
was
my
odd
experience
to
visit
there
,
in
the
house
of
which
my
mother
had
been
housekeeper
,
when
my
uncle
was
at
the
climax
of
Tono-Bungay
.
It
was
curious
to
notice
then
the
little
differences
that
had
come
to
things
with
this
substitution
.
To
borrow
an
image
from
my
mineralogical
days
,
these
Jews
were
not
so
much
a
new
British
gentry
as
"
pseudomorphous
"
after
the
gentry
.
They
are
a
very
clever
people
,
the
Jews
,
but
not
clever
enough
to
suppress
their
cleverness
.
I
wished
I
could
have
gone
downstairs
to
savour
the
tone
of
the
pantry
.
It
would
have
been
very
different
I
know
.
Hawksnest
,
over
beyond
,
I
noted
,
had
its
pseudomorph
too
;
a
newspaper
proprietor
of
the
type
that
hustles
along
with
stolen
ideas
from
one
loud
sink-or-swim
enterprise
to
another
,
had
bought
the
place
outright
;
Redgrave
was
in
the
hands
of
brewers
.
But
the
people
in
the
villages
,
so
far
as
I
could
detect
,
saw
no
difference
in
their
world
.
Two
little
girls
bobbed
and
an
old
labourer
touched
his
hat
convulsively
as
I
walked
through
the
village
.
He
still
thought
he
knew
his
place
—
and
mine
.
I
did
not
know
him
,
but
I
would
have
liked
dearly
to
have
asked
him
if
he
remembered
my
mother
,
if
either
my
uncle
or
old
Lichtenstein
had
been
man
enough
to
stand
being
given
away
like
that
.
In
that
English
countryside
of
my
boyhood
every
human
being
had
a
"
place
.
"
It
belonged
to
you
from
your
birth
like
the
colour
of
your
eyes
,
it
was
inextricably
your
destiny
.
Above
you
were
your
betters
,
below
you
were
your
inferiors
,
and
there
were
even
an
unstable
questionable
few
,
cases
so
disputable
that
you
might
for
the
rough
purposes
of
every
day
at
least
,
regard
them
as
your
equals
.
Head
and
centre
of
our
system
was
Lady
Drew
,
her
"
leddyship
,
"
shrivelled
,
garrulous
,
with
a
wonderful
memory
for
genealogies
and
very
,
very
old
,
and
beside
her
and
nearly
as
old
,
Miss
Somerville
,
her
cousin
and
companion
.
These
two
old
souls
lived
like
dried-up
kernels
in
the
great
shell
of
Bladesover
House
,
the
shell
that
had
once
been
gaily
full
of
fops
,
of
fine
ladies
in
powder
and
patches
and
courtly
gentlemen
with
swords
;
and
when
there
was
no
company
they
spent
whole
days
in
the
corner
parlour
just
over
the
housekeeper
's
room
,
between
reading
and
slumber
and
caressing
their
two
pet
dogs
.
When
I
was
a
boy
I
used
always
to
think
of
these
two
poor
old
creatures
as
superior
beings
living
,
like
God
,
somewhere
through
the
ceiling
.
Occasionally
they
bumped
about
a
bit
and
one
even
heard
them
overhead
,
which
gave
them
a
greater
effect
of
reality
without
mitigating
their
vertical
predominance
.
Sometimes
too
I
saw
them
.
Of
course
if
I
came
upon
them
in
the
park
or
in
the
shrubbery
(
where
I
was
a
trespasser
)
I
hid
or
fled
in
pious
horror
,
but
I
was
upon
due
occasion
taken
into
the
Presence
by
request
.
I
remember
her
"
leddyship
"
then
as
a
thing
of
black
silks
and
a
golden
chain
,
a
quavering
injunction
to
me
to
be
a
good
boy
,
a
very
shrunken
loose-skinned
face
and
neck
,
and
a
ropy
hand
that
trembled
a
halfcrown
into
mine
.
Miss
Somerville
hovered
behind
,
a
paler
thing
of
broken
lavender
and
white
and
black
,
with
screwed
up
,
sandy-lashed
eyes
.
Her
hair
was
yellow
and
her
colour
bright
,
and
when
we
sat
in
the
housekeeper
's
room
of
a
winter
's
night
warming
our
toes
and
sipping
elder
wine
,
her
maid
would
tell
us
the
simple
secrets
of
that
belated
flush
...
.
After
my
fight
with
young
Garvell
I
was
of
course
banished
,
and
I
never
saw
those
poor
old
painted
goddesses
again
.
Then
there
came
and
went
on
these
floors
over
our
respectful
heads
,
the
Company
;
people
I
rarely
saw
,
but
whose
tricks
and
manners
were
imitated
and
discussed
by
their
maids
and
valets
in
the
housekeeper
's
room
and
the
steward
's
room
—
so
that
I
had
them
through
a
medium
at
second
hand
.
I
gathered
that
none
of
the
company
were
really
Lady
Drew
's
equals
,
they
were
greater
and
lesser
after
the
manner
of
all
things
in
our
world
.
Once
I
remember
there
was
a
Prince
,
with
a
real
live
gentleman
in
attendance
,
and
that
was
a
little
above
our
customary
levels
and
excited
us
all
,
and
perhaps
raised
our
expectations
unduly
.
Afterwards
,
Rabbits
,
the
butler
,
came
into
my
mother
's
room
downstairs
,
red
with
indignation
and
with
tears
in
his
eyes
.
"
Look
at
that
!
"
gasped
Rabbits
.
My
mother
was
speechless
with
horror
.
That
was
a
sovereign
,
a
mere
sovereign
,
such
as
you
might
get
from
any
commoner
!
After
Company
,
I
remember
,
came
anxious
days
,
for
the
poor
old
women
upstairs
were
left
tired
and
cross
and
vindictive
,
and
in
a
state
of
physical
and
emotional
indigestion
after
their
social
efforts
...
.
On
the
lowest
fringe
of
these
real
Olympians
hung
the
vicarage
people
,
and
next
to
them
came
those
ambiguous
beings
who
are
neither
quality
nor
subjects
.
The
vicarage
people
certainly
hold
a
place
by
themselves
in
the
typical
English
scheme
;
nothing
is
more
remarkable
than
the
progress
the
Church
has
made
—
socially
—
in
the
last
two
hundred
years
.
In
the
early
eighteenth
century
the
vicar
was
rather
under
than
over
the
house-steward
,
and
was
deemed
a
fitting
match
for
the
housekeeper
or
any
not
too
morally
discredited
discard
.
The
eighteenth
century
literature
is
full
of
his
complaints
that
he
might
not
remain
at
table
to
share
the
pie
.
He
rose
above
these
indignities
because
of
the
abundance
of
younger
sons
.
When
I
meet
the
large
assumptions
of
the
contemporary
cleric
,
I
am
apt
to
think
of
these
things
.
It
is
curious
to
note
that
to-day
that
down-trodden
,
organ-playing
creature
,
the
Church
of
England
village
Schoolmaster
,
holds
much
the
same
position
as
the
seventeenth
century
parson
.
The
doctor
in
Bladesover
ranked
below
the
vicar
but
above
the
"
vet
,
"
artists
and
summer
visitors
squeezed
in
above
or
below
this
point
according
to
their
appearance
and
expenditure
,
and
then
in
a
carefully
arranged
scale
came
the
tenantry
,
the
butler
and
housekeeper
,
the
village
shopkeeper
,
the
head
keeper
,
the
cook
,
the
publican
,
the
second
keeper
,
the
blacksmith
(
whose
status
was
complicated
by
his
daughter
keeping
the
post-office
—
and
a
fine
hash
she
used
to
make
of
telegrams
too
!
)
the
village
shopkeeper
's
eldest
son
,
the
first
footman
,
younger
sons
of
the
village
shopkeeper
,
his
first
assistant
,
and
so
forth
.
All
these
conceptions
and
applications
of
a
universal
precedence
and
much
else
I
drank
in
at
Bladesover
,
as
I
listened
to
the
talk
of
valets
,
ladies'-maids
,
Rabbits
the
butler
and
my
mother
in
the
much-cupboarded
,
white-painted
,
chintz-brightened
housekeeper
's
room
where
the
upper
servants
assembled
,
or
of
footmen
and
Rabbits
and
estate
men
of
all
sorts
among
the
green
baize
and
Windsor
chairs
of
the
pantry
—
where
Rabbits
,
being
above
the
law
,
sold
beer
without
a
license
or
any
compunction
—
or
of
housemaids
and
still
—
room
maids
in
the
bleak
,
matting-carpeted
still-room
or
of
the
cook
and
her
kitchen
maids
and
casual
friends
among
the
bright
copper
and
hot
glow
of
the
kitchens
.
Of
course
their
own
ranks
and
places
came
by
implication
to
these
people
,
and
it
was
with
the
ranks
and
places
of
the
Olympians
that
the
talk
mainly
concerned
itself
.
There
was
an
old
peerage
and
a
Crockford
together
with
the
books
of
recipes
,
the
Whitaker
's
Almanack
,
the
Old
Moore
's
Almanack
,
and
the
eighteenth
century
dictionary
,
on
the
little
dresser
that
broke
the
cupboards
on
one
side
of
my
mother
's
room
;
there
was
another
peerage
,
with
the
covers
off
,
in
the
pantry
;
there
was
a
new
peerage
in
the
billiard-room
,
and
I
seem
to
remember
another
in
the
anomalous
apartment
that
held
the
upper
servants
'
bagatelle
board
and
in
which
,
after
the
Hall
dinner
,
they
partook
of
the
luxury
of
sweets
.
And
if
you
had
asked
any
of
those
upper
servants
how
such
and
such
a
Prince
of
Battenberg
was
related
to
,
let
us
say
,
Mr.
Cunninghame
Graham
or
the
Duke
of
Argyle
,
you
would
have
been
told
upon
the
nail
.
As
a
boy
,
I
heard
a
great
deal
of
that
sort
of
thing
,
and
if
to
this
day
I
am
still
a
little
vague
about
courtesy
titles
and
the
exact
application
of
honorifics
,
it
is
,
I
can
assure
you
,
because
I
hardened
my
heart
,
and
not
from
any
lack
of
adequate
opportunity
of
mastering
these
succulent
particulars
.
Dominating
all
these
memories
is
the
figure
of
my
mother
—
my
mother
who
did
not
love
me
because
I
grew
liker
my
father
every
day
—
and
who
knew
with
inflexible
decision
her
place
and
the
place
of
every
one
in
the
world
—
except
the
place
that
concealed
my
father
—
and
in
some
details
mine
.
Subtle
points
were
put
to
her
.
I
can
see
and
hear
her
saying
now
,
"
No
,
Miss
Fison
,
peers
of
England
go
in
before
peers
of
the
United
Kingdom
,
and
he
is
merely
a
peer
of
the
United
Kingdom
.
"
She
had
much
exercise
in
placing
people
's
servants
about
her
tea-table
,
where
the
etiquette
was
very
strict
.
I
wonder
sometimes
if
the
etiquette
of
housekeepers
'
rooms
is
as
strict
to-day
,
and
what
my
mother
would
have
made
of
a
chauffeur
...
.
On
the
whole
I
am
glad
that
I
saw
so
much
as
I
did
of
Bladesover
—
if
for
no
other
reason
than
because
seeing
it
when
I
did
,
quite
naively
,
believing
in
it
thoroughly
,
and
then
coming
to
analyse
it
,
has
enabled
me
to
understand
much
that
would
be
absolutely
incomprehensible
in
the
structure
of
English
society
.
Bladesover
is
,
I
am
convinced
,
the
clue
to
almost
all
that
is
distinctively
British
and
perplexing
to
the
foreign
inquirer
in
England
and
the
English-speaking
peoples
.
Grasp
firmly
that
England
was
all
Bladesover
two
hundred
years
ago
;
that
it
has
had
Reform
Acts
indeed
,
and
such-like
changes
of
formula
,
but
no
essential
revolution
since
then
;
that
all
that
is
modern
and
different
has
come
in
as
a
thing
intruded
or
as
a
gloss
upon
this
predominant
formula
,
either
impertinently
or
apologetically
;
and
you
will
perceive
at
once
the
reasonableness
,
the
necessity
,
of
that
snobbishness
which
is
the
distinctive
quality
of
English
thought
.
Everybody
who
is
not
actually
in
the
shadow
of
a
Bladesover
is
as
it
were
perpetually
seeking
after
lost
orientations
.
We
have
never
broken
with
our
tradition
,
never
even
symbolically
hewed
it
to
pieces
,
as
the
French
did
in
quivering
fact
in
the
Terror
.
But
all
the
organizing
ideas
have
slackened
,
the
old
habitual
bonds
have
relaxed
or
altogether
come
undone
.
And
America
too
,
is
,
as
it
were
,
a
detached
,
outlying
part
of
that
estate
which
has
expanded
in
queer
ways
.
George
Washington
,
Esquire
,
was
of
the
gentlefolk
,
and
he
came
near
being
a
King
.
It
was
Plutarch
,
you
know
,
and
nothing
intrinsically
American
that
prevented
George
Washington
being
a
King
...
.
I
hated
teatime
in
the
housekeeper
's
room
more
than
anything
else
at
Bladesover
.
And
more
particularly
I
hated
it
when
Mrs.
Mackridge
and
Mrs.
Booch
and
Mrs.
Latude-Fernay
were
staying
in
the
house
.
They
were
,
all
three
of
them
,
pensioned-off
servants
.
Old
friends
of
Lady
Drew
's
had
rewarded
them
posthumously
for
a
prolonged
devotion
to
their
minor
comforts
,
and
Mrs.
Booch
was
also
trustee
for
a
favourite
Skye
terrier
.
Every
year
Lady
Drew
gave
them
an
invitation
—
a
reward
and
encouragement
of
virtue
with
especial
reference
to
my
mother
and
Miss
Fison
,
the
maid
.
They
sat
about
in
black
and
shiny
and
flouncey
clothing
adorned
with
gimp
and
beads
,
eating
great
quantities
of
cake
,
drinking
much
tea
in
a
stately
manner
and
reverberating
remarks
.
I
remember
these
women
as
immense
.
No
doubt
they
were
of
negotiable
size
,
but
I
was
only
a
very
little
chap
and
they
have
assumed
nightmare
proportions
in
my
mind
.
They
loomed
,
they
bulged
,
they
impended
.
Mrs.
Mackridge
was
large
and
dark
;
there
was
a
marvel
about
her
head
,
inasmuch
as
she
was
bald
.
She
wore
a
dignified
cap
,
and
in
front
of
that
upon
her
brow
,
hair
was
PAINTED
.
I
have
never
seen
the
like
since
.
She
had
been
maid
to
the
widow
of
Sir
Roderick
Blenderhasset
Impey
,
some
sort
of
governor
or
such-like
portent
in
the
East
Indies
,
and
from
her
remains
—
in
Mrs.
Mackridge
—
I
judge
Lady
Impey
was
a
very
stupendous
and
crushing
creature
indeed
.
Lady
Impey
had
been
of
the
Juno
type
,
haughty
,
unapproachable
,
given
to
irony
and
a
caustic
wit
.
Mrs.
Mackridge
had
no
wit
,
but
she
had
acquired
the
caustic
voice
and
gestures
along
with
the
old
satins
and
trimmings
of
the
great
lady
.
When
she
told
you
it
was
a
fine
morning
,
she
seemed
also
to
be
telling
you
you
were
a
fool
and
a
low
fool
to
boot
;
when
she
was
spoken
to
,
she
had
a
way
of
acknowledging
your
poor
tinkle
of
utterance
with
a
voluminous
,
scornful
"
Haw
!
"
that
made
you
want
to
burn
her
alive
.
She
also
had
a
way
of
saying
"
Indade
!
"
with
a
droop
of
the
eyelids
.
Mrs.
Booch
was
a
smaller
woman
,
brown
haired
,
with
queer
little
curls
on
either
side
of
her
face
,
large
blue
eyes
and
a
small
set
of
stereotyped
remarks
that
constituted
her
entire
mental
range
.
Mrs.
Latude-Fernay
has
left
,
oddly
enough
,
no
memory
at
all
except
her
name
and
the
effect
of
a
green-grey
silk
dress
,
all
set
with
gold
and
blue
buttons
.
I
fancy
she
was
a
large
blonde
.
Then
there
was
Miss
Fison
,
the
maid
who
served
both
Lady
Drew
and
Miss
Somerville
,
and
at
the
end
of
the
table
opposite
my
mother
,
sat
Rabbits
the
butler
.
Rabbits
,
for
a
butler
,
was
an
unassuming
man
,
and
at
tea
he
was
not
as
you
know
butlers
,
but
in
a
morning
coat
and
a
black
tie
with
blue
spots
.
Still
,
he
was
large
,
with
side
whiskers
,
even
if
his
clean-shaven
mouth
was
weak
and
little
.
I
sat
among
these
people
on
a
high
,
hard
,
early
Gregorian
chair
,
trying
to
exist
,
like
a
feeble
seedling
amidst
great
rocks
,
and
my
mother
sat
with
an
eye
upon
me
,
resolute
to
suppress
the
slightest
manifestation
of
vitality
.
It
was
hard
on
me
,
but
perhaps
it
was
also
hard
upon
these
rather
over-fed
,
ageing
,
pretending
people
,
that
my
youthful
restlessness
and
rebellious
unbelieving
eyes
should
be
thrust
in
among
their
dignities
.
Tea
lasted
for
nearly
three-quarters
of
an
hour
,
and
I
sat
it
out
perforce
;
and
day
after
day
the
talk
was
exactly
the
same
.
"
Sugar
,
Mrs.
Mackridge
?
"
my
mother
used
to
ask
.
"
Sugar
,
Mrs.
Latude-Fernay
?
"
The
word
sugar
would
stir
the
mind
of
Mrs.
Mackridge
.
"
They
say
,
"
she
would
begin
,
issuing
her
proclamation
—
at
least
half
her
sentences
began
"
they
say
"
—
"
sugar
is
fatt-an-ing
,
nowadays
.
Many
of
the
best
people
do
not
take
it
at
all
.
"
"
Not
with
their
tea
,
ma'am
,
"
said
Rabbits
intelligently
.
"
Not
with
anything
,
"
said
Mrs.
Mackridge
,
with
an
air
of
crushing
repartee
,
and
drank
.
"
What
wo
n't
they
say
next
?
"
said
Miss
Fison
.
"
They
do
say
such
things
!
"
said
Mrs.
Booch
.
"
They
say
,
"
said
Mrs.
Mackridge
,
inflexibly
,
"
the
doctors
are
not
recomm-an-ding
it
now
.
"
My
Mother
:
"
No
,
ma'am
?
"
Mrs.
Mackridge
:
"
No
,
ma'am
.
"
Then
,
to
the
table
at
large
:
"
Poor
Sir
Roderick
,
before
he
died
,
consumed
great
quan-ta-ties
of
sugar
.
I
have
sometimes
fancied
it
may
have
hastened
his
end
.
"
This
ended
the
first
skirmish
.
A
certain
gloom
of
manner
and
a
pause
was
considered
due
to
the
sacred
memory
of
Sir
Roderick
.
"
George
,
"
said
my
mother
,
"
do
n't
kick
the
chair
!
"
Then
,
perhaps
,
Mrs.
Booch
would
produce
a
favourite
piece
from
her
repertoire
.
"
The
evenings
are
drawing
out
nicely
,
"
she
would
say
,
or
if
the
season
was
decadent
,
"
How
the
evenings
draw
in
!
"
It
was
an
invaluable
remark
to
her
;
I
do
not
know
how
she
would
have
got
along
without
it
.
My
mother
,
who
sat
with
her
back
to
the
window
,
would
always
consider
it
due
to
Mrs.
Booch
to
turn
about
and
regard
the
evening
in
the
act
of
elongation
or
contraction
,
whichever
phase
it
might
be
.
A
brisk
discussion
of
how
long
we
were
to
the
longest
or
shortest
day
would
ensue
,
and
die
away
at
last
exhausted
.
Mrs.
Mackridge
,
perhaps
,
would
reopen
.
She
had
many
intelligent
habits
;
among
others
she
read
the
paper
—
The
Morning
Post
.
The
other
ladies
would
at
times
tackle
that
sheet
,
but
only
to
read
the
births
,
marriages
,
and
deaths
on
the
front
page
.
It
was
,
of
course
,
the
old
Morning
Post
that
cost
threepence
,
not
the
brisk
coruscating
young
thing
of
to-day
.
"
They
say
,
"
she
would
open
,
"
that
Lord
Tweedums
is
to
go
to
Canada
.
"
"
Ah
!
"
said
Mr.
Rabbits
;
"
dew
they
?
"
"
Is
n't
he
,
"
said
my
mother
,
"
the
Earl
of
Slumgold
's
cousin
?
"
She
knew
he
was
;
it
was
an
entirely
irrelevant
and
unnecessary
remark
,
but
still
,
something
to
say
.
"
The
same
,
ma'am
,
"
said
Mrs.
Mackridge
.
"
They
say
he
was
extremelay
popular
in
New
South
Wales
.
They
looked
up
to
him
greatlay
.
I
knew
him
,
ma'am
,
as
a
young
man
.
A
very
nice
pleasant
young
fella
.
"
Interlude
of
respect
.
"
'
Is
predecessor
,
"
said
Rabbits
,
who
had
acquired
from
some
clerical
model
a
precise
emphatic
articulation
without
acquiring
at
the
same
time
the
aspirates
that
would
have
graced
it
,
"
got
into
trouble
at
Sydney
.
"
"
Haw
!
"
said
Mrs.
Mackridge
,
scornfully
,
"
so
am
tawled
.
"
"
'
E
came
to
Templemorton
after
'
e
came
back
,
and
I
remember
them
talking
'
im
over
after
'
e
'd
gone
again
.
"
"
Haw
?
"
said
Mrs.
Mackridge
,
interrogatively
.
"
'
Is
fuss
was
quotin
'
poetry
,
ma'am
.
'
E
said
—
what
was
it
'
e
said
—
'
They
lef
'
their
country
for
their
country
's
good
,
'
—
which
in
some
way
was
took
to
remind
them
of
their
being
originally
convic
's
,
though
now
reformed
.
Every
one
I
'
eard
speak
,
agreed
it
was
takless
of
'
im
.
"
"
Sir
Roderick
used
to
say
,
"
said
Mrs.
Mackridge
,
"
that
the
First
Thing
,
"
—
here
Mrs.
Mackridge
paused
and
looked
dreadfully
at
me
—
"
and
the
Second
Thing
"
—
here
she
fixed
me
again
—
"
and
the
Third
Thing
"
—
now
I
was
released
—
"
needed
in
a
colonial
governor
is
Tact
.
"
She
became
aware
of
my
doubts
again
,
and
added
predominantly
,
"
It
has
always
struck
me
that
that
was
a
Singularly
True
Remark
.
"
I
resolved
that
if
ever
I
found
this
polypus
of
Tact
growing
up
in
my
soul
,
I
would
tear
it
out
by
the
roots
,
throw
it
forth
and
stamp
on
it
.
"
They
're
queer
people
—
colonials
,
"
said
Rabbits
,
"
very
queer
.
When
I
was
at
Templemorton
I
see
something
of
'
em
.
Queer
fellows
,
some
of
'
em
.
Very
respectful
of
course
,
free
with
their
money
in
a
spasammy
sort
of
way
,
but
—
Some
of
'
em
,
I
must
confess
,
make
me
nervous
.
They
have
an
eye
on
you
.
They
watch
you
—
as
you
wait
.
They
let
themselves
appear
to
be
lookin
'
at
you
...
"
My
mother
said
nothing
in
that
discussion
.
The
word
colonies
always
upset
her
.
She
was
afraid
,
I
think
,
that
if
she
turned
her
mind
in
that
direction
my
errant
father
might
suddenly
and
shockingly
be
discovered
,
no
doubt
conspicuously
bigamic
and
altogether
offensive
and
revolutionary
.
She
did
not
want
to
rediscover
my
father
at
all
.
It
is
curious
that
when
I
was
a
little
listening
boy
I
had
such
an
idea
of
our
colonies
that
I
jeered
in
my
heart
at
Mrs.
Mackridge
's
colonial
ascendancy
.
These
brave
emancipated
sunburnt
English
of
the
open
,
I
thought
,
suffer
these
aristocratic
invaders
as
a
quaint
anachronism
,
but
as
for
being
gratified
—
!
I
do
n't
jeer
now
.
I
'm
not
so
sure
.
It
is
a
little
difficult
to
explain
why
I
did
not
come
to
do
what
was
the
natural
thing
for
any
one
in
my
circumstances
to
do
,
and
take
my
world
for
granted
.
A
certain
innate
scepticism
,
I
think
,
explains
it
and
a
certain
inaptitude
for
sympathetic
assimilation
.
My
father
,
I
believe
,
was
a
sceptic
;
my
mother
was
certainly
a
hard
woman
.
I
was
an
only
child
,
and
to
this
day
I
do
not
know
whether
my
father
is
living
or
dead
.
He
fled
my
mother
's
virtues
before
my
distincter
memories
began
.
He
left
no
traces
in
his
flight
,
and
she
,
in
her
indignation
,
destroyed
every
vestige
that
she
could
of
him
.
Never
a
photograph
nor
a
scrap
of
his
handwriting
have
I
seen
;
and
it
was
,
I
know
,
only
the
accepted
code
of
virtue
and
discretion
that
prevented
her
destroying
her
marriage
certificate
and
me
,
and
so
making
a
clean
sweep
of
her
matrimonial
humiliation
.
I
suppose
I
must
inherit
something
of
the
moral
stupidity
that
would
enable
her
to
make
a
holocaust
of
every
little
personal
thing
she
had
of
him
.
There
must
have
been
presents
made
by
him
as
a
lover
,
for
example
—
books
with
kindly
inscriptions
,
letters
perhaps
,
a
flattened
flower
,
a
ring
,
or
such-like
gage
.
She
kept
her
wedding-ring
,
of
course
,
but
all
the
others
she
destroyed
.
She
never
told
me
his
christian
name
or
indeed
spoke
a
word
to
me
of
him
;
though
at
times
I
came
near
daring
to
ask
her
:
add
what
I
have
of
him
—
it
is
n't
much
—
I
got
from
his
brother
,
my
hero
,
my
uncle
Ponderevo
.
She
wore
her
ring
;
her
marriage
certificate
she
kept
in
a
sealed
envelope
in
the
very
bottom
of
her
largest
trunk
,
and
me
she
sustained
at
a
private
school
among
the
Kentish
hills
.
You
must
not
think
I
was
always
at
Bladesover
—
even
in
my
holidays
.
If
at
the
time
these
came
round
,
Lady
Drew
was
vexed
by
recent
Company
,
or
for
any
other
reason
wished
to
take
it
out
of
my
mother
,
then
she
used
to
ignore
the
customary
reminder
my
mother
gave
her
,
and
I
"
stayed
on
"
at
the
school
.
But
such
occasions
were
rare
,
and
I
suppose
that
between
ten
and
fourteen
I
averaged
fifty
days
a
year
at
Bladesover
.
Do
n't
imagine
I
deny
that
was
a
fine
thing
for
me
.
Bladesover
,
in
absorbing
the
whole
countryside
,
had
not
altogether
missed
greatness
.
The
Bladesover
system
has
at
least
done
one
good
thing
for
England
,
it
has
abolished
the
peasant
habit
of
mind
.
If
many
of
us
still
live
and
breathe
pantry
and
housekeeper
's
room
,
we
are
quit
of
the
dream
of
living
by
economising
parasitically
on
hens
and
pigs
...
.
About
that
park
there
were
some
elements
of
a
liberal
education
;
there
was
a
great
space
of
greensward
not
given
over
to
manure
and
food
grubbing
;
there
was
mystery
,
there
was
matter
for
the
imagination
.
It
was
still
a
park
of
deer
.
I
saw
something
of
the
life
of
these
dappled
creatures
,
heard
the
belling
of
stags
,
came
upon
young
fawns
among
the
bracken
,
found
bones
,
skulls
,
and
antlers
in
lonely
places
.
There
were
corners
that
gave
a
gleam
of
meaning
to
the
word
forest
,
glimpses
of
unstudied
natural
splendour
.
There
was
a
slope
of
bluebells
in
the
broken
sunlight
under
the
newly
green
beeches
in
the
west
wood
that
is
now
precious
sapphire
in
my
memory
;
it
was
the
first
time
that
I
knowingly
met
Beauty
.
And
in
the
house
there
were
books
.
The
rubbish
old
Lady
Drew
read
I
never
saw
;
stuff
of
the
Maria
Monk
type
,
I
have
since
gathered
,
had
a
fascination
for
her
;
but
back
in
the
past
there
had
been
a
Drew
of
intellectual
enterprise
,
Sir
Cuthbert
,
the
son
of
Sir
Matthew
who
built
the
house
;
and
thrust
away
,
neglected
and
despised
,
in
an
old
room
upstairs
,
were
books
and
treasures
of
his
that
my
mother
let
me
rout
among
during
a
spell
of
wintry
wet
.
Sitting
under
a
dormer
window
on
a
shelf
above
great
stores
of
tea
and
spices
,
I
became
familiar
with
much
of
Hogarth
in
a
big
portfolio
,
with
Raphael
,
there
was
a
great
book
of
engravings
from
the
stanzas
of
Raphael
in
the
Vatican
—
and
with
most
of
the
capitals
of
Europe
as
they
had
looked
about
1780
,
by
means
of
several
pig
iron-moulded
books
of
views
.
There
was
also
a
broad
eighteenth
century
atlas
with
huge
wandering
maps
that
instructed
me
mightily
.
It
had
splendid
adornments
about
each
map
title
;
Holland
showed
a
fisherman
and
his
boat
;
Russia
a
Cossack
;
Japan
,
remarkable
people
attired
in
pagodas
—
I
say
it
deliberately
,
"
pagodas
.
"
There
were
Terrae
Incognitae
in
every
continent
then
,
Poland
,
Sarmatia
,
lands
since
lost
;
and
many
a
voyage
I
made
with
a
blunted
pin
about
that
large
,
incorrect
and
dignified
world
.
The
books
in
that
little
old
closet
had
been
banished
,
I
suppose
,
from
the
saloon
during
the
Victorian
revival
of
good
taste
and
emasculated
orthodoxy
,
but
my
mother
had
no
suspicion
of
their
character
.
So
I
read
and
understood
the
good
sound
rhetoric
of
Tom
Paine
's
"
Rights
of
Man
,
"
and
his
"
Common
Sense
,
"
excellent
books
,
once
praised
by
bishops
and
since
sedulously
lied
about
.
Gulliver
was
there
unexpurgated
,
strong
meat
for
a
boy
perhaps
but
not
too
strong
I
hold
—
I
have
never
regretted
that
I
escaped
niceness
in
these
affairs
.
The
satire
of
Traldragdubh
made
my
blood
boil
as
it
was
meant
to
do
,
but
I
hated
Swift
for
the
Houyhnhnms
and
never
quite
liked
a
horse
afterwards
.
Then
I
remember
also
a
translation
of
Voltaire
's
"
Candide
,
"
and
"
Rasselas
;
"
and
,
vast
book
though
it
was
,
I
really
believe
I
read
,
in
a
muzzy
sort
of
way
of
course
,
from
end
to
end
,
and
even
with
some
reference
now
and
then
to
the
Atlas
,
Gibbon
—
in
twelve
volumes
.
These
readings
whetted
my
taste
for
more
,
and
surreptitiously
I
raided
the
bookcases
in
the
big
saloon
.
I
got
through
quite
a
number
of
books
before
my
sacrilegious
temerity
was
discovered
by
Ann
,
the
old
head-housemaid
.
I
remember
that
among
others
I
tried
a
translation
of
Plato
's
"
Republic
"
then
,
and
found
extraordinarily
little
interest
in
it
;
I
was
much
too
young
for
that
;
but
"
Vathek
"
—
"
Vathek
"
was
glorious
stuff
.
That
kicking
affair
!
When
everybody
HAD
to
kick
!
The
thought
of
"
Vathek
"
always
brings
back
with
it
my
boyish
memory
of
the
big
saloon
at
Bladesover
.
It
was
a
huge
long
room
with
many
windows
opening
upon
the
park
,
and
each
window
—
there
were
a
dozen
or
more
reaching
from
the
floor
up
—
had
its
elaborate
silk
or
satin
curtains
,
heavily
fringed
,
a
canopy
(
is
it
?
)
above
,
its
completely
white
shutters
folding
into
the
deep
thickness
of
the
wall
.
At
either
end
of
that
great
still
place
was
an
immense
marble
chimney-piece
;
the
end
by
the
bookcase
showed
the
wolf
and
Romulus
and
Remus
,
with
Homer
and
Virgil
for
supporters
;
the
design
of
the
other
end
I
have
forgotten
.
Frederick
,
Prince
of
Wales
,
swaggered
flatly
over
the
one
,
twice
life-size
,
but
mellowed
by
the
surface
gleam
of
oil
;
and
over
the
other
was
an
equally
colossal
group
of
departed
Drews
as
sylvan
deities
,
scantily
clad
,
against
a
storm-rent
sky
.
Down
the
centre
of
the
elaborate
ceiling
were
three
chandeliers
,
each
bearing
some
hundreds
of
dangling
glass
lustres
,
and
over
the
interminable
carpet
—
it
impressed
me
as
about
as
big
as
Sarmatia
in
the
store-room
Atlas
—
were
islands
and
archipelagoes
of
chintz-covered
chairs
and
couches
,
tables
,
great
Sevres
vases
on
pedestals
,
a
bronze
man
and
horse
.
Somewhere
in
this
wilderness
one
came
,
I
remember
,
upon
—
a
big
harp
beside
a
lyre-shaped
music
stand
,
and
a
grand
piano
...
.
The
book-borrowing
raid
was
one
of
extraordinary
dash
and
danger
.
One
came
down
the
main
service
stairs
—
that
was
legal
,
and
illegality
began
in
a
little
landing
when
,
very
cautiously
,
one
went
through
a
red
baize
door
.
A
little
passage
led
to
the
hall
,
and
here
one
reconnoitered
for
Ann
,
the
old
head-housemaid
—
the
younger
housemaids
were
friendly
and
did
not
count
.
Ann
located
,
came
a
dash
across
the
open
space
at
the
foot
of
that
great
staircase
that
has
never
been
properly
descended
since
powder
went
out
of
fashion
,
and
so
to
the
saloon
door
.
A
beast
of
an
oscillating
Chinaman
in
china
,
as
large
as
life
,
grimaced
and
quivered
to
one
's
lightest
steps
.
That
door
was
the
perilous
place
;
it
was
double
with
the
thickness
of
the
wall
between
,
so
that
one
could
not
listen
beforehand
for
the
whisk
of
the
feather-brush
on
the
other
side
.
Oddly
rat-like
,
is
it
not
,
this
darting
into
enormous
places
in
pursuit
of
the
abandoned
crumbs
of
thought
?
And
I
found
Langhorne
's
"
Plutarch
"
too
,
I
remember
,
on
those
shelves
.
It
seems
queer
to
me
now
to
think
that
I
acquired
pride
and
self-respect
,
the
idea
of
a
state
and
the
germ
of
public
spirit
,
in
such
a
furtive
fashion
;
queer
,
too
,
that
it
should
rest
with
an
old
Greek
,
dead
these
eighteen
hundred
years
to
teach
that
.
The
school
I
went
to
was
the
sort
of
school
the
Bladesover
system
permitted
.
The
public
schools
that
add
comic
into
existence
in
the
brief
glow
of
the
Renascence
had
been
taken
possession
of
by
the
ruling
class
;
the
lower
classes
were
not
supposed
to
stand
in
need
of
schools
,
and
our
middle
stratum
got
the
schools
it
deserved
,
private
schools
,
schools
any
unqualified
pretender
was
free
to
establish
.
Mine
was
kept
by
a
man
who
had
had
the
energy
to
get
himself
a
College
of
Preceptors
diploma
,
and
considering
how
cheap
his
charges
were
,
I
will
readily
admit
the
place
might
have
been
worse
.
The
building
was
a
dingy
yellow-brick
residence
outside
the
village
,
with
the
schoolroom
as
an
outbuilding
of
lath
and
plaster
.
I
do
not
remember
that
my
school-days
were
unhappy-indeed
I
recall
a
good
lot
of
fine
mixed
fun
in
them
—
but
I
cannot
without
grave
risk
of
misinterpretation
declare
that
we
were
at
all
nice
and
refined
.
We
fought
much
,
not
sound
formal
fighting
,
but
"
scrapping
"
of
a
sincere
and
murderous
kind
,
into
which
one
might
bring
one
's
boots
—
it
made
us
tough
at
any
rate
—
and
several
of
us
were
the
sons
of
London
publicans
,
who
distinguished
"
scraps
"
where
one
meant
to
hurt
from
ordered
pugilism
,
practising
both
arts
,
and
having
,
moreover
,
precocious
linguistic
gifts
.
Our
cricket-field
was
bald
about
the
wickets
,
and
we
played
without
style
and
disputed
with
the
umpire
;
and
the
teaching
was
chiefly
in
the
hands
of
a
lout
of
nineteen
,
who
wore
ready-made
clothes
and
taught
despicably
.
The
head-master
and
proprietor
taught
us
arithmetic
,
algebra
,
and
Euclid
,
and
to
the
older
boys
even
trigonometry
,
himself
;
he
had
a
strong
mathematical
bias
,
and
I
think
now
that
by
the
standard
of
a
British
public
school
he
did
rather
well
by
us
.
We
had
one
inestimable
privilege
at
that
school
,
and
that
was
spiritual
neglect
.
We
dealt
with
one
another
with
the
forcible
simplicity
of
natural
boys
,
we
"
cheeked
,
"
and
"
punched
"
and
"
clouted
"
;
we
thought
ourselves
Red
Indians
and
cowboys
and
such-like
honourable
things
,
and
not
young
English
gentlemen
;
we
never
felt
the
strain
of
"
Onward
Christian
soldiers
,
"
nor
were
swayed
by
any
premature
piety
in
the
cold
oak
pew
of
our
Sunday
devotions
.
All
that
was
good
.
We
spent
our
rare
pennies
in
the
uncensored
reading
matter
of
the
village
dame
's
shop
,
on
the
Boys
of
England
,
and
honest
penny
dreadfuls
—
ripping
stuff
,
stuff
that
anticipated
Haggard
and
Stevenson
,
badly
printed
and
queerly
illustrated
,
and
very
very
good
for
us
.
On
our
half-holidays
we
were
allowed
the
unusual
freedom
of
rambling
in
twos
and
threes
wide
and
far
about
the
land
,
talking
experimentally
,
dreaming
wildly
.
There
was
much
in
those
walks
!
To
this
day
the
landscape
of
the
Kentish
world
,
with
its
low
broad
distances
,
its
hop
gardens
and
golden
stretches
of
wheat
,
its
oasts
and
square
church
towers
,
its
background
of
downland
and
hangers
,
has
for
me
a
faint
sense
of
adventure
added
to
the
pleasure
of
its
beauty
.
We
smoked
on
occasion
,
but
nobody
put
us
up
to
the
proper
"
boyish
"
things
to
do
;
we
never
"
robbed
an
orchard
"
for
example
,
though
there
were
orchards
all
about
us
,
we
thought
stealing
was
sinful
,
we
stole
incidental
apples
and
turnips
and
strawberries
from
the
fields
indeed
,
but
in
a
criminal
inglorious
fashion
,
and
afterwards
we
were
ashamed
.
We
had
our
days
of
adventure
,
but
they
were
natural
accidents
,
our
own
adventures
.
There
was
one
hot
day
when
several
of
us
,
walking
out
towards
Maidstone
,
were
incited
by
the
devil
to
despise
ginger
beer
,
and
we
fuddled
ourselves
dreadfully
with
ale
;
and
a
time
when
our
young
minds
were
infected
to
the
pitch
of
buying
pistols
,
by
the
legend
of
the
Wild
West
.
Young
Roots
from
Highbury
came
back
with
a
revolver
and
cartridges
,
and
we
went
off
six
strong
to
live
a
free
wild
life
one
holiday
afternoon
.
We
fired
our
first
shot
deep
in
the
old
flint
mine
at
Chiselstead
,
and
nearly
burst
our
ear
drums
;
then
we
fired
in
a
primrose
studded
wood
by
Pickthorn
Green
,
and
I
gave
a
false
alarm
of
"
keeper
,
"
and
we
fled
in
disorder
for
a
mile
.
After
which
Roots
suddenly
shot
at
a
pheasant
in
the
high
road
by
Chiselstead
,
and
then
young
Barker
told
lies
about
the
severity
of
the
game
laws
and
made
Roots
sore
afraid
,
and
we
hid
the
pistol
in
a
dry
ditch
outside
the
school
field
.
A
day
or
so
after
we
got
in
again
,
and
ignoring
a
certain
fouling
and
rusting
of
the
barrel
,
tried
for
a
rabbit
at
three
hundred
yards
.
Young
Roots
blew
a
molehill
at
twenty
paces
into
a
dust
cloud
,
burnt
his
fingers
,
and
scorched
his
face
;
and
the
weapon
having
once
displayed
this
strange
disposition
to
flame
back
upon
the
shooter
,
was
not
subsequently
fired
.
One
main
source
of
excitement
for
us
was
"
cheeking
"
people
in
vans
and
carts
upon
the
Goudhurst
road
;
and
getting
myself
into
a
monstrous
white
mess
in
the
chalk
pits
beyond
the
village
,
and
catching
yellow
jaundice
as
a
sequel
to
bathing
stark
naked
with
three
other
Adamites
,
old
Ewart
leading
that
function
,
in
the
rivulet
across
Hickson
's
meadows
,
are
among
my
memorabilia
.
Those
free
imaginative
afternoons
!
how
much
they
were
for
us
!
how
much
they
did
for
us
!
All
streams
came
from
the
then
undiscovered
"
sources
of
the
Nile
"
in
those
days
,
all
thickets
were
Indian
jungles
,
and
our
best
game
,
I
say
it
with
pride
,
I
invented
.
I
got
it
out
of
the
Bladesover
saloon
.
We
found
a
wood
where
"
Trespassing
"
was
forbidden
,
and
did
the
"
Retreat
of
the
Ten
Thousand
"
through
it
from
end
to
end
,
cutting
our
way
bravely
through
a
host
of
nettle
beds
that
barred
our
path
,
and
not
forgetting
to
weep
and
kneel
when
at
last
we
emerged
within
sight
of
the
High
Road
Sea
.
So
we
have
burst
at
times
,
weeping
and
rejoicing
,
upon
startled
wayfarers
.
Usually
I
took
the
part
of
that
distinguished
general
Xenophen
—
and
please
note
the
quantity
of
the
o
.
I
have
all
my
classical
names
like
that
,
—
Socrates
rhymes
with
Bates
for
me
,
and
except
when
the
bleak
eye
of
some
scholar
warns
