232 Morris on His School Life [1896 



Marlborough, he was neither high nor low in his form, bu't always last 

 in arithmetic [in this like me] ; hated Cicero and Latin generally, but 

 anything in the way of history had attracted him ; he knew English his- 

 tory better than Greek history, though only 'the latter was taught ; he 

 had learned nearly everything he knew of architecture and mediaeval 

 things running about the country round Marlborough as a schoolboy. 

 The Morrises are at the Norfolk Hotel. 



" 26th June. — With Everard Fielding to see Tissot's pictures, not 

 really good either in drawing or in taste, and rather sham in their 

 Oriental realism. 



" Breakfasted with George, who was in the highest of his high spirits, 

 having been up at a ball till five at Grosvenor House, and then out a't 

 nine to try a new bicycle on Hampstead Heath, which is to run forty 

 miles an hour. His triumphs are my triumphs, and I delight in his 

 happiness. 



' 1st July. — Lunched with Harry Cust, who is starting in a few days 

 for Sou'th Africa. 



' 10th July. — Went with George Wyndham to a dinner given by 

 Henley to the ' New Review ' contributors, a deadly dull affair, as all 

 men's dinners are — the most interesting person I met there was the 

 Dane Brandes, who has the honour of having invented Ibsen. Whibley 

 also was there, with whom I 'talked. 



" Things are going badly in South Africa for the Chartered Com- 

 pany. The black are in arms, and it seems doubtful whether they can 

 be put down. Rhodes is now quite discredited. 



" nth July. — Lunched with Lady Galloway, and down by the after- 

 noon train to Canterbury 'to stay with Guy Wyndham and his wife, who 

 are quartered there. They have a very beautiful child, a boy called 

 George. 



" 12th July. — With Guy to see the Cathedral. I am disappointed 

 with it, after all Morris told me — that is, with 'the inside, which has 

 been scraped out of most of its interest. Only the tombs are splendid, 

 especially that of the Black Prince. The tower outside, seen from the 

 cloisters, is grand, and I have arrived just in time to see these and the 

 chapter house unspoiled. ' If you had come a week later,' said the 

 verger, ' you would have found the whole a mass of scaffolding.' Dean 

 Farrar, who wants, Morris says, to be made a Bishop, is bent on scrap- 

 ing and destroying all 'that has hitherto escaped, a hideous madness of 

 destruction nothing can prevent. 



" In the evening back to London, and dined with the Morrises, to 

 wish him good-bye, as he sails for Norway next week. The garden at 

 Kelmscott House is lovely with hollyhocks. 



" 15th July. — To the Horse Show at the Crystal Palace, where 



