9i THE EARLY DAYS OF 



Wednesdays and Fridays my only food was stale bread washed 

 down by water from the pump, and we used to search for pig-nuts 

 to satisfy our craving. Salt tish occasionally was put upon the 

 table, but an edict had gone forth that it was not fit for human 

 food, so no one ever touched it. I have heard it said that no one 

 knows who leads the fashions; and certainly I never heard who 

 passed the order about the fish — masters ? boys ? or was it evolved 

 out of our inner consciousness? But there the order was, and we 

 small boys could not disregard it, unless we wished to make our 

 lives a burden to ourselves. 



Then we had to attend long services in Chapel, and listen to 

 dreary sermons which no one but the pulpit orator himself could 

 possibly enjoy. But I must not, in justice, omit to mention that 

 the masters were supposed to share the austerities which they en- 

 joined on us ; this, however, afforded only indifferent consolation. 

 Indeed, those who are engaged in instructing youth should not be 

 allowed to fast at all, for a reason that may be illustrated by a 

 passage which I find in Andrew Lang's translation of Theocritus — 



" Diocleides has not hati his dinner, and the man is all vinegar — don't 

 venture near him when he is kept waiting for his dinner." 



And everyone knows the amusing diary of the Quaker Dr. Rutty, 

 and the entry, "Snappish on fasting." Quakers, so far as I have 

 seen them, are the mildest and best of men, and if they become 

 snappish when deprived of food, what must those who are naturally 

 savage be ? 



I have no doubt however, that the authorities at School when 

 they made us fast, acted according to their light, but it was the 

 lucu^ a non lucendo of the ancients, which may be translated here, 

 as a light which makes darkness visible. I suppose it was intended 

 for mortification, as though there was not enough of that about 

 already. 



The river Kennet developed my love for fishing; and since the time 

 when I broiled trout out of bounds upon the embers, much of my 



