WINCHESTER 105 



mature judgment of retrospect is perhaps not 

 the same as the opinions which were expressed 

 under the impulse of youth and ardour and the 

 pressure of the moment. 



There must have been about a fortnight of 

 the trout fishing season left when I first went 

 to Winchester in September 1876, but I was 

 not then in a position to take advantage of it. 

 Most boys probably look forward to the first 

 days at a public school with alarm and awe. 

 It certainly was so with me, and I remember 

 very well discussing this feeling with a con- 

 temporary at a preparatory school. He and I 

 had both reached that position of comparative 

 ease and security which can be attained by 

 older boys even at private schools, and we 

 agreed that we looked forward with dread to 

 exchanging it for the plunge into the unknown 

 which entrance into a public school appeared 

 to us to be. Nothing stands out more clearly 

 in the memories of boyhood than the first days 

 at a first school, and after them the first days at a 

 public school. One is bewildered by novelty and 

 apprehension, and it is not only the outward 

 incidents, but one's own inner self and its sensi- 



