Introductory 



have felt, and are still feeling, the vertical breeze of political 

 and economic upheaval. They have seen war. But to 

 those who have the gift of extracting charm from memory, 

 their greatest treasure is the link they can preserve with 

 that picturesque country life of which their grandfathers 

 could tell them. Some of them, for instance, had the rare 

 privilege of taking their first lessons in driving four horses 

 from the men of old time who had driven the mail coaches. 

 We ourselves made our first attempt at coaching in London 

 under the master eye of the late Mr. Charles Ward, who 

 drove the Exeter Telegraph. As boys and girls they had 

 a glimpse of the placid county society of the undiluted 

 mid- Victorian type, before its character was destroyed by 

 the multiplication of quick trains up to London, automobiles, 

 kodaks, telephones, and week-end parties. The atmosphere 

 of Eton and Oxford was much the same as it had been in 

 the time of their fathers, particularly the Eton of Dr. Hornby. 

 There was a very slight draught, almost imperceptible, when 

 Dr. Warre of revered memory succeeded Dr. Hornby, the 

 effect of which can only be appreciated by those who were 

 at Eton when the change took place. The nature of the 

 change was the substitution of a certain flavour of the 

 orderly room for the dignified, flexible, country-house 

 compromise that prevailed when Hornby was headmaster. 

 At Oxford the Bullingdon, Fox-hunting, steeple-chasing set 

 was still flourishing. Those who went to Oxford at any 

 time, say, between 1885 and 1895 found it to be exactly 

 the place their fathers had described. The very henchmen 

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