HERTFORD: MY SCHOOL LIFE 59 



for then all eyes would be upon me. The trouble of not 

 always knowing what to do came upon me with exaggerated 

 force, and I used to open my desk and fumble about among 

 its contents so as to hide my face as long as possible. 



After some years the dream became still more painful by 

 the thought occurring to me sometimes that I need not go, 

 that I had really left school; and yet the next time the 

 dream came I could not resist the impulse to go, however 

 much I dreaded it. At last a phase came in which I seemed 

 to have nothing to do at school, and my whole time there 

 was spent in pretending to do something, such as mending 

 pens or reading a school-book, all the while feeling that the 

 boys were looking at me and wondering what I was there 

 for. Then would come a struggle not to go. I would say to 

 myself that I was sure I had left school, that I had nothing 

 to do there, that if I never went again nothing would happen ; 

 yet for a long time I always did go again. Then for a time 

 I would dream that it was close to the holidays, or that the 

 next day was breaking-up, and that I had better not go at 

 all. Then I would remember that my books and slate and 

 others things were in my desk, and that I must take them 

 away. And after this for some years I would still occasion- 

 ally dream that I had to go on this last day to carry away my 

 books and take formal leave of Mr. Crutwell. After having 

 got to this point even, the dream reappeared, and I went over 

 the last school-day again and again; and then the final stage 

 came, in which I seemed to have the old impulse to go to 

 school, even started on the way, and then remembered that I 

 had really left, that I need never go any more, and with an 

 infinite sense of relief turned back, and found myself in some 

 quite different life. 



Now, the very long persistence of such a dream as this 

 shows, I think, how deeply impressionable is the mind at this 

 period of boyhood, and how very difficult it is to get rid of 

 painful impressions which have been almost daily repeated. 

 Whether or not this particular form of experience in my boy- 

 hood produced any permanent effect on my character I cannot 

 say, but the mere continuance of a painful dream for so many 



