that has done none? But this I protest:--that nothing that I say
shall be untrue. I will set down naught in malice; nor will I give
to myself, or others, honour which I do not believe to have been
fairly won. My boyhood was, I think, as unhappy as that of a young
gentleman could well be, my misfortunes arising from a mixture of
poverty and gentle standing on the part of my father, and from an
utter want on my part of the juvenile manhood which enables some
boys to hold up their heads even among the distresses which such
a position is sure to produce.
I was born in 1815, in Keppel Street, Russell Square; and while a
baby, was carried down to Harrow, where my father had built a house
on a large farm which, in an evil hour he took on a long lease from
Lord Northwick. That farm was the grave of all my father's hopes,
ambition, and prosperity, the cause of my mother's sufferings, and
of those of her children, and perhaps the director of her destiny
and of ours. My father had been a Wykamist and a fellow of New
College, and Winchester was the destination of my brothers and
myself; but as he had friends among the masters at Harrow, and as
the school offered an education almost gratuitous to children living
in the parish, he, with a certain aptitude to do things differently
from others, which accompanied him throughout his life, determined
to use that august seminary as "t'other school" for Winchester, and
sent three of us there, one after the other, at the age of seven.
My father at this time was a Chancery barrister practising in
London, occupying dingy, almost suicidal chambers, at No. 23 Old
Square, Lincoln's Inn,--chambers which on one melancholy occasion
did become absolutely suicidal. [Footnote: A pupil of his destroyed
himself in the rooms.] He was, as I have been informed by those
quite competent to know, an excellent and most conscientious lawyer,
but plagued with so bad a temper, that he drove the attorneys from
him. In his early days he was a man of some small fortune and of
higher hopes. These stood so high at the time of my birth, that
he was felt to be entitled to a country house, as well as to that
in Keppel Street; and in order that he might build such a residence,
he took the farm. This place he called Julians, and the land runs
up to the foot of the hill on which the school and the church
stand,--on the side towards London. Things there went much against
him; the farm was ruinous, and I remember that we all regarded the
Lord Northwick of those days as a cormorant who was eating us up.
My father's clients deserted him. He purchased various dark gloomy
chambers in and about Chancery Lane, and his purchases always went
wrong. Then, as a final crushing blow, and old uncle, whose heir he
was to have been, married and had a family! The house in London was
let; and also the house he built at Harrow, from which he descended
to a farmhouse on the land, which I have endeavoured to make known
to some readers under the name of Orley Farm. This place, just as it
was when we lived there, is to be seen in the frontispiece to the
first edition of that novel, having the good fortune to be delineated
by no less a pencil than that of John Millais.
My two elder brothers had been sent as day-boarders to Harrow
School from the bigger house, and may probably have been received
among the aristocratic crowd,--not on equal terms, because a
day-boarder at Harrow in those days was never so received,--but at
any rate as other day-boarders. I do not suppose that they were well
treated, but I doubt whether they were subjected to the ignominy
which I endured. I was only seven, and I think that boys at seven
are now spared among their more considerate seniors. I was never
spared; and was not even allowed to run to and fro between our house
and the school without a daily purgatory. No doubt my appearance
was against me. I remember well, when I was still the junior boy
in the school, Dr. Butler, the head-master, stopping me in the
street, and asking me, with all the clouds of Jove upon his brow
and the thunder in his voice, whether it was possible that Harrow
School was disgraced by so disreputably dirty a boy as I! Oh, what
I felt at that moment! But I could not look my feelings. I do not
doubt that I was dirty;--but I think that he was cruel. He must
have known me had he seen me as he was wont to see me, for he was
in the habit of flogging me constantly. Perhaps he did not recognise
me by my face.
At this time I was three years at Harrow; and, as far as I can
remember, I was the junior boy in the school when I left it.
Then I was sent to a private school at Sunbury, kept by Arthur
Drury. This, I think, must have been done in accordance with the
advice of Henry Drury, who was my tutor at Harrow School, and my
father's friend, and who may probably have expressed an opinion that
my juvenile career was not proceeding in a satisfactory manner at
Harrow. To Sunbury I went, and during the two years I was there,
though I never had any pocket-money, and seldom had much in the
way of clothes, I lived more nearly on terms of equality with other
boys than at any other period during my very prolonged school-days.
Even here, I was always in disgrace. I remember well how, on one
occasion, four boys were selected as having been the perpetrators
of some nameless horror. What it was, to this day I cannot even
guess; but I was one of the four, innocent as a babe, but adjudged
to have been the guiltiest of the guilty. We each had to write out
a sermon, and my sermon was the longest of the four. During the
whole of one term-time we were helped last at every meal. We were
not allowed to visit the playground till the sermon was finished.
Mine was only done a day or two before the holidays. Mrs. Drury,
when she saw us, shook her head with pitying horror. There were
ever so many other punishments accumulated on our heads. It broke
my heart, knowing myself to be innocent, and suffering also under
the almost equally painful feeling that the other three--no doubt
wicked boys--were the curled darlings of the school, who would never
have selected me to share their wickedness with them. I contrived
to learn, from words that fell from Mr. Drury, that he condemned
me because I, having come from a public school, might be supposed
to be the leader of wickedness! On the first day of the next term
he whispered to me half a word that perhaps he had been wrong.
With all a stupid boy's slowness, I said nothing; and he had not
the courage to carry reparation further. All that was fifty years
ago, and it burns me now as though it were yesterday. What lily-livered
curs those boys must have been not to have told the truth!--at any
rate as far as I was concerned. I remember their names well, and
almost wish to write them here.
When I was twelve there came the vacancy at Winchester College which
I was destined to fill. My two elder brothers had gone there, and
the younger had been taken away, being already supposed to have lost
his chance of New College. It had been one of the great ambitions
of my father's life that his three sons, who lived to go to Winchester,
should all become fellows of New College. But that suffering man
was never destined to have an ambition gratified. We all lost the