Which startles every man, when the tide turns
And, wave on wave, we hear death coming on.'
In the same way the boy discovers that the half of his schooldays are at an end, that he has put them to little use. And, as the temporal quality of life drives the epicurean to gather with what eager haste he may, flowers that for him will soon have blossomed, the sense of passing days defines and directs for the schoolboy the course of ambition. It is perhaps the first moment of conscious thought, of objective reasoning. The days of unreflecting action are at an end. He is no longer a child playing in a nursery. He is a man, subject to the laws of time and space, a mortal man aware of his mortality.
Now this sudden change, which partakes of the nature of a conversion, owes its existence, as often as not, to some perfectly trivial occurrence. The stage is not set appropriately. There is no long heart to heart talk with a schoolmaster, a parent, or a friend at the end of which the boy leaps to his feet, claps his hand to his forehead, and exclaims: 'I see the evil of my ways.' Such dramatic moments, I suppose, take place occasionally, but they are the exception. The boy has reached that stage of his development when the idea of time can become an actuality to him, and some quite casual incident will bring this actuality before him.
It is possible, of course, that this reformation may be effected by a conversation. But it will be an unrehearsed effect. One is walking down to hall, and, through the open door of the changing room overhears some uncomplimentary statement of one's worth. The statement need not be made by a particular friend. Indeed, it will probably be more effective if it is not. We accept with composure the criticisms of our friends, our relatives, our enemies. Wherever there is an intimate relationship there is friction. We know that, at times, we must be intensely annoying to our friends, because they are at times so intensely annoying to ourselves. Little tricks, traits of character, intonations of the voice that we should hardly notice in those to whom we are indifferent, exasperate us in those for whom we care. We expect our friends at times to say nasty things about us. We are too conscious of our own delinquencies. But impersonal criticism is unpleasant; it is like an unfavourable review that is unsigned. If we cannot reassure ourselves with the knowledge that our assailant is either jealous of us or dislikes us, or thinks we pay too many attentions to his wife; if, that is to say, we can detect in this criticism no ulterior motive, but simply a dispassionate impersonal disapproval of ourselves and of our work, then we do indeed feel that the need for drastic self-criticism is immediate.
When, therefore, Jones on his way down to hall overhears Ferguson, who is in another form, who has never been brought into contact with him, who has no possible reason for feeling envious or jealous, remark that Jones is the sort of fellow whom the house could get on very well without, he goes quickly to his study and communes with himself.
At the beginning of my third year at school, when I was very happy, very light-hearted, very boisterous, and, I suppose, rather obnoxious generally, I was standing at the counter of the tuck shop waiting to be served with a poached egg and a sausage. I experienced considerable difficulty in catching the eye of the waitress, and for the better announcing of my presence I took a knife out of the basket and beat it upon the zinc covering of the counter. The waitress, who was harassed by the number of orders, turned round impatiently: 'Oh, do be quiet, Mr. Waugh,' she said, 'I don't know what's come over you lately. You used to be such a nice quiet boy when you first came.' Several people laughed, but her remark was a shock to me. I had not the slightest romantic interest in her. I did not care greatly what opinion she held of my moral worth, but I had not before realised that it was possible for a change of which I was myself ignorant to take place within me, that a process of degeneration could take its slow effect, altering me in the eyes of others, leaving me unaltered in my own, that, like rust on iron, environment could corrode temperament. That chance remark had a most profound effect on me. It gave me a sudden insight into the secret forces that lie under the surface of life. I do not know whether from the outside I appeared afterwards a different person. One cannot focus the impression one has of oneself and the impression one makes on others. But to myself I know that I was different. And some such revelation invariably comes to a boy during his period of school life.
In novels and stories we attribute it to some emotional crisis. The reason of the change is less important than that there should be change, and that the reader should be able to realise that for such a change there was a reason. But, actually, the reason is usually trivial enough. It may be that a boy's pride has been rebuffed; some one has got a house cap before him. He begins to reassure himself with the old dope: 'There is plenty of time. It doesn't matter. I'll catch him later on.' But for once the old dope does not work. He realises with a shock that there is less time than he had thought. He has allowed his rival to get too far ahead. A house cap is only two stages distant from a first. He may not have time to catch him up. In the light of the discovery he revises his whole career. He asks himself whither he is drifting. He sees that he has passed beyond the stage of a vague promise into one of definite rivalry and achievement.
The prospects of the beginner are always golden. His wares are not yet for sale in the open market. He has not entered into competition with his contemporaries. A young professional makes a century during his first month of first-class cricket and is immediately the object of generous enthusiasm. The reporter can write of him as ecstatically as he will. The professional has not yet reached representative cricket. At school a slow left-hand bowler takes eight wickets for twenty-seven in a house match. He is spoken of at once as the coming man. For another season he will continue to take wickets in house matches to the delight of every one. Then he will enter the lists of representative cricket. He will play on uppers, and it will have to be decided, not whether he is a good slow left-hand bowler, but whether he is better than Evans in Buller's, and Morrison in Wilkes's. It is so easy to say of a boy of fifteen: 'Some day he will be captain of the house.' We can all of us exclaim at the beginning of a Marathon: 'What a beautiful runner that fellow is.' It is after ten miles have been run and the runners have sorted themselves out that the real race begins. It is the appreciation of this moment that ends the 'see-saw down' period and sees the start of the 'see-saw up.'