Escape, and Other Essays

by Arthur Christopher Benson

I spent two years there; and remember my final departure with my brother. I never wanted to see or hear of anyone there again— masters, servants, or boys. It was a case of good-bye for ever, and thank God! And I remember with what savage glee and delicious anticipation I saw the last of the high-walled house, with its roofs and wings, its great gate-posts and splendid cedars. I could laugh at its dim terrors on regaining my freedom; but I had not the least spark of gratitude or loyalty; such kindnesses as I received I had taken dumbly, never thinking that they arose out of any affection or interest, but treating them as the unaccountable choice of my elders;—we stopped for an instant at the little sanatorium—that had been a happy place at least—and I was tearfully hugged to Louisa's ample bosom, Louisa alone being a little sorry that I should be so glad to get away.

I do not think that the life there, sensible, healthy, and well- ordered as it was, did me much good. I was a happy enough boy in home life, but had little animal spirits, and none of the boisterous, rough-and-tumble ebullience of boyhood. I was shy and sensitive; but I doubt if it was well that interest, enjoyment, emotion, should all have been so utterly starved as they were. It made me suspicious of life, and incurious about it; I did not like its loud sounds, its combative merriment, its coarse flavours; the real life, that of observation, imagination, dreams, fancies, had been hunted into a corner; and the sense that one might incur ridicule, enmity, severity, dislike, harshness, had filled the air with uneasy terrors. I came away selfish, able—I had won a scholarship at Eton with entire ease—innocent, childish, bewildered, wholly unambitious. The world seemed to me a big, noisy, stupid place, in which there was no place for me. The little inner sense of which I have spoken was hardly awake; it had had its first sight of humanity, and it disliked it; it was still solitary and silent, finding its own way, and quite unaware that it need have any relation with other human beings.

3

Then came Eton. Into which big place I drifted again in a state of mild bewilderment. But big as Eton is—it was close on a thousand boys, when I went there—at no time was I in the least degree conscious of its size as an uncomfortable element. The truth is that Eton runs itself on lines far more like a university than a school: each house is like a college, with its own traditions and its own authority. There is very little intercourse between the younger boys at different houses, and there is an instinctive disapproval among the boys themselves of external relations. The younger boys of a house play together, to a large extent work together, and live a common life. It is tacitly understood that a boy throws in his lot with his own house, and if he makes many friends outside he is generally unpopular, on the ground that he is thought to find his natural companions not good enough for him. Neither have boys of different ages much to do with each other; each house is divided by parallel lines of cleavage, so that it is not a weltering mass of boyhood, but a collection of very clearly defined groups and circles.

Moreover, in my own time there was no building at Eton which could hold the whole school, so that on no occasion did I ever see the school assembled. There were two chapels, the schoolrooms were considerably scattered; even on the occasions when the headmaster made a speech to the school, he did not even invite the lower boys to attend, while there was no compulsion on the upper boys to be present, so that it was not necessary to go, unless one thought it likely to be amusing.

I was myself on the foundation, one of the seventy King's Scholars, as we were called; we lived in the old buildings; we dined together in the college hall, a stately Gothic place, over four centuries old, with a timbered roof, open fireplaces, and portraits of notable Etonians. We wore cloth gowns in public, and surplices in the chapel. It was all very grand and dignified, but we were in those days badly fed, and very little looked after. There were many ancient and curious customs, which one picked up naturally, and never thought them either old or curious. For instance, when I first went there, the small boys, three at a time, waited on the sixth form at their dinner, being called servitors, handing plates, pouring out beer, or holding back the long sleeves of the big boys' gowns, as they carved for themselves at the end of the table. This was abolished shortly after my arrival as being degrading. But it never occurred to us that it was anything but amusing; we had the fun of watching the great men at their meal, and hearing them gossip. I remember well being kindly but firmly told by the present Dean of Westminster, then in sixth form, that I must make my appearance for the future with cleaner hands and better brushed hair!

We were kindly and paternally treated by the older boys; I was assigned as a fag to Reginald Smith, now my publisher. I had to fill and empty his bath for him, make his tea and toast, call him in the morning, and run errands. In return for which I was allowed to do my work peacefully in his room, in the evenings, when the fags' quarters were noisy, and if I had difficulties about my work, he was always ready to help me. So normal a thing was it, that I remember saying indignantly to my tutor, when he marked a false quantity in one of my verses, "Why, sir, my fagmaster did that!" He laughed, and said, "Take my compliments to your fagmaster, and tell him that the first syllable of senator is short!"

We lived as lower boys in a big room with cubicles, which abutted on the passage where the sixth form rooms were. It was a noisy place, with its great open fireplace and huge oak table. If the noise was excessive, the sixth form intervened; and I remember being very gently caned, in the company of the present Dean of St. Paul's, for making a small bonfire of old blotting-paper, which filled the place with smoke.

The liberty, after the private school, was astonishing. We had to appear in school at certain hours, not very numerous; and some extra work was done with the private tutor; but there was no supervision, and we were supposed to prepare our work and do our exercises, when and as we could. There were a few compulsory games, but otherwise we were allowed to do exactly as we liked. The side streets of Windsor were out of bounds, but we were allowed to go up the High Street; we had free access to the castle and park and all the surrounding country. On half holidays—three a week—our names were called over; but it left one with a three-hour space in the afternoon, when we could go exactly where we would. The saints' days and certain anniversaries were whole holidays, and we were free from morning to night. Then there was a delightful room, the old school library, now destroyed, where we could go and read; and many an hour did I spend there looking vaguely into endless books. I well remember seeing the present Lord Curzon and one of the Wallops standing by the fireplace there, and discussing some political question, and how amazed I was at the profundity of their knowledge and the dignity of their language.

But in many ways it was a very isolated life; for a long time I hardly knew any boys, except just the dozen or so who entered the place with me. I knew no boys at other houses, except a few in my school division, and never did more than exchange a few words with them. One never thought of speaking to a casual boy, unless one knew him; and there are many men whom I have since known well who were in the school with me, and with whom I never exchanged a syllable.