Collections and Recollections

by George William Erskine Russell

And every leaflet whispers of the past."

And while the views of places were thus eloquent of the old days, assuredly not less so were the portraits. There was the Head Master in his silken robes, looking exactly as he did when, enthroned in the Sixth Form Room, he used to deliver those well-remembered admonitions—"Never say what you know to be wrong," and "Let us leave commence and partake to the newspapers."

And there was the Mathematical Master—the Rev. Rhadamanthus Rhomboid—compared with whom his classical namesake was a lenient judge. An admirable example was old Mr. Rhomboid of a pedagogic type which, I am told, is passing away—precise, accurate, stern, solid; knowing very little, but that little thoroughly; never overlooking a slip, but seldom guilty of an injustice; sternest and most unbending of prehistoric Tories, both in matters political and educational; yet carrying concealed somewhere under the square-cut waistcoat a heart which knew how to sympathize with boy-flesh and the many ills which it is heir to. Good old Mr. Rhomboid! I wonder if he is still alive.

Facing him in the album, and most appropriately contrasted, was the portrait of a young master—the embodiment of all that Mr. Rhomboid most heartily loathed. We will call him Vivian Grey. Vivian Grey was an Oxford Double First of unusual brilliancy, and therefore found a special charm and a satisfying sense of being suitably employed in his duty at Lyonness, which was to instil τυπτω and Phaedrus into the five-and-thirty little wiseacres who constituted the lowest form. Over the heads of these sages his political and metaphysical utterances rolled like harmless thunder, for he was at once a transcendentalist in philosophy and a utilitarian Radical of the purest dye. All of which mattered singularly little to his five-and-thirty disciples, but caused infinite commotion and annoyance to the Rhomboids and Rhadamanthuses. Vivian Grey at Oxford had belonged to that school which has been described as professing

"One Kant with a K,

And many a cant with a c."

At Lyonness he was supposed to have helped to break the railings of Hyde Park in the riot of 1866, and to be a Head Centre of the Fenian Brotherhood. As to personal appearance, Mr. Grey was bearded like the pard—and in those days the scholastic order shaved—while his taste in dress made it likely that he was the "Man in the Red Tie" whom we remember at the Oxford Commemoration some thirty years ago. In short, he was the very embodiment of all that was most abhorrent to the old traditions of the schoolmaster's profession; and proportionately great was the appositeness of a practical joke which was played me on my second or third morning at Lyonness. I was told to go for my mathematical lesson to Mr. Rhomboid, who tenanted a room in the Old School. Next door to his room was Mr. Grey's, and I need not say that the first boy whom I asked for guidance playfully directed me to the wrong door. I enter, and the Third Form suspend their Phaedrus, "Please, sir, are you Mr. Rhomboid?" I ask, amid unsmotherable laughter. Never shall I forget the indignant ferocity with which the professor of the new lights drove me from the room, nor the tranquil austerity with which Mr. Rhomboid, when I reached him, set me "fifty lines" before he asked me my name.

On the same page I find the portrait of two men who have before now figured in the world of school-fiction under the names of Rose and Gordon.[^[39]] Of Mr. Rose I will say no more than that he was an excellent schoolmaster and a most true saint, and that to his influence and warnings many a man can, in the long retrospect, trace his escape from moral ruin. Mr. Gordon is now a decorous Dean; at Lyonness he was the most brilliant, the most irregular, and the most fascinating of teachers. He spoilt me for a whole quarter. I loved him for it then, and I thank him even now.

These more distinguished portraits, of cabinet dimensions, were scattered up and down among the miscellaneous herd of cartes de visits. The art of Messrs. Hills and Saunders was denoted by the pretentious character of the chairs introduced—the ecclesiastical Glastonbury for masters, and velvet backs studded with gilt nails for boys. The productions of the rival photographer were distinguished by a pillar of variegated marble, or possibly scagliola, on which the person portrayed leaned, bent, or propped himself in every phase of graceful discomfort. The athletes and members of the School Eleven, dressed in appropriate flannel, were depicted as a rale with their arms crossed over the backs of chairs, and brought very much into focus so as to display the muscular development in high relief. The more studious portion of the community, "with leaden eye that loved the ground," scanned small photograph-books with absorbing interest; while a group of editors, of whom I was one, were gathered round a writing-table, with pens, ink, and paper, the finger pressed on the forehead, and on the floor proofs of the journal which we edited—was it the Tyro or the Triumvirate?

Among the athletes I instantly recognize Biceps Max., captain of the Cricket Eleven, and practically autocrat of my house—"Charity's" the house was called, in allusion to a prominent feature of my tutor's character. Well, at Charity's we did not think much of intellectual distinction in those days, and little recked that Biceps was "unworthy to be classed" in the terminal examination. We were much more concerned with the fact that he made the highest score at Lord's; that we at Charity's were absolutely under his thumb, in the most literal acceptation of that phrase; that he beat us into mummies if we evaded cricket-fagging; and that if we burnt his toast he chastised us with a tea-tray. Where is Biceps now, and what? If he took Orders, I am sure he must be a muscular Christian of the most aggressive type. If he is an Old Bailey barrister, I pity the timid witness whom he cross-examines. Why do I never meet him at the club or in society? It would be a refreshing novelty to sit at dinner opposite a man who corrected your juvenile shortcomings with a tea-tray. Would he attempt it again if I contradicted him in conversation, or confuted him in argument, or capped his best story with a better?