Having thus described the fortunes of the two daughters, it is my duty to indicate, however briefly, the youth of their brother, Cosmo. His participation in the last efforts of his father’s life, and the fact that he became, after the mother’s death, his father’s sole companion, make it necessary to follow the young man’s training, if we are to comprehend the failing spirit of which he was so long the unique support and comrade.
MRS BURDEN
AN INTERPRETATION BY MISS M’KEE, LONG A GOVERNESS IN THE FAMILY
Cosmo had never enjoyed such health as had his sisters. The first months of his life had been marred by the use of an artificial food improper to the sustenance of infants, but honestly recommended by the old family doctor, who had so firm a faith in its virtues as to have accepted an interest in its sale. One effect of this nutriment was to make the child large and heavy beyond his years, a physical characteristic which he preserved throughout his life. It had also, however, the result of weakening his heart, and permanently impairing his digestion. From these causes he developed as a boy a nervous and irritable temper, which his parents thought it imprudent to correct. When he had passed through the excellent discipline of an English Public School, these faults disappeared in his general demeanour, and were observable only in the occasional friction that inevitably accompanies the incidents of home-life; abroad they were replaced by a certain indolence and indecision of manner, far preferable to the peevishness which had formerly given his family so much anxiety and pain.
As a boy of ten, when his sisters were barely out of the schoolroom, he was placed in the preparatory school of Dr Stanton at Henley.
Many as are the applications for admission to this fashionable establishment, and difficult as it was to find room for the boy, Dr Stanton had far too much sense to hesitate upon his reception, or to consider for one moment the slight difference of social position between Cosmo’s family and those of the bulk of his pupils. The excellent divine was of that new and vigorous school in English Pedagogy, which rightly regards the great commercial activities of the country as co-equal with its territorial interests. The name of Burden was already familiar to him, not only from the enamelled advertisements in blue and white which frequently met his eyes as he paced the platforms of the Great Western Railway, but also from the part taken by Mr Burden in the Mansion House reception of the Sadar of Nak’, when that potentate was visiting England during his late embroilment with the Russians.
The schoolmaster was, therefore, delighted to receive Cosmo, and permitted the delicate boy certain extras which the parents of the more robust of his pupils saw no occasion to command. These included a plate of cold meat at breakfast, and a weekly visit from Dr Byle, an old and valued friend of the schoolmaster’s, and the medical attendant of Lord Bannering of Marlsford Park.
Careful as was the training which the boy received at this excellent academy, his life was not happy; he recovered somewhat in the refined atmosphere of Radley, but it was not till his entry into the University, towards the age of twenty, that his life began to assume a normal aspect.
The wealth which he would inherit, his reserved and self-centred temperament, his readiness to meet men of all kinds, and his detestation of friction and quarrel, save with those nearest to him, deservedly secured him a number of friends of that sort which is most prominent in our national life. He was a member of the Club, he could ride without discomfort, and though not himself attracted to any games save golf and hockey, he was the associate of men who were distinguished in whatever the University has to teach.
He possessed, to a remarkable degree, that art of compromise upon which the characters, not only of our statesmen, but of our commonwealth itself are based. He had an instinct for the feeling of his peers; and, if a certain lack of energy forbade him to attempt to mould his contemporaries, he was at least able to receive with remarkable fidelity the general impress of the forces around him.