So, lady, have you crossed my way,
Brighter than cloudless morn—
So o'er this heart thy piercing ray.
Gleamed—and thou art gone!
CHAPTER V.[ToC]
My first half-year as an Etonian had now expired. Brief as it was, it has been to me the most portentous period of my existence. I sometimes feel that my fate, here and hereafter, has hinged upon it—this world is globular for the same reason that a woman's tear is. Are we the creatures of the merest chance, or of eternal predestination through all time, if there be such a thing as time at all? The question is idle; for as we have never yet solved it, I begin to think we never shall. The Almighty has willed this obscurity, and therefore it is for the best.
I sensitively felt that I was launched amid the crowd of a bustling world, to steer and shift for myself as I best might. Like other boys, I had a tutor; but, though a thoroughly conscientious man, he was worse than useless; for he was to be practised on with such facility, that I, with his other pupils, imposed upon him as we chose.
When I returned for the holidays to the paternal roof, it was only to be fagged by my elder brethren; for here the fagging system, I regret to say, was not only tolerated, but carried out to its most deplorable extreme.
Ever distant then in our days of boyhood, and that, too, while under the same roof, now that the casualties of after-life have dispersed us, we are become, to all intents and purposes, entire strangers one towards the other.
As to my father, he was, of course, wholly engaged in the cares of providing for so large and expensive a family; and though a man, I am persuaded, of strong and ardent affection for his children, I can barely say that I was acquainted with him.