I remember rushing, book in hand, late at night to Stapleton's rooms (Stapleton was a school-friend of mine, who had come up with me that term) and reading it to him as one of the finest things I had ever chanced upon. After I had finished I noticed that he was not alone; sitting in a far corner, in the depths of a 'Varsity chair, I now saw a fair-haired, fresh-faced undergraduate whom I had not up till that moment met. He broke in upon my enthusiastic discovery. "I am glad you like that," he began. "It is not very well known yet. The author of that book, Thomas Traherne, was an ancestor of mine: my name is Traherne too."
Somehow from that evening I have always associated Patrick with that glowing passage. We became fast friends and for the four years we were at Oxford, Stapleton, Traherne and I spent all our spare time together. We were known, for some obscure reason, as "The Three Musketeers."
We were none of us brilliant scholars, but we were deeply interested in the problems of life: we read a good deal in a desultory sort of way, but our main occupation was athletics. We all played football, tennis, hockey, and cricket, and managed to put in some time with the Beagles and on the track. On Sundays we used to roam far and wide over the country round Oxford: we were all lovers of Nature and (I venture to think) in every way quite ordinary undergraduates. Stapleton was taking orders, while Traherne and I meant to be schoolmasters. We were jovial and irresponsible in those days and certainly did not take ourselves seriously. We were not in the habit of getting drunk, but we were certainly not less rowdy than the majority of the men of our time: we enjoyed life to the full. In the "vacs" we would stay with one another in London in order to go the round of the theatres, or we would set out on walking tours through Wales or Devonshire.
I met Traherne's people a good deal. They were quite delightful, simple-minded folk, who took life as it came and always managed to see the comic side of everything. I know no house where peals upon peals of laughter were so frequent as in that vicarage of North Darley. Our four years at Oxford passed all too quickly. The other two managed to get a second class in their finals, I just scraped a third. We then separated, swearing however that nothing should really separate us. We wrote frequently and at great length to one another and tried to meet whenever possible. Gradually, however, we made new friends and were seized with different interests and somehow we became less regular in our correspondence and our meetings. It was not that we had ceased to care for each other, still less that "out of sight" was "out of mind"—I have never loved any man as I loved Traherne, but nevertheless we got out of touch.
I settled down quite happily to my job at Winchborough and became the stereotyped sort of plodding schoolmaster, while Stapleton passed from one curacy to another and finally had the good fortune to secure a living near London. So time went on. Then I began to notice Traherne's name in the papers. He had entered on his career as a writer. He was always indefatigable, though how he found time both to teach and to write I don't know. First of all he edited school books, then he wrote articles for the educational papers; soon I saw his name attached to critical papers in the magazines and reviews: he wrote middle-page articles for the daily press and short stories. Later I saw the announcement of a book by him, closely followed by another and then a third.
Naturally all this interested me a good deal. If he would not write to me I still could follow his career through his books.
I must say, however, that I was slightly startled at the attitude he adopted in his writings. When I knew him he was the cheeriest and most modest of men. From his writings the casual reader would imagine him to be a red-hot fire-brand, launching out against all the accepted codes by which we live. His method was that of "cock-shying" at a lot of "Aunt Sallies." He denounced everything, religion as at present practised, education, root and branch, the current codes of morality, the laws, politics—everything. There was a frightful acerbity in his language. One could detect the same boyish ardour which was the finest thing about him if one looked carefully and read between the lines, but his judgments were amazingly ill-considered. He seemed to lose all control of himself when he took up his pen. I wrote to remonstrate but he rarely replied, and when he did he would alternately change from a tone of humble apology to one of insolent contempt. It was easy to see that he was suffering from some appalling malady, a restlessness which threatened to destroy all the good that he was so anxious to do. At last the inevitable climax came: in a piteous letter he wrote to tell me that after eight years he had been ignominiously turned out, and that his career as a schoolmaster was at an end. From the language he used I feared lest he might be contemplating suicide, but his wife (who is one of the most charming women I have ever met and to whom he owes more than even he will ever realize) kept him from that.
On the other hand, there seemed to be considerable danger of his losing his reason. I went down to see him: I never saw a man so altered: he was completely broken. I sat up with him all through one night while he told me the whole story. It appears that he created enemies through his tactlessness wherever he went. Boys on the whole I should say, from what he said, understood him more or less, his peers not at all. He was always discontented with the average, always demanding an instant millennium. The war crushed him, the wretched estate of the poorer classes crushed him, the lack of intelligence among the country people with whom he lived crushed him, his colleagues' complacence that "all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds" crushed him. Poor devil, he must have suffered frightfully. He seemed abnormally sensitive. The least thing set him off: he always suspected that he had no sympathizers: he consistently managed to alienate those who really were trying their best to help him.
All through that night on which he poured out his soul to me I saw exactly how impossible it was for him to work in conjunction with any ordinary body of schoolmasters. What they denounced as disloyalty was with him honesty; he was so ferociously energetic that he could never rest: he must have his windmill to tilt against. There was no doubt that he was finding his break with Public School life very real tragedy. He was incapable of looking forward to anything else. I did my best to console him, to show him that life was only just beginning for him: but he swept away all the crumbs of consolation I produced and only just before I was leaving did he suggest any way in which I could help him. "I have besmirched my reputation," he said mournfully. "I can't clear myself. Will you try?"
"Of course I will, but how?" I replied.