Anyway I was born to hurry: I think it's a vice, but impetuosity and turbulence are two characteristics that I must have been endowed with by my fairy godmother.
It is this same idiosyncrasy which prevents me from being a good letter-writer. I write to dozens and dozens of boys and friends like Ruth, but I never express myself adequately, simply because I don't take enough trouble.
If genius really means the taking of infinite pains I must be the least of a genius that ever lived, for I only write when it is easy to me, and on subjects that don't require that I should refer to handbooks all the time. On the other hand, Samuel Butler has some comforting light to shed on that topic.
October 5, 1912
Eight weeks is too long a holiday. One gets out of touch with all things pertaining to discipline and rules. As time goes on one begins to chafe less at what seem ridiculous restrictions; they become part of the day's work, just as I suppose if I were in the Army the red tape of the orderly room would not worry me after a year or two.
I have just had young Pollock staying with me. He is now a gunner of two years' standing. It seems only yesterday I was training him for Woolwich. He can't understand why I stay in so heathen an atmosphere as a school. The rules he simply ignores. I find him smoking on his way across the square to breakfast, turning on my gramophone while the boys are at work, sitting in my window-seat in full gaze of the school, glass in hand, drinking whisky. He has no sort of respect for my seniors, but swears genially in Common Room, seizes the best chairs, takes up the whole of the fireplace and the only copy of the Times, while Hallows and Co. gnash their teeth, purple with rage in the background. The best of it is that he is quite unaware that he is giving offence. He is extraordinarily genial, if somewhat condescending in his manner towards them. It is a pure joy to watch him with them: he so exactly represents the world's attitude towards the whole race of ushers. "They are poor, ignorant, down-at-heel devils, but it's as well to be kind to them." That is the sort of feeling that Pollock has, I know: you can see it in his every action. I suppose the difference between Common Room and a gunner mess is fairly wide.
I have just been reading F. R. G. Duckworth's "Leaves from a Pedagogue's Sketch-Book." I wish I had his gift for writing. I could a tale unfold of life at a Public School which would dispel a few hundred of the fatuous superstitions that have grown, I know not how, round our ancient homes of learning. But if I did even so much as reveal this diary I should be out of a job in a week.
We are in the middle of one of the more delectable sorts of row. A few days ago a field-day was fixed against Blowborough, but it had to be scratched owing to disease on their part. A House match was hastily substituted and duly posted at 12.45 on the day. One of the Houses refused to turn out because they were not given longer warning. Hallows is in a fine state of frenzy. What will happen to the captain of the offending House I can't think. Games "bloods" do occasionally get obstreperous, but do not often care to risk Hallows' wrath. I shall be interested to see the dénouement.
I have been into Scarborough with Pollock to see Passers-By and Hindle Wakes. Houghton's play seems to me to be epoch-making. Quite apart from its merits as a play the subject was (to me) so novel. It expresses so much of the new spirit, the spirit that refuses to be limited by the narrow conventions of its fathers and carves out a new line for itself regardless of public opinion. It seems to me that Fanny Hawthorn was quite justified in refusing to marry the man she went off with. He was just an amusement, an adventure. Two wrongs can never make a right. She wanted a week-end of liberty, excitement—call it what you will, and took it, ready to pay her part of the damage.... The evil certainly does not lie in her refusal to marry the man, but, if there is any (which I take leave to doubt), in going off with him in the first place. There are people who have to learn what life means by getting burnt: she was lucky enough only to get singed and not ruined for life. Her sort does not go on the streets. She probably settled down to married life with a man after her own heart very soon. But does the quiet humdrum pleasure of safe marriage ever give the golden ecstatic moments that come from dangerous romantic passionate episodes of a day? The audience made me acutely sick. They shivered with delight at the "daring" of it—though what there is "daring" in it I don't know. It is more like a sermon than a play.
We are acting The Great Adventure at Radchester: just half a dozen of us in Common Room suddenly hit upon the idea. We have the new Bursar for stage manager, a fellow called Harding. He has been all sorts of things, including music-hall proprietor, actor and stage manager of a suburban theatre. He does not find it easy to fall into line with our rigid conventions. Outwardly he conforms rather well, being a born actor, but he manages to live two quite distinct lives, one which pleases the heart of the Head Master, energetic at his work, asking no questions and simply doing his duty, the other, lighthearted and gay away in the town where he spends a great deal of his time. In conjunction with one of the music masters he is writing a musical comedy: they practise scenes every night. It is most ludicrously silly, but certainly not worse than 90 per cent. of the musical comedies I have seen. Harding has a distinct turn for witty lyrical writing, built on a lifelong devotion to W. S. Gilbert.