My people have been staying in Cheltenham and as Elspeth and I had been bickering freely and I had been feeling rotten, we decided that it would be a good thing for both of us if I went to see them for the week-end. I have always been irresolute, but I cannot remember ever weighing anything so carefully as I did the pros and cons of this ridiculously small matter. In the end I went. I was intensely miserable and lonely in the train. All sorts of horrors crossed my mind, accidents to Elspeth while I was away, accidents to the train. By the time I got to Cheltenham I was in an abject state. I just embraced my parents and then stated that I was going straight back home. They did their best to prevail upon me at least to stay for one night, but I was adamant. I walked with them, arguing all the way, to their hotel and then straight back to the station, where I caught the last train of the night for London. I arrived at Marlton at two in the morning and had to rouse Elspeth by throwing stones at her window. Sobbing and half-demented I was put to bed. She was in a terrible state: she thought I had gone out of my mind. I am not certain that I wasn't. All I know is that though I quarrel with her in this absurd way, I cannot bear to leave her for more than a few hours at most. It is a most extraordinary state of mind to have got into. I wish I could explain it. No one could have been saner than I was up to the time of my engagement: now I seem to be more nearly approaching insanity with every passing hour. I cannot believe that every newly married man suffers as I am suffering. All this tells on Elspeth too. Such behaviour as mine only lessens her love for me. She does not really sympathize at all. She is becoming cold. My God! please show me the way to keep her love.
So ends my first term at Marlton.
I have read a good deal and bought a few books. I have made a start at writing. My health is becoming very bad. I have not learnt how to control myself or my wife. I want happiness and, straining after it, only attain misery. I like the boys but they are slack and don't really want to learn anything. I have joined the Corps, but it is not so smart or popular here as it was at Radchester. I have enjoyed most of all watching the school "Rugger" matches. It is considered part of every one's duty to go down to the fields to watch all matches, which irritates me. I don't want to watch because I'm expected to, but because I want to. Neither Elspeth nor I are very popular: we have made enemies by accepting an invitation to a House supper and then not turning up because we left a day before the end of term. We had no idea that these House suppers were only annual events and that invitations to them are considered the highest honour possible when extended to masters who don't own a House. It would be useless to explain.
The boys are far more civilized than they were at Radchester owing to the fact that their House-masters are married and that quite frequently they meet members of the other sex. They are more urbane and polished: they acquire a kind of savoir faire in their demeanour, a smartness in their dress which was noticeably lacking at Radchester. There is not so great a cleavage between home and school; they spend quite a number of afternoons in drawing-rooms; they entertain the small sons and daughters of the staff, they come into contact to a certain extent with the life of the streets, they are allowed to buy whatever they like in any shops, they are encouraged to explore the beauties of the countryside on bicycles. Some of the prefects have motor-bicycles. They are allowed to play golf and to go out to tea at the houses of private residents in the town. Altogether they are made as happy as it is possible for boys to be. In a word, I could not imagine any boy committing suicide at Marlton, whereas they might at Radchester. Nevertheless there are several things that are wrong about the place. The lack of energy is by far the most noticeable. The lack of reading is perhaps the next and may follow from it. The school library is very old and well stocked with mediæval books of all sorts, being peculiarly rich in archæological, historical and theological works, but it seems to have stopped stocking new books about 1890. The amount of modern stuff in it is composed entirely of books of little value which have been presented to it. There is no system on which books are bought at all: I looked in vain for Meredith, Swift, Hazlitt, Stevenson, or Conrad, to mention a few names at random. There are but few purely literary works and boys are certainly not encouraged to keep up with the newest thought in philosophy, poetry, drama, essays and so on. Only the senior boys are allowed to take books out; the bulk of the school use the building on Sundays and then only when it is wet. They rarely read anything except contemporary magazines. One thing that has pleased me about my work is that I have been put on to teach history. This seems to me one of the vitally important subjects. Domestic politics rather than long descriptions of foreign wars, however, seem to me to be the first essential. I have tried to make my forms realize the continuity of history, its applicability to modern life, so that they may not be led astray by any illogical sophistries in unscrupulous newspapers. I find that they become really interested in the history of the Home Rule question, the beginnings of the war between capital and labour, electoral reform, the decentralization of government, the power of the Cabinet, the Crown, the House of Lords and the Commons. I want to equip them so that they will be able really to form their own judgments when they grow up and not accept party shibboleths and be at the mercy of any witty scoundrel.
Side by side with the history we read the famous literary works of the time. Each boy (I did this at Radchester) selects one author or book and writes descriptive criticism on him and it, which he afterwards reads aloud, and comments are made by the rest. Boys are astonishingly poor debaters, they cannot articulate clearly: even when they read aloud they stammer over all except the simplest words.
Every night of the term I hold a voluntary class for Shakespeare and drama-lovers in general: these readings of plays would go down infinitely better if only boys knew how to pronounce words, how to get up the meanings of passages, or even the meaning and use of stops. One would think that an educated boy of sixteen or seventeen would really know how to read, but only in the very rarest cases can he do so with intelligence. Nowhere is this more clearly shown than in chapel, where the prefects of the week read the lesson: they mumble over and spoil some of the most dramatic and poetic passages in the Bible. It isn't through lack of reverence or care but simply because they have never been taught. Incidentally they have never been taught how to read to themselves: they cannot concentrate on anything that requires thought or hard work. A short story in a magazine they appreciate, and good literature they can tolerate when it is read aloud to them by their form masters; but they cannot tackle anything solid by themselves. They distrust all standard authors as likely to be dull. Their surprise when they are introduced to such a book as "Wuthering Heights" is indescribably comic. In mathematics I still seem to have the horrid trick of going so fast that no one learns anything. At any rate I interest them: I wish I could get the stuff to stick in their minds.