| Physical reaction following my interview with Mrs. Chrysostom. Reception of a wreath from the Maidstones. Moving excerpt from Simeon’s diary. I decide to marry one of Ezekiel’s sisters. Interview with Ezekiel and his deplorable language. Tact is selected to become my bride. Tragic return to Mon Repos. I fall unconscious, parallel to my father | [252] |
CHAPTER XIX
| Commencement of my life’s afternoon. My father’s eight sisters-in-law return to Wales. Astounding attitude of my mother. Physical effect thereof on myself. I move to Stoke Newington. Further parochial activities. Simeon Whey obtains a living. I move to Hornsey and become a Churchwarden. Complete decline of Ezekiel Stool. Birth of my son. A happy augury | [264] |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| page | |
| MYSELF AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-ONE | [Frontispiece] |
| (From a photograph now in the possession of the Reverend Simeon Whey.) | |
| MY DEAR FATHER IN HIS PRIME | [28] |
| (Taken from a group of sidesmen of St. James-the-Less.) | |
| FROM A PORTRAIT OF THE AUNT WHO STOOD WITH MY MOTHER’S MOTHER AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS | [40] |
| MR. CHRYSOSTOM LORTON | [108] |
| ALEXANDER CARKEEK AND HIS TWO SONS | [130] |
| EZEKIEL STOOL | [168] |
| (Drawn from a portrait once in the possession of the A.D.S.U.) | |
| THE REV. SIMEON WHEY | [192] |
| (From a photograph in my possession.) | |
| THE TWIN SISTERS OF EZEKIEL STOOL | [256] |
| (The right-hand one became my wife.) |
CHAPTER I
No apology for writing this book. An imperative duty under present conditions. Description of my parents and their personal appearances. Description of Mon Repos, Angela Gardens. Long anxiety prior to my birth. Intense joy when at last this takes place. My father’s decision as to my Xtian name. Early selection of my first godfather.
It is customary, I have noticed, in publishing an autobiography to preface it with some sort of apology. But there are times, and surely the present is one of them, when to do so is manifestly unnecessary. In an age when every standard of decent conduct has either been torn down or is threatened with destruction; when every newspaper is daily reporting scenes of violence, divorce, and arson; when quite young girls smoke cigarettes and even, I am assured, sometimes cigars; when mature women, the mothers of unhappy children, enter the sea in one-piece bathing-costumes; and when married men, the heads of households, prefer the flicker of the cinematograph to the Athanasian Creed—then it is obviously a task, not to be justifiably avoided, to place some higher example before the world.