To SKEFF [a younger brother, aged six].
My dear Skeff,—Roar not lest thou be abolished. Yours, etc.,——.
The discomforts which he, as a "new boy," had to put up with from his school-mates affected him as they do not, unfortunately, affect most boys, for in later school days he was famous as a champion of the weak and small, while every bully had good reason to fear him. Though it is hard for those who have only known him as the gentle and retiring don to believe it, it is nevertheless true that long after he left school his name was remembered as that of a boy who knew well how to use his fists in defence of a righteous cause.
As was the custom at that time, Charles began to compose Latin verses at a very early age, his first copy being dated November 25, 1844. The subject was evening, and this is how he treated it:—
Phoebus aqua splendet descendens, æquora tingens
Splendore aurato. Pervenit umbra solo.
Mortales lectos quærunt, et membra relaxant
Fessa labore dies; cuncta per orbe silet.
Imperium placidum nunc sumit Phoebe corusca.
Antris procedunt sanguine ore feræ.
These lines the boy solemnly copied into his Diary, apparently in the most blissful ignorance of the numerous mistakes they contained.
The next year he wrote a story which appeared in the school magazine. It was called "The Unknown One," so it was probably of the sensational type in which small boys usually revel.
Though Richmond School, as it was in 1844, may not compare favourably in every respect with a modern preparatory school, where supervision has been so far "reduced to the absurd" that the unfortunate masters hardly get a minute to themselves from sunrise till long after sunset, yet no better or wiser men than those of the school of Mr. Tate are now to be found. Nor, I venture to think, are the results of the modern system more successful than those of the old one. Charles loved his "kind old schoolmaster," as he affectionately calls him, and surely to gain the love of the boys is the main battle in school-management.
The impression he made upon his instructors may be gathered from the following extracts from Mr. Tate's first report upon him:
Sufficient opportunities having been allowed me to draw from actual observation an estimate of your son's character and abilities, I do not hesitate to express my opinion that he possesses, along with other and excellent natural endowments, a very uncommon share of genius. Gentle and cheerful in his intercourse with others, playful and ready in conversation, he is capable of acquirements and knowledge far beyond his years, while his reason is so clear and so jealous of error, that he will not rest satisfied without a most exact solution of whatever appears to him obscure. He has passed an excellent examination just now in mathematics, exhibiting at times an illustration of that love of precise argument, which seems to him natural.
I must not omit to set off against these great advantages one or two faults, of which the removal as soon as possible is desirable, tho' I am prepared to find it a work of time. As you are well aware, our young friend, while jealous of error, as I said above, where important faith or principles are concerned, is exceedingly lenient towards lesser frailties—and, whether in reading aloud or metrical composition, frequently sets at nought the notions of Virgil or Ovid as to syllabic quantity. He is moreover marvellously ingenious in replacing the ordinary inflexions of nouns and verbs, as detailed in our grammars, by more exact analogies, or convenient forms of his own devising. This source of fault will in due time exhaust itself, though flowing freely at present.... You may fairly anticipate for him a bright career. Allow me, before I close, one suggestion which assumes for itself the wisdom of experience and the sincerity of the best intention. You must not entrust your son with a full knowledge of his superiority over other boys. Let him discover this as he proceeds. The love of excellence is far beyond the love of excelling; and if he should once be bewitched into a mere ambition to surpass others I need not urge that the very quality of his knowledge would be materially injured, and that his character would receive a stain of a more serious description still....
And again, when Charles was leaving Richmond, he wrote: