In conclusion, to George:—
“Don’t cut, or look shy on, any of the præposters who have done their duty, if you do not think they are acting from private pique, or love of power. This question you have sense and honesty to decide for yourself. I have hinted to Arnold that it may be so, but cannot know it as well as you do, yea or nay. And if you do your own duty without flinching, your opinion will have weight with all whom it may concern. The Doctor evidently thinks you could be of essential use to him if you liked, and I am sure he is much too fair and honourable a man to want to make spies of his pupils. If you do not back him in what he has a right to enforce, you pass a tacit censure on a man you profess to esteem.”
George’s answer produced the following from your grandfather:—
“I like the tone of your vindication much. It shows the proper spirit which I wish to cultivate, and a correct sense of what your duties are as a member of society. Be assured that I hate as much as you do the character of a talebearer and meddler, and a fellow who takes advantage of a little brief authority to gratify his own spite and love of importance. And in my reply to Dr. Arnold I said, that having been bred up on the system of ‘study to be quiet and mind your own business,’ you might very likely have fallen into the extreme of non-interference; which I thought was the best extreme for a gentleman to follow. I also hinted that his pets might not be quite immaculate in their motives, or deserve the good opinion of the more gentlemanly boys of their own standing, who had a right to form their own judgment and limit their own acquaintance, though not to interfere with the discipline of the school. What you have said of the fellow who caused the expulsion (rustication I should call it) of the others, confirms me. His conduct, in fact, if his words could be proved, deserves a round robin to Arnold from the school; and if you are sure it is so, I will back you with my full sanction in cutting any such malicious rascal. I think you will see after this that I do not speak from the notions of a pedant or a disciplinarian, and that I do not care two straws how you stand in the opinion of Doctor this, or Doctor that, provided you deserve your own good opinion as a Christian and a gentleman, and do justice to good principles and good blood, for which things you are indebted to sources independent of Rugby. But with all this I do not abandon my position, of which indeed you seem convinced, that order must be enforced at the expense of disagreeable duties. All I wish is this: put Dr. A. out of the question if you please, and enter into the views of the parents of the junior boys as if they were your own family friends: with this view you will not only protect their sons in their little comforts and privileges, but steadily check those habits in them which might render them nuisances in general society, or involve them in scrapes at school. After all, Arnold was right as to the prevention of crackers in the quadrangle, and you ought to have stopped it; on this point you say nothing. As to the investigation of the image matter: if you were not there at the time, you may not be blameable for want of success, and if they expected you to pump Tom, or employ any underhand means in getting at the truth, they knew but little of your family habits. Albeit, I wish the thing could have been traced. It was mean and cowardly, and, if it happened often, ruinous to the character of the school, inasmuch as the fellows did not step forward at once in a manly way and say, ‘We were certainly wrong, and ready to pay for the cock-shy; but the parrots and Napoleons were irresistible.’ The Doctor would have laughed, and approved. I do not wonder he was sore on the subject, feeling like a gentleman for the character of his school, as Lord B—— would have done for the character of his own parish, had a stranger had his pocket picked in it. Nor do I want you to adopt all his views or partialities. Only suppose yourself in his place: fancy what you would have a right to expect, and remember that it cannot be done without the help of the præposters. This you seem inclined to do, and you may do it on your own independent footing, looking as coldly as you please on any clique whose motives may be different from your own. You have no need to court anybody’s favour if you cultivate the means of making yourself independent; and if you only fear God in the true sense, you may snap your fingers at everything else,—which ends all I have to say on this point. ‘Upright and downright’ is the true motto.”
I believe that no boy was ever more regretted. Since he had been in the sixth, and especially in his last year, when he was the Captain of Big-side Football and third in the Eleven, bullying had disappeared from the school-house, and house fagging had lost its irksomeness. The House had regained its position, having beaten the School at football. He had kicked the last goal from “a place” nearly sixty yards from the post. The tradition of that kick was handed down for many years, and, I remarked, was always getting back some few yards; so that, by the time it expired, I have no doubt it had reached 100 yards, and become as fabulous as many other traditions. His rule was perhaps rather too easy. The loafers, who are always too numerous, had a much better time than they deserved; and I doubt whether the school-house first lessons were done so well as at other times; for, instead of each boy going off to his own study after supper, and stern silence reigning in the passages till bed-time, groups of bigger boys would collect round the fires, and three or four fags in one study, and thus much time which should have been given to themes and verses was spent in talking over football and cricket matches, and the Barby and Crick runs at hare and hounds. I know that George himself regretted very much what had occurred, and I believe, had he had a second chance, would have dealt vigorously with the big boys at once. But he had to learn by the loss of his exhibition, as you will all have to learn in one way or another, that neither boys nor men do get second chances in this world. We all get new chances till the end of our lives, but not second chances in the same set of circumstances; and the great difference between one boy and another is, how he takes hold of, and uses, his first chance, and how he takes his fall if it is scored against him.
At the end of the half, Dr. Arnold, with his usual kindness, and with a view I believe to mark his approval of my brother’s character and general conduct at the school, invited him to spend part of his holidays at the Lakes. His visit to Foxhow, and Yorkshire, at Christmas 1839, before he went up to Oxford, delighted him greatly. He had never seen a mountain before, and the fact of seeing them for the first time from his old master’s house, with schoolfellows to whom he was warmly attached, doubled his pleasure. I have only room, however, for one of his letters:—
“Foxhow, Jan. 6th, 1840.
“My dear Father and Mother,
“I will now give you a more lengthened account of my proceedings than I did in my last.