Autobiography of Anthony Trollope | Page 4

he seen me as he was wont to see me, for
he was in the habit of flogging me constantly. Perhaps he did not
recognise me by my face.
At this time I was three years at Harrow; and, as far as I can remember,
I was the junior boy in the school when I left it.
Then I was sent to a private school at Sunbury, kept by Arthur Drury.
This, I think, must have been done in accordance with the advice of
Henry Drury, who was my tutor at Harrow School, and my father's
friend, and who may probably have expressed an opinion that my
juvenile career was not proceeding in a satisfactory manner at Harrow.
To Sunbury I went, and during the two years I was there, though I
never had any pocket-money, and seldom had much in the way of
clothes, I lived more nearly on terms of equality with other boys than at
any other period during my very prolonged school-days. Even here, I
was always in disgrace. I remember well how, on one occasion, four
boys were selected as having been the perpetrators of some nameless
horror. What it was, to this day I cannot even guess; but I was one of
the four, innocent as a babe, but adjudged to have been the guiltiest of
the guilty. We each had to write out a sermon, and my sermon was the
longest of the four. During the whole of one term-time we were helped
last at every meal. We were not allowed to visit the playground till the
sermon was finished. Mine was only done a day or two before the
holidays. Mrs. Drury, when she saw us, shook her head with pitying
horror. There were ever so many other punishments accumulated on
our heads. It broke my heart, knowing myself to be innocent, and

suffering also under the almost equally painful feeling that the other
three--no doubt wicked boys--were the curled darlings of the school,
who would never have selected me to share their wickedness with them.
I contrived to learn, from words that fell from Mr. Drury, that he
condemned me because I, having come from a public school, might be
supposed to be the leader of wickedness! On the first day of the next
term he whispered to me half a word that perhaps he had been wrong.
With all a stupid boy's slowness, I said nothing; and he had not the
courage to carry reparation further. All that was fifty years ago, and it
burns me now as though it were yesterday. What lily-livered curs those
boys must have been not to have told the truth!--at any rate as far as I
was concerned. I remember their names well, and almost wish to write
them here.
When I was twelve there came the vacancy at Winchester College
which I was destined to fill. My two elder brothers had gone there, and
the younger had been taken away, being already supposed to have lost
his chance of New College. It had been one of the great ambitions of
my father's life that his three sons, who lived to go to Winchester,
should all become fellows of New College. But that suffering man was
never destined to have an ambition gratified. We all lost the prize
which he struggled with infinite labour to put within our reach. My
eldest brother all but achieved it, and afterwards went to Oxford, taking
three exhibitions from the school, though he lost the great glory of a
Wykamist. He has since made himself well known to the public as a
writer in connection with all Italian subjects. He is still living as I now
write. But my other brother died early.
While I was at Winchester my father's affairs went from bad to worse.
He gave up his practice at the bar, and, unfortunate that he was, took
another farm. It is odd that a man should conceive,--and in this case a
highly educated and a very clever man,--that farming should be a
business in which he might make money without any special education
or apprenticeship. Perhaps of all trades it is the one in which an
accurate knowledge of what things should be done, and the best manner
of doing them, is most necessary. And it is one also for success in
which a sufficient capital is indispensable. He had no knowledge, and,
when he took this second farm, no capital. This was the last step
preparatory to his final ruin.

Soon after I had been sent to Winchester my mother went to America,
taking with her my brother Henry and my two sisters, who were then
no more than children. This was, I think, in 1827. I have no clear
knowledge of her object, or of