The Upton Letters | Page 6

as he had feared, is a very
noble and beautiful thing. I can conceive of no book more likely to
make a spirit in the grip of sorrow and failure more gentle, hopeful, and
brave; because it brings before one, with quiet and pathetic dignity, the
fact that no fame, no success, no recognition, can be weighed for a
moment in the balance with those simple qualities of human nature
which the humblest being may admire, win, and display.--Ever yours,
T. B.

UPTON, Shrove Tuesday, Feb. 16, 1904.
DEAR HERBERT,--One of those incredible incidents has just
happened here, an incident that makes one feel how little one knows of
human beings, and that truth, in spite of the conscientious toil of Mr. H.
G. Wells, does still continue to keep ahead of fiction. Here is the story.
Some money is missed in a master's house; circumstances seem to
point to its having been abstracted by one of the boys. A good-natured,
flighty boy is suspected, absolutely without reason, as it turns out;
though he is the sort of boy to mislay his own books and other portable
property to any extent, and to make no great difficulty under pressure
of immediate need, and at the last moment, about borrowing some one
else's chattels. On this occasion the small boys in the house, of whom
he is one, solemnly accuse him of the theft, and the despoiled owner

entreats that the money may be returned. He protests that he has not
taken it. The matter comes to the ears of the house-master, who
investigates the matter in the course of the evening, and interviews the
supposed culprit. The boy denies it again quite unconcernedly and
frankly, goes away from the interview, and wandering about, finds the
small boys of the house assembled in one of the studies discussing a
matter with great interest. "What has happened?" says our suspected
friend. "Haven't you heard?" says one of them; "Campbell's
grandmother" (Campbell is another of the set) "has sent him a tip of
L2." "Oh, has she?" says the boy, with a smile of intense meaning; "I
shall have to go my rounds again." This astonishing confession of his
guilt is received with the interest it deserves, and Campbell is advised
to lock up his money, or to hand it over to the custody of the
house-master. In the course of the evening another amazing event
occurs; the boy whose money was stolen finds the whole of it, quite
intact, in the pocket of his cricketing flannels, where he now
remembers having put it. The supposed culprit is restored to favour,
and becomes a reliable member of society. One of the small boys tells
the matron the story of our hero's amazing remark on the subject, in his
presence. The matron stares at him, bewildered, and asks him what
made him say it. "Oh, only to rag them," says the boy; "they were all so
excited about it." "But don't you see, you silly boy," says the kind old
dame, "that if the money had not been found, you would have been
convicted out of your own mouth of having been the thief?" "Oh yes,"
says the boy cheerfully; "but I couldn't help it- -it came into my head."
Of course this is an exceptional case; but it illustrates a curious thing
about boys--I mentioned it the other day--which is, their extraordinary
willingness and even anxiety to be thought worse than they are. Even
boys of unexceptionable principle will talk as if they were not only not
particular, but positively vicious. They don't like aspersions on their
moral character to be made by others, but they rejoice to blacken
themselves; and not even the most virtuous boys can bear to be accused
of virtue, or thought to be what is called "Pi." This does not happen
when boys are by themselves; they will then talk unaffectedly about
their principles and practice, if their interlocutor is also unaffected. But
when they are together, a kind of disease of self-accusation attacks

them. I suppose that it is the perversion of a wholesome instinct, the
desire not to be thought better than they are; but part of the exaggerated
stories that one hears about the low moral tone of public schools arises
from the fact that innocent boys coming to a public school infer, and
not unreasonably, from the talk of their companions that they are by no
means averse to evil, even when, as is often the case, they are wholly
untainted by it.
The same thing seems to me to prevail very widely nowadays. The
old-fashioned canting hypocrisy, like that of the old servant in the
Master of Ballantrae, who, suffering under the effects of drink, bears
himself like a Christian martyr, has gone out;