Tracks of a Rolling Stone | Page 6

would be rich, of the aggrieved who seek vengeance, of the ugly who would be beautiful, of the old who would appear young, of the guilty who would not be found out, and of the lover who would possess. Ah! the lover. Here possibility is a negligible element. Consequences are of no consequence. Passion must be served. When could a miracle be more pertinent?
It is just fifty years ago now; it was during the Indian Mutiny. A lady friend of mine did me the honour to make me her confidant. She paid the same compliment to many - most of her friends; and the friends (as is their wont) confided in one another. Poor thing! her case was a sad one. Whose case is not? She was, by her own account, in the forty- second year of her virginity; and it may be added, parenthetically, an honest fourteen stone in weight.
She was in love with a hero of Lucknow. It cannot be said that she knew him only by his well-earned fame. She had seen him, had even sat by him at dinner. He was young, he was handsome. It was love at sight, accentuated by much meditation - 'obsessions [peradventure] des images genetiques.' She told me (and her other confidants, of course) that she prayed day and night that this distinguished officer, this handsome officer, might return her passion. And her letters to me (and to other confidants) invariably ended with the entreaty that I (and her other, &c.) would offer up a similar prayer on her behalf. Alas! poor soul, poor body! I should say, the distinguished officer, together with the invoked Providence, remained equally insensible to her supplications. The lady rests in peace. The soldier, though a veteran, still exults in war.
But why do I cite this single instance? Are there not millions of such entreaties addressed to Heaven on this, and on every day? What difference is there, in spirit, between them and the child's prayer for his feather? Is there anything great or small in the eye of Omniscience? Or is it not our thinking only that makes it so?

CHAPTER II

SOON after I was seven years old, I went to what was then, and is still, one of the most favoured of preparatory schools - Temple Grove - at East Sheen, then kept by Dr. Pinkney. I was taken thither from Holkham by a great friend of my father's, General Sir Ronald Ferguson, whose statue now adorns one of the niches in the facade of Wellington College. The school contained about 120 boys; but I cannot name any one of the lot who afterwards achieved distinction. There were three Macaulays there, nephews of the historian - Aulay, Kenneth, and Hector. But I have lost sight of all.
Temple Grove was a typical private school of that period. The type is familiar to everyone in its photograph as Dotheboys Hall. The progress of the last century in many directions is great indeed; but in few is it greater than in the comfort and the cleanliness of our modern schools. The luxury enjoyed by the present boy is a constant source of astonishment to us grandfathers. We were half starved, we were exceedingly dirty, we were systematically bullied, and we were flogged and caned as though the master's pleasure was in inverse ratio to ours. The inscription on the threshold should have been 'Cave canem.'
We began our day as at Dotheboys Hall with two large spoonfuls of sulphur and treacle. After an hour's lessons we breakfasted on one bowl of milk - 'Skyblue' we called it - and one hunch of buttered bread, unbuttered at discretion. Our dinner began with pudding - generally rice - to save the butcher's bill. Then mutton - which was quite capable of taking care of itself. Our only other meal was a basin of 'Skyblue' and bread as before.
As to cleanliness, I never had a bath, never bathed (at the school) during the two years I was there. On Saturday nights, before bed, our feet were washed by the housemaids, in tubs round which half a dozen of us sat at a time. Woe to the last comers! for the water was never changed. How we survived the food, or rather the want of it, is a marvel. Fortunately for me, I used to discover, when I got into bed, a thickly buttered crust under my pillow. I believed, I never quite made sure, (for the act was not admissible), that my good fairy was a fiery-haired lassie (we called her 'Carrots,' though I had my doubts as to this being her Christian name) who hailed from Norfolk. I see her now: her jolly, round, shining face, her extensive mouth, her ample person. I recall, with more pleasure than I then endured,