ut [Greek: ge] and less about [Greek: men] and [Greek: de]; who
composed satirical choices when he should have been taking notes on
Tacitus; edited a School Journal with surprising brilliancy; failed, to
conjugate the verbs in [Greek: mi] during his last fortnight in the
school; and won the Balliol Scholarship when he was seventeen. I trust,
if this meets his eye, he will accept it as a tribute of affectionate
recollection from one who worked with him, idled with him, and joked
with him for five happy years.

Under another face, marked by a more spiritual grace, I find written
_Requiescat_. None who ever knew them will forget that bright and pure
beauty, those eyes of strange, supernatural light, that voice which
thrilled and vibrated with an unearthly charm. All who were his
contemporaries remember that dauntless courage, that heroic virtue, that
stainless purity of thought and speech, before which all evil things
seemed to shrink away abashed. We remember how the outward beauty of
body seemed only the visible symbol of a goodness which dwelt within,
and how moral and intellectual excellence grew up together, blending
into a perfect whole. We remember the School Concert, and the enchanting
voice, and the words of the song which afterwards sounded like a warning
prophecy, and the last walk together in the gloaming of a June holiday,
and the loving, trusting companionship, and the tender talk of home. And
then for a day or two we missed the accustomed presence, and dimly
caught a word of dangerous illness; and then came the agony of the
parting scene, and the clear, hard, pitiless school bell, cutting on our
hearts the sense of an irreparable loss, as it thrilled through the
sultry darkness of the summer night.

Here I shut the book. And with the memories which that picture called up
I may well bring these Recollections to a close. It is something to
remember, amid the bustle and bitterness of active life, that one once
had youth, and hope, and eagerness, and large opportunities, and
generous friends. A tender and regretful sentiment seems to cling to the
very walls and trees among which one cherished such bright ambitions and
felt the passionate sympathy of such loving hearts. The innocence and
the confidence of boyhood pass away soon enough, and thrice happy is he
who has contrived to keep

"The young lamb's heart amid the full-grown flocks."

FOOTNOTES:

[38] In _School and Home Life,_ by T.G. Rooper, M.A.