at had still no
meaning for the soul of the boy, or only the significance of a far-off
mystery; but he perceived for the first time that it was indeed
possible to hold something dearer than oneself, one's country, one's
school, one's friend--something large and strong, that could intervene
between one's hopes and oneself.

Hugh was indeed not yet, if ever, to learn the force of these large
words--patriotism, honour, self-surrender, public spirit; he remained
an individualist to the end. His country never became for him the
glowing reality that it means for some. It was dear because his
friends, who were also Englishmen, were dear; and his school for the
same reason. If he had a friend in the School Eleven Hugh would always
rather that his friend should be distinguished than that the school
should win. He could not disentangle the personal fibre, or conceive
of an institution, a society, apart from the beings of which it was
composed.

But his friendship broke in pieces, once and for all, the dumb
isolation in which he had hitherto lived. It opened for him the door
of a larger and finer life, and his soul, endowed with a new
elasticity, seemed to leap, to run, to climb, with a freshness and
vigour that he had never before so much as guessed at.

The closeness of this friendship gradually loosened--or rather the
exclusive companionship of its earlier stages grew less; but it seemed
to Hugh to bring him into new relations with half the world. He became
a boy with many friends. Other boys found his quaint humour, his
shrewd perceptions, his courtesy and gentleness attractive. He took
his new-found popularity with a quiet prudence, a good-humoured
discretion that disarmed the most critical; but it was deeply
delightful to the boy; he seemed to himself to have passed out of the
shadow into the sun and air. Life appeared to be full of gracious
secrets, delightful emotions, excellent surprises; it became a series
of small joyful discoveries. His intellect responded to the stimulus,
and he became aware that he had, in certain directions, a definite
ability of which he had never suspected himself. The only part of his
nature that was as yet dark and sealed was the religious spirit. In a
world so full of interests and beauties, there was no room for God; and
at this period of his life, Hugh, with a blindness which afterwards
amazed him, grew to think of God in the same way that he unconsciously
thought of his fathe