But it required all old Brooke's popularity to carry down parts of his
speech--especially that relating to the Doctor. For there are no such
bigoted holders by established forms and customs, be they never so
foolish or meaningless, as English school-boys--at least, as the
school-boys of our generation. We magnified into heroes every boy who
had left, and looked upon him with awe and reverence when he revisited
the place a year or so afterwards, on his way to or from Oxford or
Cambridge; and happy was the boy who remembered him, and sure of an
audience as he expounded what he used to do and say, though it were sad
enough stuff to make angels, not to say head-masters, weep.
We looked upon every trumpery little custom and habit which had obtained
in the School as though it had been a law of the Medes and Persians, and
regarded the infringement or variation of it as a sort of sacrilege. And
the Doctor, than whom no man or boy had a stronger liking for old school
customs which were good and sensible, had, as has already been hinted,
come into most decided collision with several which were neither the one
nor the other. And as old Brooke had said, when he came into collision
with boys or customs, there was nothing for them but to give in or take
themselves off; because what he said had to be done, and no mistake
about it. And this was beginning to be pretty clearly understood.
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