All that was fifty years
ago, and it burns me now as though it were yesterday. What lily-livered
curs those boys must have been not to have told the truth!--at any
rate as far as I was concerned. I remember their names well, and
almost wish to write them here.
When I was twelve there came the vacancy at Winchester College which
I was destined to fill. My two elder brothers had gone there, and
the younger had been taken away, being already supposed to have lost
his chance of New College. It had been one of the great ambitions
of my father's life that his three sons, who lived to go to Winchester,
should all become fellows of New College. But that suffering man
was never destined to have an ambition gratified. We all lost the
prize which he struggled with infinite labour to put within our
reach. My eldest brother all but achieved it, and afterwards went
to Oxford, taking three exhibitions from the school, though he
lost the great glory of a Wykamist. He has since made himself well
known to the public as a writer in connection with all Italian
subjects. He is still living as I now write. But my other brother
died early.
While I was at Winchester my father's affairs went from bad to worse.
He gave up his practice at the bar, and, unfortunate that he was,
took another farm. It is odd that a man should conceive,--and in
this case a highly educated and a very clever man,--that farming
should be a business in which he might make money without any
special education or apprenticeship.
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