October 4, 1913

I have now had my first taste of life as a master at Marlton. The air here is sluggish, warm and unhealthy. I never want to go out and I always feel tired. There is none of the energy which one associated with Radchester. The place is altogether different. In the first place there is practically no Common Room life, which is perhaps a good thing. We only gather in Common Room from 11 to 11.15 every morning for "break." The masters live all over the town. There are eight houses and each one is quite distinct from any other: the boys never mix. Most of the staff are quite young. Of the elder ones I have come across the officer commanding the Corps who is elderly (he has a son older than I am), a parson, very good-natured and easy-going, but with an insatiable desire for talking. He is the most gossipy man I ever met. His wife is one of the sweetest women I ever met. We have dined there once, but it was a dull meal. He monopolized the entire conversation. There is another House-master parson, also old, who is very literary and runs a select society, which meets every Sunday afternoon to read and listen to papers on literary topics. I should like to belong to that. Some day I hope to be elected. We have also dined there. Ponsonby is a wonderful raconteur but rather eccentric in his habits: I should think that he takes some knowing. The other House masters are all young and all married. Every one here seems very well off as compared with the Radchester masters. They all have private means. They ride, though not often, to hounds, they own cars and motor-bicycles, and don't appear to do very much work. Most of them live solely for games. I find that I am getting more and more agitated at the games fetish. Although they live under the shadow of the most inspiring church in the country, and though the school buildings themselves are exceedingly beautiful, the boys and masters alike seem to distrust beauty just as much as the Radchester people did. There is one man with whom I have formed a strong alliance. He, like myself, is a new-comer. He is unmarried, very clever, and deserted the Foreign Office, where he held a good billet, to come down to teach the Sixth. He is in the eyes of the school quite mad. He is careless as to his clothes, wearing next to nothing on a very cold day and arctically clad when it is warm and sunny. He has a knack of forgetting what time it is and sets out for a walk when he ought to be going into school. He is a real poet and a fine classic. His name is Wriothesley and is already known as "the Rotter." On Sundays he wears a top hat and immaculate morning clothes with a white slip, white spats and patent-leather boots. Added to this he stammers and is acutely nervous. The rest of the staff are not inspiring. There are several "beefy Blues," a few slack men who take no interest in anything that occurs in the school outside their form work, and one man who ought to be a country squire, who presides over the local District Council and spends all his energies on running the town. The boys are all gentlemen, very slack, very quiet, care nothing for work and a very great deal too much for "Rugger."

Unfortunately I have begun badly. Two articles that I wrote long ago on Public School Reform have just found their way into print. Every one here has read them and they all look on me as a dangerous innovator, unpatriotic and disloyal. It is in vain that I point out that I said these things of another school and under the stress of nerves. I am a marked man. Whatever I do I shall be looked upon with suspicion. They all think I am on the look-out for "copy." Elspeth does not much care for the school people and I don't altogether blame her. The wives are very cliquey, and think that they have a right to dictate to the wives of the younger masters exactly as to how they should dress, how they should behave, who they shall know and who they shall not know.

The society of Marlton is very snobbish and divided up into a myriad different sets. At the top there is the Castle clique, who hunt and play polo. Some of these are quite amusing. Then come the school people, who keep to themselves. After them come the professional clique. There are vast numbers of retired Indian military and civilian people, who play bridge and walk about the country doing nothing in particular: to these are attached the doctors, bankers, solicitors, and clergy. Next come the wealthier tradespeople and the other school people. Marlton boasts half a dozen different schools to meet the demands of people of widely differing ideas, Roman Catholic, Secondary, Girls' Colleges, Board, Grammar and National Schools: the place is overrun with educational establishments. There is consequently no dearth of people, though the total population is certainly not more than ten thousand.

My work is not very arduous and gives me time to write in my spare hours. I only hope that I shall have the sense to avail myself of it. I take mathematical sets all through the school: the boys seem to know even less than they did at Radchester. Certainly they know no English. I find to my intense disgust that I am and have been for the past ten years suffering from chronic appendicitis. There is no need as yet for an operation, but I have to be dieted very carefully and avoid games. A much more insidious disease is attacking my brain. I am beginning to get restive. I haven't the least idea why. I want to get up and run away. It is all too comfortable. I am afraid of acquiescing and becoming as my colleagues, happy as sheep are happy basking in the sun. I never had this before: it's a new development. I go for miles on my bicycle and sit on stiles or hedges and read or gaze out over the landscape and wish—I scarcely know for what. I have lately been rereading all Thomas Hardy's novels. I seem to be a sort of second Jude the Obscure.

The hours are very different from those at Radchester. We have breakfast at 8.30. Chapel (which we only have to attend once a day) is at 9.15, and then school goes on from 9.30 to 12.45. At one o'clock we lunch and Elspeth and I walk down to the town to shop or change a library book at the station, getting back for tea at four. School continues from 4.15 to 6. Then work is over for the day. There is no preparation invigilation for masters, thank God. In the evening after dinner I do a little correcting, not more than is necessary, write if I feel like it, read a chapter or two of a novel, and so to bed at ten. The days pass very quickly and I don't seem to do anything. I am achieving nothing. Most of the day seems to be spent in riding to and from school. I've been reading D. H. Lawrence's novel, "Sons and Lovers." It's about as perfect a picture of Midland life as could well be imagined. Thank Heaven that I'm back in a county among people who hunt and talk the King's English. I have a great deal to be thankful for. It seems a very Elysium of quiet content and happiness, and yet there is underlying tragedy.

The first Monday in October is made an occasion for an annual orgie which rouses the town out of sleep. I have just come from partaking of all the fun of the fair. It starts on the Sunday night, when all the riff-raff of the place march through the streets making a fearful din with drums and kettles and tin cans and whistles, to celebrate the completion of the building of the Priory. The day after is given up to revelry of a rather gross kind. Booths are erected in the main narrow street and all sorts of useless things are bought and sold. On the fair ground there are roundabouts and swings, cinema shows and helter-skelters, houp-las and side shows, rifle ranges and coco-nut shies. It is all very tawdry and shallow and noisy and cheap, but it gives one a glimpse of Hodge at play which is instructive.

Compared with the north-countryman he is feckless, very subservient, slow and deliberate in his movements, content with his potato-patch and fourteen shillings a week as wages, afraid of his superiors (the north-countryman has no superiors) and in all things seems to be a relic of the feudal system. He takes his pleasures very sadly and is frequently drunk; he finds life monotonous but he is not ambitious enough to cast off his slough; in Marlton he was born and in Marlton he will be buried and that is his life history. There are as a consequence a great number of workhouse inmates, semi-lunatic boys and girls who loiter about the streets all day: the shops are very poor and the attendants slow beyond belief. No one here seems to have any conception of the value of time.

The boys at the school have the same lazy habits in a lesser degree: they rarely run, they amble along through life very happily. They are genial but by no means effusive. The lack of wild enthusiasms, frequent riots, strenuous friendships and enmities is one of the glaring points about Marlton when I come to compare it with Radchester. After a few weeks Elspeth and I felt so bedraggled and worn out owing to the enervating climate that we took a few half-holidays down by the sea.

What a joy it is to be working in so exquisite a country. The drive over the downs, through the pine-woods, down to the rocky coast puts fresh blood into one. I want to sing for the very joy of being able to appreciate it. Nature is beginning to mean very much more to me than she ever used to. I go up sometimes (when I am fretful and inclined to chafe at the prison bars) to the golf-course, and then gaze over the northern vale, and the Kentish Weald, the white cottages nestling under the hills, the spires of many churches, and a great peace descends on me. I begin to realize the meaning of that word "England" and all that it connotes. If I hadn't been in the wilderness for four years I should probably never have felt quite such a thrill of thankfulness at the beauty of it. These south-country people as a rule take it all as a matter of course: they have lived here always: they have never seen Halifax or Huddersfield or Leeds or Radchester. They don't know the ghastly depression that sinks into one's soul after a month of gloomy, sunless days in a foggy, poisonous, manufacturing town.

One of the quaintest changes in my life is that now I find that I want to write. I keep getting fresh ideas daily. At present I am engaged in editing an "Anthology of Verse and Prose for Schools," which isn't anything like so dull as it sounds.

December 16, 1913

I have had Tony down here for a few days. It was like entertaining a hurricane. He says that I'm in danger of becoming as invertebrate as a limpet. "Where are," he asked, "the wild diatribes against abuses, the physical fitness, the madness about games, the frenzy for intellectual improvement?" I shook my head sadly and murmured something about the air. The boys he looked at in "break" one morning and snorted audibly like a war-horse. "These lads have got the 'guts' of an Ague-cheek, the blood of sardines," he said. "Why don't they get a move on? Do they always slop about like this? You want the Radchester sergeant here for a few days, some one to open their windpipes. What do you do all day?" I told him. "I said 'do,'" he replied.

Perhaps my appendicitis may have something to do with it, but certainly it is a change to find myself confining myself to a slow walk into the town with Elspeth in place of the seven miles' strenuous run or the gory game of "Rugger" that usually occupied my afternoons. I go out with the beagles a good deal, but for the first time in my life, instead of trying to follow the hounds wherever they go, I sit on the tops of gates and wait for them to come back and don't worry if I lose them altogether. There is no fighting against the temptation to slack.

Elspeth has had a school-friend staying with her who infuriated me by her vacuous behaviour. Her only aim in life is to attract men. I don't know what is the matter with me, but married life is rubbing me up the wrong way. I am becoming fidgety about my rights in the house. It sounds childish: in fact it is childish. This settling down business is going to be a lengthier job than I thought. I seem to have lost all my old freedom of action or thought. I certainly love Elspeth no less in my heart of hearts, but I hate being managed by a pack of women. First there is the servant, then Elspeth, then Elspeth's school-friend. I never seem to see a man. I can no longer have crowds of boys about me and entertain them as I used to, because it's so expensive and we can't afford it. Besides it makes so much extra work. But the real trouble is, I fancy, that I love Elspeth far more than she loves me. I scent the elements of a tragedy here already.

One custom here pleases me a good deal. All the senior boys have us in turn to their studies to tea. They are much more men of the world than the Radchester "bloods." Their airs and moustaches, their evident wealth and perfect ease of manner all frighten me. I feel very much more like a "fag" being patronized than a master.

I have already had two or three dire conflicts in Common Room over the articles I have lately published. Several of my colleagues won't speak to me: others say that I am trying to head a revolt against games and all the age-old traditions that made Marlton famous: "whippersnapper" is the phrase most commonly employed about me I think. I see myself classed with Tipham of "The Lanchester Tradition." One of the greatest pleasures I get in life is on alternate Saturday evenings, when I attend the School Debating Society and let loose some of my "wild" theories. These do not tend to make me more popular, but they certainly rouse people to speak who normally would keep silence either through nervousness or indifference.

My work I should like if only there were more of it. I get so little to do that life hangs very heavily on my hands. I am become further domesticated by the possession of a dog and a cat. We quarrel over the animals. I loathe the cat: I hate all sleepy things and Elspeth hates the dog in the house. Consequently I go off with "Sludge" (a wild rough-haired terrier with no respect for anything in the world) and tramp the country for miles and talk to him: he can understand my frets and worries. He is very like me, never happy unless he is out and about chasing something frenziedly. Elspeth stays at home and consoles herself with the cat. It's a bad existence. Lately I have succumbed to a new disease. I have an overmastering desire to hear the roar and bustle of London: I believe if we lived there we should be happy, there is such heaps to do.

Most husbands in the city only see their wives at night, in the early morning and evening. Consequently they are glad to meet, whereas Elspeth and I can see one another nearly every moment of the day. I am in to all meals and invariably about the place when rooms are being cleaned out, which seems to me to be happening all and every day. The only way I have kept going is by keeping the house full of visitors, mainly old Radcastrians, who come to see what sort of a married man I make.

One curious incident that has just happened will give the clue to my state of mind.

My people have been staying in Cheltenham and as Elspeth and I had been bickering freely and I had been feeling rotten, we decided that it would be a good thing for both of us if I went to see them for the week-end. I have always been irresolute, but I cannot remember ever weighing anything so carefully as I did the pros and cons of this ridiculously small matter. In the end I went. I was intensely miserable and lonely in the train. All sorts of horrors crossed my mind, accidents to Elspeth while I was away, accidents to the train. By the time I got to Cheltenham I was in an abject state. I just embraced my parents and then stated that I was going straight back home. They did their best to prevail upon me at least to stay for one night, but I was adamant. I walked with them, arguing all the way, to their hotel and then straight back to the station, where I caught the last train of the night for London. I arrived at Marlton at two in the morning and had to rouse Elspeth by throwing stones at her window. Sobbing and half-demented I was put to bed. She was in a terrible state: she thought I had gone out of my mind. I am not certain that I wasn't. All I know is that though I quarrel with her in this absurd way, I cannot bear to leave her for more than a few hours at most. It is a most extraordinary state of mind to have got into. I wish I could explain it. No one could have been saner than I was up to the time of my engagement: now I seem to be more nearly approaching insanity with every passing hour. I cannot believe that every newly married man suffers as I am suffering. All this tells on Elspeth too. Such behaviour as mine only lessens her love for me. She does not really sympathize at all. She is becoming cold. My God! please show me the way to keep her love.

So ends my first term at Marlton.

I have read a good deal and bought a few books. I have made a start at writing. My health is becoming very bad. I have not learnt how to control myself or my wife. I want happiness and, straining after it, only attain misery. I like the boys but they are slack and don't really want to learn anything. I have joined the Corps, but it is not so smart or popular here as it was at Radchester. I have enjoyed most of all watching the school "Rugger" matches. It is considered part of every one's duty to go down to the fields to watch all matches, which irritates me. I don't want to watch because I'm expected to, but because I want to. Neither Elspeth nor I are very popular: we have made enemies by accepting an invitation to a House supper and then not turning up because we left a day before the end of term. We had no idea that these House suppers were only annual events and that invitations to them are considered the highest honour possible when extended to masters who don't own a House. It would be useless to explain.

The boys are far more civilized than they were at Radchester owing to the fact that their House-masters are married and that quite frequently they meet members of the other sex. They are more urbane and polished: they acquire a kind of savoir faire in their demeanour, a smartness in their dress which was noticeably lacking at Radchester. There is not so great a cleavage between home and school; they spend quite a number of afternoons in drawing-rooms; they entertain the small sons and daughters of the staff, they come into contact to a certain extent with the life of the streets, they are allowed to buy whatever they like in any shops, they are encouraged to explore the beauties of the countryside on bicycles. Some of the prefects have motor-bicycles. They are allowed to play golf and to go out to tea at the houses of private residents in the town. Altogether they are made as happy as it is possible for boys to be. In a word, I could not imagine any boy committing suicide at Marlton, whereas they might at Radchester. Nevertheless there are several things that are wrong about the place. The lack of energy is by far the most noticeable. The lack of reading is perhaps the next and may follow from it. The school library is very old and well stocked with mediÆval books of all sorts, being peculiarly rich in archÆological, historical and theological works, but it seems to have stopped stocking new books about 1890. The amount of modern stuff in it is composed entirely of books of little value which have been presented to it. There is no system on which books are bought at all: I looked in vain for Meredith, Swift, Hazlitt, Stevenson, or Conrad, to mention a few names at random. There are but few purely literary works and boys are certainly not encouraged to keep up with the newest thought in philosophy, poetry, drama, essays and so on. Only the senior boys are allowed to take books out; the bulk of the school use the building on Sundays and then only when it is wet. They rarely read anything except contemporary magazines. One thing that has pleased me about my work is that I have been put on to teach history. This seems to me one of the vitally important subjects. Domestic politics rather than long descriptions of foreign wars, however, seem to me to be the first essential. I have tried to make my forms realize the continuity of history, its applicability to modern life, so that they may not be led astray by any illogical sophistries in unscrupulous newspapers. I find that they become really interested in the history of the Home Rule question, the beginnings of the war between capital and labour, electoral reform, the decentralization of government, the power of the Cabinet, the Crown, the House of Lords and the Commons. I want to equip them so that they will be able really to form their own judgments when they grow up and not accept party shibboleths and be at the mercy of any witty scoundrel.

Side by side with the history we read the famous literary works of the time. Each boy (I did this at Radchester) selects one author or book and writes descriptive criticism on him and it, which he afterwards reads aloud, and comments are made by the rest. Boys are astonishingly poor debaters, they cannot articulate clearly: even when they read aloud they stammer over all except the simplest words.

Every night of the term I hold a voluntary class for Shakespeare and drama-lovers in general: these readings of plays would go down infinitely better if only boys knew how to pronounce words, how to get up the meanings of passages, or even the meaning and use of stops. One would think that an educated boy of sixteen or seventeen would really know how to read, but only in the very rarest cases can he do so with intelligence. Nowhere is this more clearly shown than in chapel, where the prefects of the week read the lesson: they mumble over and spoil some of the most dramatic and poetic passages in the Bible. It isn't through lack of reverence or care but simply because they have never been taught. Incidentally they have never been taught how to read to themselves: they cannot concentrate on anything that requires thought or hard work. A short story in a magazine they appreciate, and good literature they can tolerate when it is read aloud to them by their form masters; but they cannot tackle anything solid by themselves. They distrust all standard authors as likely to be dull. Their surprise when they are introduced to such a book as "Wuthering Heights" is indescribably comic. In mathematics I still seem to have the horrid trick of going so fast that no one learns anything. At any rate I interest them: I wish I could get the stuff to stick in their minds.

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