that his energies all lay fallow. My father, stern as his conception of
duty was, had a horror of applying any intellectual pressure to us. I
myself must confess that I was distinctly idle and dilettante both as a
boy at Eton and as a Cambridge undergraduate. But much as my father
appreciated and applauded any little successes, I was often surprised
that I was never taken to task for my poor performances in work and
scholarship. The truth was that my eldest brother's death at Winchester
was supposed partly to have been due to his extraordinary intellectual
and mental development, and I am sure that my father was afraid of
over-stimulating our mental energies. I feel certain that what was going
on in Hugh's case all the time was a keen exercise of observation. I
have no doubt that his brain was receiving and gaining impressions of
every kind, and that his mind was not really inactive--it was only
unconsciously amassing material. He had a very quick and delighted
perception of human temperament, of the looks, gestures, words,
mannerisms, habits, and oddities of human beings. If Hugh had been born
in a household professionally artistic, and had been trained in art of
any kind, I think he would very likely have become an accomplished
artist or musician, and probably have shown great precocity. But he was
never an artist in the sense that art was a torment to him, or that he
made any sacrifice of other aims to it. It was always just a part of
existence to him, and of the nature of an amusement, though in so far as
it represented the need of self-expression in forms of beauty, it
underlay and permeated the whole of his life.

The first sign of his artistic enthusiasm awakening was during his time
in London, when he conceived an intense admiration for the music and
ceremony of St. Paul's. Sir George Martin, on whom my father had
conferred a musical degree, was very kind to him, and allowed Hugh to
frequent the organ-loft. "To me," Hugh once wrote, "music is the great