above us, was a deacon in our chapel, and every morning, soon after
breakfast, he would start off for his walk of about four miles,
stopping by the way to talk to his neighbours about the events of the
day. At eleven o'clock or thereabouts he would return and would begin
work. Everybody took an hour for dinner--between one and two--and at
that time, especially on a hot July afternoon, the High Street was
empty from end to end, and the profoundest peace reigned.

My life as a child falls into two portions, sharply divided--week-day
and Sunday. During the week-day I went to the public school, where I
learned little or nothing that did me much good. The discipline of the
school was admirable, and the headmaster was penetrated with a most
lofty sense of duty, but the methods of teaching were very imperfect.
In Latin we had to learn the Eton Latin Grammar till we knew every word
of it by heart, but we did scarcely any retranslation from English into
Latin. Much of our time was wasted on the merest trifles, such as
learning to write, for example, like copperplate, and, still more
extraordinary, in copying the letters of the alphabet as they are used
in printing.

But we had two half-holidays in the week, which seem to me now to have
been the happiest part of my life. A river ran through the town, and
on summer Wednesdays and Saturdays we wandered along its banks for
miles, alternately fishing and bathing. I remember whole afternoons in
June, July, and August, passed half-naked or altogether naked in the
solitary meadows and in the water; I remember the tumbling weir with
the deep pool at the bottom in which we dived; I remember, too, the
place where we used to swim across the river with our clothes on our
heads, because there was no bridge near, and the frequent disaster of a
slip of the braces in the middle of the water, so that shirt, jacket,