Athens, had I been Alcibiades. As early as I can remember I used to identify
myself with every distinguished character I read about, but when I was fifteen
or sixteen I noticed with some wonder that I could think of myself as Alcibiades
or Sophocles more easily than as Alexander or Caesar. The life of books had
begun to interest me more than real life. . . . .

"My friend had a wonderful gift for listening. I was so occupied with talking
and telling about myself that I knew very little about him, curiously little
when I come to think of it. But the last incident of my school life makes me
think he was a sort of mute poet, and had much more in him than I imagined.
It was just before I first heard that I had won an Exhibition and was to go to
Trinity. Dr. Steele had called me into his study to tell me the great news;
he was very glad, he said, and insisted that it was all due to my last year's
hard work. The 'hard' work had been very interesting to me, or I would not have
done much of it. The doctor wound up, I remember, by assuring me that if I went
on studying as I had been studying during the last year I might yet do as well
as my brother Willie, and be as great an honour to the school and everybody
connected with it as he had been.

"This made me smile, for though I liked Willie, and knew he was a fairly good
scholar, I never for a moment regarded him as my equal in any intellectual
field. He knew all about football and cricket and studied the schoolbooks
assiduously, whereas I read everything that pleased me, and in my own opinion
always went about 'crowned.'" Here he laughed charmingly with amused deprecation
of the conceit.

"It was only about the quality of the crown, Frank, that I was in any doubt.
If I had been offered the Triple Tiara, it would have appeared to me only the
meet reward of my extraordinary merit. . . . .