been claimed as schoolfellow by some of those many hundreds who
were with me either at Harrow or at Winchester, I have felt that
I had no right to talk of things from most of which I was kept in
estrangement.

Through all my father's troubles he still desired to send me either
to Oxford or Cambridge. My elder brother went to Oxford, and Henry
to Cambridge. It all depended on my ability to get some scholarship
that would help me to live at the University. I had many chances.
There were exhibitions from Harrow--which I never got. Twice I tried
for a sizarship at Clare Hall,--but in vain. Once I made a futile
attempt for a scholarship at Trinity, Oxford,--but failed again. Then
the idea of a university career was abandoned. And very fortunate
it was that I did not succeed, for my career with such assistance
only as a scholarship would have given me, would have ended in debt
and ignominy.

When I left Harrow I was all but nineteen, and I had at first gone
there at seven. During the whole of those twelve years no attempt
had been made to teach me anything but Latin and Greek, and very
little attempt to teach me those languages. I do not remember
any lessons either in writing or arithmetic. French and German I
certainly was not taught. The assertion will scarcely be credited,
but I do assert that I have no recollection of other tuition
except that in the dead languages. At the school at Sunbury there
was certainly a writing master and a French master. The latter was
an extra, and I never had extras. I suppose I must have been in
the writing master's class, but though I can call to mind the man,
I cannot call to mind his ferule. It was by their ferules that I
always knew them, and they me. I feel convinced in my mind that I