be generous and beautiful. And I had a curiously haunting memory of
Beatrice, of her kisses in the bracken and her kiss upon the wall, that
somehow pitched the standard too high for Wimblehurst's opportunities. I
will not deny I did in a boyish way attempt a shy, rude adventure or so
in love-making at Wimblehurst; but through these various influences,
I didn't bring things off to any extent at all. I left behind me no
devastating memories, no splendid reputation. I came away at last,
still inexperienced and a little thwarted, with only a natural growth of
interest and desire in sexual things.

If I fell in love with any one in Wimblehurst it was with my aunt. She
treated me with a kindliness that was only half maternal--she petted my
books, she knew about my certificates, she made fun of me in a way that
stirred my heart to her. Quite unconsciously I grew fond of her....

My adolescent years at Wimblehurst were on the whole laborious,
uneventful years that began in short jackets and left me in many ways
nearly a man, years so uneventful that the Calculus of Variations is
associated with one winter, and an examination in Physics for Science
and Art department Honours marks an epoch. Many divergent impulses
stirred within me, but the master impulse was a grave young disposition
to work and learn and thereby in some not very clearly defined way get
out of the Wimblehurst world into which I had fallen. I wrote with
some frequency to Ewart, self-conscious, but, as I remember them, not
intelligent letters, dated in Latin and with lapses into Latin quotation
that roused Ewart to parody. There was something about me in those days
more than a little priggish. But it was, to do myself justice, something
more than the petty pride of learning. I had a very grave sense of
discipline and preparation that I am not ashamed at all to remember. I
was serious. More serious than I am at the present time. More serious,