He was, in a word, a highly respected, but not a popular or well-beloved man. Worst of all, alas8! he was not popular in his own home. No one of all the family circle was happy in his presence. Assuredly he was as affectionate and anxiously solicitous9 a father as any children ever had. I never remember his caning10, whipping, beating or striking any one of us. But he used during the detested12 Latin lessons to sit with his arm over the back of the pupil’s chair, so that his hand might be ready to inflict13 an instantaneous pull of the hair as the p?na (by no means pede claudo) for every blundered concord14 or false quantity; the result being to the scholar a nervous state of expectancy15, not judiciously16 calculated to increase intellectual receptivity. There was also a strange sort of asceticism17 about him, which seemed to make enjoyment18 or any employment of the hours save work, distasteful and offensive to him. Lessons for us boys were never over and done with. It was sufficient for my father to see any one of us “idling,” i.e. not occupied with book work, to set us to work{59} quite irrespectively of the previously19 assigned task of the day having been accomplished21. And this we considered to be unjust and unfair.
I have said that the move to Harrow was in some degree caused by a hope that the change might be beneficial to my father’s health. He had suffered very distressingly22 for many years from bilious23 headache, which gradually increased upon him during the whole of his life. I may say parenthetically that from about fifteen to forty I suffered occasionally, about once a fortnight perhaps, from the same malady24, though in a much less intense form. But at about forty years old I seemed to have grown out of it, and since that time have never been troubled by it. But in my father’s day the common practice was to treat such complaints with calomel. He was constantly having recourse to that drug. And I believe that it had the effect of shattering his nervous system in a deplorable manner. He became increasingly irritable25; never with the effect of causing him to raise a hand against any one of us, but with the effect of making intercourse26 with him so sure to issue in something unpleasant, that unconsciously we sought to avoid his presence, and to consider as hours of enjoyment only those that could be passed away from it.
My mother’s disposition27 on the other hand was of the most genial28, cheerful, happy, enjoué nature imaginable. All our happiest hours were spent with her; and to any one of us a tête-à-tête with her was preferable to any other disposal of a holiday hour.{60} But even this under all the circumstances did not tend to the general harmony and happiness of the family circle. For of course the facts and the results of them must have been visible to my father; and though wholly inoperative to produce the smallest change in his ways, must, I cannot doubt, have been painful to him. It was all very sad. My father was essentially29 a good man. But he was, I fear, a very unhappy one.
He was extremely fond of reading aloud to the assembled family in the evening; and there was not one individual of those who heard him who would not have escaped from doing so, at almost any cost. Of course it was our duty to conceal30 this extreme reluctance31 to endure what was to him a pleasure—a duty which I much fear was very imperfectly performed. I remember—oh, how well!—the nightly readings during one winter of Sir Charles Grandison, and the loathing33 disgust for that production which they occasioned.
But I do not think that I and my brothers were bad boys. We were, I take it, always obedient. And one incident remains34 in my mind from a day now nearly seventy years ago, which seems to prove that the practice of that virtue35 was habitual36 to me. An old friend of my mother’s, Mrs. Gibbon, with her daughter Kate, mentioned on a former page as the companion of my lessons in the alphabet, were staying with us at Harrow. Mrs. Gibbon and Kate, and my mother and I were returning from a long country ramble37, across some fields in a part of the{61} country my mother was not acquainted with. There was a steep grassy38 declivity39, down which I and the little girl, my contemporary, hand in hand were running headlong in front of our respective parents, when my mother suddenly called out, “Stop, Tom!” I stopped forthwith, and came to heel as obediently as a well-trained pointer. And about five minutes later, my mother and Mrs. Gibbon, following exactly in the line in which we had been running, discovered a long disused but perfectly32 open and unfenced well!
If I had not obeyed so promptly40 as I did, I should not now be writing “reminiscences,” and poor “Katy ’Bon,” as I used to call her, would have gone to her rest some ten years earlier than she found it. My mother always said that she could in no wise account for the impulse which prompted her to call to me to stop!
The move to Harrow was as infelicitous41 a step in the economic point of view as it was inefficacious as a measure of health. My father took a farm, of some three or four hundred acres, to the best of my recollection, from Lord Northwick. It was a wholly disastrous42 speculation43. It certainly was the case that he paid a rent for it far in excess of its fair value; and he always maintained that he had been led to undertake to do so by inaccurate44 and false representations. I have no knowledge of these representations, but I am absolutely certain that my father was entirely45 convinced that they were such as he characterised them. But he was educated to be{62} a lawyer, and was a good one. He had never been educated to be a farmer; and was, I take it, despite unwearied activity, and rising up early and late taking rest, a bad one.
To make matters worse moreover he built on that land, of which he held only a long lease, a large and very good house. The position was excellently chosen, the house was well conceived and well built, and the extensive gardens and grounds were well designed and laid out; but the unwisdom of doing all that on land the property of another is but too obvious.
The excuse that my father might have alleged46 was that he was by no means wholly dependent either on his profession or on his farm, or on the not inconsiderable property which he had inherited from his father or enjoyed in right of his wife. He had an old maternal47 uncle, Adolphus Meetkerke, who lived on his estate near Royston in Hertfordshire, called Julians. Mr. Meetkerke—the descendant of a Dutchman who had come to this country some time in the eighteenth century as diplomatic representative of his country, and had settled here—lived at Julians with an old childless wife—the daughter, I believe, of a General Chapman—and my father was his declared heir. He had another nephew, Mr. John Young, as flourishing and prosperous an attorney as my father was an unsuccessful and unprosperous barrister. John Young, too, was as worthy48 and as highly-respected a man as any in the profession. But my father, as settled long years{63} before, was to be the heir; and I was in due time shown to the tenantry as their future landlord, and all that sort of thing. I suppose my grandfather, the Rev20. Anthony Trollope, of Cottenham in Hertfordshire, married an elder sister of old Adolphus Meetkerke, while the father of John Young married a younger one. And so, come what might of the Harrow farm and the new house, I was to be the future owner of Julians, and live on my own acres.
Again, D?s aliter visum!
I well remember more than one visit to Julians with my parents about this time—visits singularly contrasted with those to my Grandfather Milton, the vicar of Heckfield. The house and establishment at Julians were on a far more pretentious49 scale than the home of the vicar, and the mode of life in the squire50’s establishment larger and freer. But I liked Heckfield better than Julians; partly, I think, even at that early age, because the former is situated51 in an extremely pretty country, whereas the neighbourhood of the other is by no means such. But I please myself with thinking, and do really believe, that the main reason for the preference was that the old Bristol saddler’s son was a far more highly-cultured man than the Hertfordshire squire.
He was a good man, too, was old Adolphus Meetkerke; a good landlord, a kindly52 natured man, a good sportsman, an active magistrate53, and a good husband to his old wife. But there was a sort of flavour of roughness about the old squire and his{64} surroundings which impressed itself on my observation even in those days, and would, I take it, nowadays be deemed almost clownish rusticity55.
Right well do I remember the look and figure of my Aunt Meetkerke, properly great-aunt-in-law. She was an admirable specimen56 of a squiress, as people and things were in that day. I suppose that there was not a poor man or woman in the parish with whose affairs of all sorts she was not intimately acquainted, and to whom she did not play the part of an ever-active providence57. She always came down to breakfast clad in a green riding-habit, and passed most of her life on horseback. After dinner, in the long low drawing-room, with its faded stone-coloured curtains and bookless desert spaces, she always slept, as peacefully as she does now in Julians churchyard. She never meddled59 at all with the housekeeping of her establishment. That was in the hands of “Mrs. Anne,” an old maiden60 sister of Mr. Meetkerke. She was a prim-looking, rosy-apple-faced, most good-natured little woman. She always carried a little basket in her hand, in which were the keys, and a never-changed volume of Miss Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, which she always recommenced as soon as she had worked her way to the end of it. Though a very precise sort of person, she would frequently come down to breakfast a few minutes late, to find her brother standing61 on the hearth-rug with his prayer-book open in his hand waiting for her arrival to begin prayers to the assembled household. He had a wonderfully strong{65} rasping voice, the tones of which were rarely modulated62 under any circumstances. I can hear now his reverberating63, “Five minutes too late again, Mrs. Anne; ‘Dearly beloved brethren,’” ... etc., the change of person addressed, and of subject, having been marked by no pause or break whatever save the sudden kneeling at the head of the breakfast table; while at the conclusion of the short, but never missed prayers, the transition from “Amen” to “William, bring round the brown mare64 after breakfast” was equally unmarked by pause or change of voice or manner.
The parish in which Julians is situated is a small vicarage, the incumbent65 of which was at that time a bachelor, Mr. Skinner. The church was a very small one, and my great-uncle and his family the only persons in the congregation above the rank of the two or three small farmers and the agricultural labourers who mainly composed it. Whether there was any clerk or not I do not remember. But if any such official existed, the performance of his office in church was altogether not only overlaid but extinguished by the great rough “view-halloa” sort of voice of my uncle. He never missed going to church, and never missed a word of the responses, which were given in far louder tones than those of the vicar. Something of a hymn66 was always attempted, I remember, by the rustic54 congregation; with what sort of musical effect may be imagined! I don’t think my Uncle Meetkerke could have distinguished67 much between their efforts and the music{66} of the spheres. But the singers were so well pleased with the exercise that they were apt to prolong it, as my uncle thought, somewhat unduly68. And on such occasions he would cut the performance short with a rasping “That’s enough!” which effectually brought it to an abrupt69 conclusion. The very short sermon—probably a better one for the purpose in hand than South or Andrews would have preached—having been brought to an end, my uncle would sing out to the vicar, as he was descending70 the pulpit stairs, “Come up to dinner, Skinner!” And then we all marched out, while the rustics71, still retaining their places till we were fairly out of the door, made their obeisances72 as we passed. All which phenomena73, strongly contrasted as they were with the decorous if somewhat sleepy performance in my grandfather’s church at Heckfield, greatly excited my interest. I remember that I had no dislike to attending service either at Heckfield or Julians, while I intensely disliked making one of a London congregation.
If I remember right there were two or three Dissenters74 and their families at Heckfield, generally considered by their neighbours much as so many Chinese settled among them might have been—as unaccountably strange and as objectionable. But nothing of the sort existed at Julians; and I take it, as far as may be judged from my uncle’s general tone and manner in managing his parish, that any individual guilty of such monstrous75 and unnatural76 depravity would at once have been consigned77 to the parish stocks.{67}
Mr. Meetkerke was, as I have said, an active magistrate. But only one instance of his activity in this respect dwells in my recollection. I remember to have seen, in the nondescript little room that he called his study, a collection of some ten or a dozen very nasty-looking pots, with some white pasty looking substance in each of them, and to have wondered greatly what mystery could have been attached to them. I learned from the butler’s curt58 word of information that they were connected with my uncle’s magisterial78 duties, and my mind immediately began to construct all kinds of imaginings about wholesale80 poisonings. I had heard the story of the “Untori” at Milan, and had little doubt that we were in the midst of some such horrible conspiracy81. A few days later I learned that the nasty-looking pots were the result of a magisterial raid among the bakers82, and contained nothing worse than alum.
These reminiscences of Julians and its little world recurred83 to me when speaking of my father’s financial position at the time he took a farm at Harrow and built a handsome house on another man’s land. He was at that time Mr. Meetkerke’s declared heir, and would doubtless have inherited his property in due time had childless old Mrs. Meetkerke lived. But one day she unexpectedly took off her green habit for the last time, and in a day or two was laid under yet more perennial84 green in the little churchyard! Mr. Meetkerke was at that time over sixty. But he was as fine an old man physically85 as anybody could wish to see. Before long he married a young wife,{68} and became the father of six children! It was of course a tremendous blow to my father, and never, as I can say from much subsequent information, was such a blow better or more bravely borne. As for myself, I cannot remember that the circumstance impressed me as having any bearing whatsoever86 on my personal fate and fortunes. In after years I heard it asserted in more than one quarter that my father had in a great measure himself to thank for his disappointment. He was a Liberal in politics after the fashion of those days, (which would make excellent Conservatism in these,) while Mr. Meetkerke was a Tory of the very oldest school. The Tory uncle was very far indeed from being an intellectual match for his Liberal nephew, and no doubt used to talk in his fine old hunting-field voice a great deal of nonsense which no consideration of either affection, respect, or prudence87, could induce my father to spare. I fear he used to jump on the hearty88 old squire very persistently89, with the result à la longue of ceasing to be a persona grata to the old man. It may be that had it been otherwise he might have sought affection and companionship elsewhere than from a young wife. But ...!
My father, as I have said, struggled bravely with fortune, but as far as I have ever been able to learn, with ever increasing insuccess. His practice as a barrister dwindled90 away gradually till it became not worth while to keep chambers91; and his farming accounts showed very frequently—every year, I suspect—a deficit92.{69}
One of the reasons for selecting Harrow as his scene of rustication93 had been the existence of the school there. I and my brothers were all of us destined94 from our cradles to become Wykehamists, and it was never my father’s intention that Harrow instead of Winchester should be our definitive95 place of education. But the idea was, that we might, before going to Winchester, avail ourselves of the right to attend his parish school which John Lyon bequeathed to the parishioners of Harrow.
I went to Winchester at ten years old. The time for me to do so did not wholly depend on the will of my parents, for the admission in those days, as in all former days up to quite recent times, was by nomination96 in this wise. There were six electors:—1. the Warden97 of New College, (otherwise more accurately98 in accordance with the terms of Wykeham’s foundation, the College of St. Mary Winton prope Winton); 2. the Warden of Winchester College; 3. the Sub-Warden of Winchester; 4. the “Informator” or head master of Winchester; and 5. and 6. two “Posers” sent yearly by New College, according to a certain cycle framed ad hoc, to the Winchester election. It was at the election which took place in July that all vacancies99 among the seventy scholars, who together with the warden, fellows, two masters, chaplains, and choristers constituted the members of Wykeham’s foundation, were filled. The vacancies were caused either by the election of scholars to be fellows of New College, or by their superannuation at eighteen years of age, or by their withdrawal100 from{70} the school. The number of vacancies in any year was therefore altogether uncertain. The first two vacancies were filled by boys who came in as “College Founders,” i.e. as of kin11 to the founder101. Of course the bishop102’s kin could be only collateral103; and I remember that “the best blood,” was considered to be that of the Twistletons. Originally there had been an absolute preference for those who could show such relationship. But as time went on it became apparent that the entire college would thus be filled with Founder’s kin; and it was determined104 that two such only should be admitted to Winchester every year, and two only sent out to fellowships at New College. Even so the proportion of fellowships at the Oxford105 College awarded to Founder’s kin was large, for it was reckoned in those days that the average vacancies at New College, which were caused only by death, marriage, or the acceptance of a college living, amounted to seven in two years, of which the Founder’s kin took four. And this rule operated with certain regularity106. For the superannuation at eighteen did not apply to Founder’s kin, who remained in the school, be their age what it might, till they went to New College.
These two boys of Founder’s kin were admitted by the votes of the six electors. After them came the boy nominated by the Warden of New College; then the nominee107 of the Warden of Winchester; and so on till the eighth vacancy108 was filled by the nominee of the junior “Poser.” Then a ninth vacancy was taken by the Warden of New College’s second{71} nomination, and so on. Of course the vacancies for Winchester were much more numerous than those for the Oxford College; and it often happened that the “Poser’s” second or sometimes even third nomination had a very good chance of getting in in the course of the year. The cycle for “Posers,” which I have mentioned, allowed it to be known who would be “Poser” for a given year many years in advance; and the senior “Poser’s” first nomination for 1820 had been promised to me before I was out of my cradle. He was the Rev. Mr. Lipscomb, who subsequently became Bishop of Jamaica. It was written therefore in the book of fate that I was to go to Winchester in the year 1820, when I should be ten years old.
That time, however, was not yet; but was looked forward to by me with a somewhat weighty sense of the inevitability109 of destiny. And I can well remember meditating110 on the three fateful epochs which awaited me—to wit, having certain teeth taken out in the immediate79 future; going to Winchester in the paulo post futurum; and being married in the ultimate consummation of things. All three seemed to me to need being faced with a certain dogged fortitude111 of endurance. But I think that the terrors of the first loomed112 the largest in my imagination, doubtless by virtue of its greater proximity113.
I remember, too, at a very early age maintaining in my own mind, if not in argument with others, that to be brave one must be very much afraid and act in despite of fear, and uninfluenced by it and{72} that not to fear at all, as I heard predicated of themselves by sundry114 contemporaries, indicated simply stupidity. And when the day for the dentist came my heart was in my boots, but they carried me unfalteringly to St. Martin’s Lane all the same.
At present, however, we are at Harrow getting into my father’s new house, and establishing ourselves in our new home. It was soon arranged that I was to attend the school, scarcely, as I remember, as a regular inscribed115 scholar attending the lessons in the school-room, but as a private pupil of the Rev. Mark Drury. I was about eight years old at the time; and I suppose should hardly have been accepted as an admitted member of the school.
At that time Dr. Butler, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, was the head master. He was not the right man in the right place. He was, I take it, far more adapted for a bishop than a schoolmaster. Moreover, there were certain difficulties in his position not necessarily connected with the calling of a head master. He had succeeded Dr. Drury in the head mastership, and he found the school full of Drurys. Mark, the brother of Dr. Drury, was the second master; a Mr. Evans, a respectable quiet nonentity116, was the third; Harry117 Drury, a son of the old doctor, was the fourth, and was the most energetic and influential118 man in the place; William Drury, the son of Mark, was the fifth; and two young men of the names of Mills and Batten were the sixth and seventh masters. They were all in priests’ orders, and all received as{73} many boarders as they could get. For the objectionable system, which made the fortunes of the masters far more dependent on their trade as victuallers than on their profession as teachers, had been copied from Eton, with the further evil consequence of swamping John Lyon’s parochial school by the creation of a huge boarding school. This, however eminently119 successful, has no proper claim to be called a “public school,” save by a modern laxity of language, which has lost sight of the fact that the only meaning or possible definition of a “public school” is, one the foundation of which was intended not for a parish or other district, but for all England. If merely success, and consequent size, be held to confer a claim to the title, it is clear that there is no “private” school which would not become a “public school” to-morrow if the master and proprietor120 of it could command a sufficient amount of success. And even then the question would remain, What amount of success must that be?
The world in general, however, dislikes accuracy of speaking. And Harrow was then, and has been since, abundantly large enough and successful enough to be called and considered a “public school” by the generality, who never take the trouble to ask themselves, What makes it such?
Dr. Butler was eminently a gentleman, extremely suave121 in manner, gentle in dealing122 with those under his authority, mild and moderate in his ideas of discipline, a genuinely scholarly man in tastes and{74} pursuits, though probably not what experts in such a matter would have called a profound scholar. But he had not the energetic hand needed for ruling a large school; and his rule was not a success. Mark Drury, though from the old Drury connection his house was always full of pupils, cannot be said to have exercised any influence at all on the general condition and management of the school by reason of the extraordinary and abnormal corpulence which kept him pretty well a prisoner to the armchair in his study. He had long since, at the time when I first knew him, abandoned the practice of “going up,” as it was technically123 called, i.e., of climbing the last portion of Harrow Hill through the village street. On this topmost part of the hill are situated the church, the churchyard, and the school-house, rebuilt, enlarged, beautified, since my day; and this “going up” had to be performed by all the masters and all the boys every time school was attended. But of this climb Mark Drury had been incapable124 for many years, solely125 by reason of his immense corpulence. Naturally a small delicately-made man, with small hands and feet, he had become in old age the fattest man I think I ever saw. He used to sit in his study, and there conduct the business of tuition, leaving to others the work of hearing lessons in school.
His house had the reputation of being the most comfortable of all the boarding houses—a fact due to the unstinting liberality, careful supervision126, and {75}motherly kindness of “Mother Mark,” an excellent and admirable old lady, than whom it would be impossible to conceive any one more fitted for the position she occupied. The unstinting liberality, it is fair to say, characterised all the Drury houses; and probably the others also. But for truly motherly care there was but one “Mother Mark.” “Old Mark” was exceedingly popular, as indeed he deserved to be, for a more kindly-natured man never existed. He had an old-fashioned belief in the virtues127 of the rod; and though his bodily infirmity combined with his good nature to make him sparing in the application of it, a flogging was at his hands sufficiently128 disagreeable to make one desirous of avoiding it. “Your clock,” he would say, “requires to be wound up every Monday morning,” meaning that a Monday morning flogging was a good beginning of the week. But the rods were kept in a cupboard in the study—how well I remember the Bluebeard-closet sort of reputation which surrounded it!—and the cupboard was always kept locked. And very often it happened that somehow or other the key was in the keeping of Mrs. Drury. Then a message would be sent to Mrs. Drury for the key, and very probably the proposed patient was the messenger, in which case—and it is strange that the recurrence129 of the fact did not suggest suspicion to old Mark—it almost invariably happened that Mrs. Drury was very sorry, but she could not find the key anywhere! There never surely was a key so frequently mislaid as the key of that terrible cupboard!{76}
Well, it was arranged that I was to go every day to Mark Drury’s study, not, as I have said, as a regular member of the school, but to get such tuition as might be picked up from the genius loci, and from such personal teaching as the old man could bestow130 on me at moments unoccupied by his own pupils. And this arrangement, it must be understood, was entirely a matter of friendship—one incident of the many years’ friendship between my parents and all the Drurys. There was no question of any honorarium131 in the matter.
My father’s appetite for teaching was such that he would, I am very sure, have much preferred keeping my brother and myself under his sole tuition. But he used to drive up to London in his gig daily to his chambers in Lincoln’s Inn, for he still struggled to hope on at his profession. (I remember that these drives down in the dark winter evenings became a source of some anxiety when a messenger travelling with despatches for the French Minister, who at that time rented Lord Northwick’s house at Harrow, was mysteriously murdered and his despatches stolen.) And it thus became necessary that some means should be found for preventing us boys from making école buissonière in the fields and under the hedgerows.
I do not think I profited much by my attendance at old Mark’s pupil-room. The boys whose lessons he was hearing stood in a row in front of his armchair, and I sat behind him, supposed to be intently occupied in conning132 the task he had set me, in pre{77}paration for the moment, when, the class before him having been dismissed, he would have little me, all alone, in front of him for a few minutes, while another class was mustering133.
How I hated it all! How very much more bitterly I hated it than I ever hated any subsequent school troubles! What a Pariah134 I was among these denizens135 of Mark’s and other pupil-rooms! For I was a “town boy,” “village boy” would have been a more correct designation; one of the very few, who by the terms of the founder’s will, had any right to be there at all; and was in consequence an object of scorn and contumely on the part of all the paying pupils. I was a charity boy. But at Winchester subsequently I was far more of a charity boy, for William of Wykeham’s foundation provided me with food and lodging136 as well as tuition; whereas I claimed and received nothing save a modicum137 of the latter at the hands of those who enjoyed and administered John Lyon’s bounty138. Yet, though at Winchester there were only seventy scholars and a hundred and thirty private pupils of the head master, or “commoners,” there was no trace whatsoever of any analogous139 feeling, no slightest arrogation140 of any superiority, social or other, on the part of the commoner over the collegian. In fact the matter was rather the other way; any difference between the son of the presumably richer man, and the presumably poorer, having been merged141 and lost sight of entirely in the higher scholastic142 dignity of the college boy.{78}
I remember also, more vividly143 than I could wish, the bullying144 to which I and others were subjected at Harrow. There was much of a very brutal145 description. And in this respect also the difference at Winchester was very marked. The theory of the two places on the subject was entirely different, with the result I have stated. At Harrow, in those days—how it may be now I know not—no “fagging” was authorised or permitted by the masters. No boy had any legitimate146 authority over any other boy. And inasmuch as it was, is, and ever will be, in every large school impossible to achieve such a Saturnian state of things, the result was that the bigger and stronger assumed an authority supported by sheer violence over the smaller and weaker. At Winchester, on the other hand, the subjection of those below them in college to the “prefects” or upper class, was not only recognised but enforced by the authorities. It thus came to pass that many a big hulking fellow was subjected to the authority of a “prefect” whom he could have tossed over his head. It was an authority nobody dreamed of resisting; a matter of course; not a rule of the stronger supported by violence. And the result—contributed to, also, by other arrangements, of which I shall speak hereafter—was that anything of the nature of “bullying” was infinitely147 rarer at Winchester than at Harrow.
Despite old Mark’s invariable good-nature and kindness, my hours in his study were very unhappy ones; and I was hardly disposed to consider as a misfortune{79} a severe illness which attacked me and my brother Henry, and for the nonce put an end to them. Very shortly it became clear that we were both suffering from a bad form of typhus. How was such an attack to be accounted for? My father’s new house was visited, and examined, and found to be above suspicion. But further inquiry148 elicited149 the fact that we boys had passed a half hour before breakfast in watching the proceedings150 of some men engaged in cleaning and restoring an old drain connected with a neighbouring farm house. The case was clear! It would seem, however, that the proper mode of treatment was not so clear to the Harrow general practitioner—a village apothecary151 of the old school, who, strange as it may seem, was the only available medico at Harrow in those far off days. He treated us with calomel, and very, very nearly let me slip through his hands. It would have been quite, but for a fortunate chance. Among our Harrow friends was a Mrs. Edwards, the widow of a once very well known bookseller—not a publisher, but a scholarly, and indeed learned, seller of old books—who had, I believe, left her a considerable fortune. She was a highly cultured, and very clever woman, and a special friend of my mother’s. Now it so happened that a Dr. Butt152, a physician, her brother, or brother-in-law, I forget which, paid her a visit just at the time we boys were at the worst. Mrs. Edwards brought him to our bedsides. I was altogether unconscious, and had been raving153 about masters coming in at the window to drag me off to the pupil-room. My{80} knowledge of what followed therefore is derived154 wholly from my mother’s subsequent telling. Dr. Butt, having learned the treatment to which we had been subjected, said only “No more calomel, I think. Let me have a glass of port wine immediately.” And with his finger on my wrist, he proceeded to administer a teaspoonful155 at a time of the cordial. A few more visits from Dr. Butt set us fairly on the way to recovery; and from that day, some sixty-eight years ago, to the present, I have never passed one day in bed from illness.
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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afflict
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antagonist
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prostrate
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impartiality
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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9
solicitous
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| adj.热切的，挂念的 | |
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10
caning
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| n.鞭打 | |
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11
kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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12
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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14
concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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15
expectancy
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| n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额 | |
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16
judiciously
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| adv.明断地，明智而审慎地 | |
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17
asceticism
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| n.禁欲主义 | |
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18
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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19
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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20
rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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21
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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22
distressingly
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| adv. 令人苦恼地；悲惨地 | |
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23
bilious
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| adj.胆汁过多的；易怒的 | |
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24
malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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25
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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26
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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27
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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28
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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29
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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30
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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31
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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32
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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33
loathing
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|
| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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34
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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35
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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36
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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37
ramble
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| v.漫步，漫谈，漫游；n.漫步，闲谈，蔓延 | |
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38
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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39
declivity
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| n.下坡，倾斜面 | |
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40
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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41
infelicitous
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| adj.不适当的 | |
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42
disastrous
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|
| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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43
speculation
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|
| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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44
inaccurate
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|
| adj.错误的，不正确的，不准确的 | |
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45
entirely
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|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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46
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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47
maternal
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|
| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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48
worthy
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|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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49
pretentious
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|
| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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50
squire
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|
| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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51
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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52
kindly
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|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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53
magistrate
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|
| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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54
rustic
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|
| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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55
rusticity
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|
| n.乡村的特点、风格或气息 | |
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56
specimen
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|
| n.样本，标本 | |
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57
providence
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|
| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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58
curt
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|
| adj.简短的，草率的 | |
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59
meddled
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|
| v.干涉，干预（他人事务）( meddle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60
maiden
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|
| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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61
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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62
modulated
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| 已调整[制]的，被调的 | |
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63
reverberating
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|
| 回响，回荡( reverberate的现在分词 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射 | |
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64
mare
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|
| n.母马，母驴 | |
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65
incumbent
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|
| adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的 | |
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66
hymn
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|
| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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67
distinguished
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|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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68
unduly
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|
| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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69
abrupt
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|
| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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70
descending
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|
| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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71
rustics
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|
| n.有农村或村民特色的( rustic的名词复数 )；粗野的；不雅的；用粗糙的木材或树枝制作的 | |
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72
obeisances
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|
| n.敬礼，行礼( obeisance的名词复数 )；敬意 | |
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73
phenomena
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|
| n.现象 | |
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74
dissenters
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|
| n.持异议者，持不同意见者( dissenter的名词复数 ) | |
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75
monstrous
|
|
| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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76
unnatural
|
|
| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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77
consigned
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|
| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的过去式和过去分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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78
magisterial
|
|
| adj.威风的，有权威的；adv.威严地 | |
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79
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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80
wholesale
|
|
| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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81
conspiracy
|
|
| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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82
bakers
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|
| n.面包师( baker的名词复数 )；面包店；面包店店主；十三 | |
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83
recurred
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|
| 再发生，复发( recur的过去式和过去分词 )； 治愈 | |
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84
perennial
|
|
| adj.终年的；长久的 | |
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85
physically
|
|
| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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86
whatsoever
|
|
| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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87
prudence
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|
| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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88
hearty
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|
| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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89
persistently
|
|
| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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90
dwindled
|
|
| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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91
chambers
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|
| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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92
deficit
|
|
| n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差 | |
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93
rustication
|
|
| n.被罚休学，定居农村；乡村生活 | |
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94
destined
|
|
| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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95
definitive
|
|
| adj.确切的，权威性的；最后的，决定性的 | |
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96
nomination
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|
| n.提名，任命，提名权 | |
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97
warden
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|
| n.监察员，监狱长，看守人，监护人 | |
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98
accurately
|
|
| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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99
vacancies
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|
| n.空房间( vacancy的名词复数 )；空虚；空白；空缺 | |
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100
withdrawal
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|
| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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101
Founder
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|
| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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102
bishop
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|
| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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103
collateral
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|
| adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品 | |
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104
determined
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|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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105
Oxford
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|
| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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106
regularity
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|
| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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107
nominee
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|
| n.被提名者；被任命者；被推荐者 | |
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108
vacancy
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|
| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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109
inevitability
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| n.必然性 | |
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110
meditating
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| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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111
fortitude
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|
| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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112
loomed
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|
| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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113
proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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114
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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115
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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116
nonentity
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| n.无足轻重的人 | |
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117
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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118
influential
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|
| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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119
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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120
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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121
suave
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| adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的 | |
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122
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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123
technically
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|
| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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124
incapable
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|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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125
solely
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|
| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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126
supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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127
virtues
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|
| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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128
sufficiently
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|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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129
recurrence
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| n.复发，反复，重现 | |
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130
bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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131
honorarium
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|
| n.酬金，谢礼 | |
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132
conning
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|
| v.诈骗，哄骗( con的现在分词 )；指挥操舵( conn的现在分词 ) | |
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133
mustering
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|
| v.集合，召集，集结（尤指部队）( muster的现在分词 )；（自他人处）搜集某事物；聚集；激发 | |
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134
pariah
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|
| n.被社会抛弃者 | |
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135
denizens
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|
| n.居民，住户( denizen的名词复数 ) | |
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136
lodging
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|
| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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137
modicum
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|
| n.少量，一小份 | |
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138
bounty
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|
| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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139
analogous
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|
| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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140
arrogation
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| n.诈称，霸占，篡夺 | |
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141
merged
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|
| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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142
scholastic
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|
| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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143
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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144
bullying
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| v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈 | |
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145
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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146
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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148
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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149
elicited
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| 引出，探出( elicit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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150
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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151
apothecary
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| n.药剂师 | |
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152
butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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153
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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154
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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155
teaspoonful
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| n.一茶匙的量；一茶匙容量 | |
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