Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge

died. His father was a wealthy man, and had built himself a small country house, and planted the few acres of ground round it very skillfully. Major Hamilton was a very re

es back to us at ecstatic moments in later, sadder days-all the entourage of the place was at its loveliest. Nothing ever equalled the thrill, he has told me, of finding the first t

, though she smiles with me when I am glad." But he has told me that he is able to enjoy a simple village scene in a way that others can not easily understand: a chestnut crowded with pink spires, the clack of a mill-wheel, the gush of a green sluice out of a mantled pool, a littl

one he always crossed the fields, and never went by the wood; wandering i

ries about him, selecting

urst out laughing (with that curious hysteria so common in childr

nued existence after death, dwelt on the fact that it was onl

ody is in the churchyard, and his

other sent him d

y, "Now that the children are gone out, nurse, we can have a quiet talk." And he always returned first of all his brothers and sisters, if they were playing

inquired what the joke was, he was unable to answer. "It must be something very funny," said his mother in explanation. "Arthur never laughs unless there is a joke." The

am always supposed to be," he said to me once. "I am one of t

of his study, asked him rather sharply why he couldn't do something useful-read some Shakespeare. He never played on the piano again for months, and for years never until he had ascertained that his father was ou

to be obeyed, in reality passionately fond of his children, dismayed him. He once

ut her in a curious way. I enjoyed the sensation of crying over imaginary evils; and I should not like to say how often in bed at night I used to act over in my mind an imaginary death-bed scene

rew to love. The interesting earnest little boy merged into the clumsy loose-jo

at, like a quick, rather clever child, I soon came to comprehend the sort of remark that cheered them, and almost overdid it in my zeal. I am overwhelmed with shame,"

g his public school experiences: it may seem very in

he caught hold of me by the arm and said, among other things, 'And now that I am going away, and shall probably never see you again, I don't believe you care one bit.' I don't know how I came to do it," he said, "because I wa

by a curious love for pastoral and descriptive poetry. I read Thomson and Cowper, similes from 'Paradise Lost,' and

pare time in the school library; one only valuable thing have I derived from that-a capacity for taking in the sense of

that he could argue Socratically; and he was always trying to introduce metaphors into his conversation. But

ir tastes will insensibly alter. I like a boy to cram himself with novels; a day will come when he is sick of them, and rejects them for the study of facts. What we want to give a child is 'bookmindedness,' as some one calls it. They will read a good deal that is bad, of course; but i

life. His letters at this date are very ordinary; his early precocity seemed, rather to the delight of his parents, to have vanished. He was not a prig, though rather exclusive; not ungenial, though

active ritualistic curate; but my confirmation made no impression on me, and I think I had no moral feelings that I could distinguish. I had no