t one detected an honest and unquestioning pride in
the place for all that.

Perhaps the best point of all about these schools of ours, is that the
aspect of the place and the tone of the dwellers in it does not vary
appreciably on days of festival and on working days. The beauty of it is
a little focused and smartened, but that is all. There is no covering up
of deficiencies or hiding desolation out of sight. If one goes down to
a public-school on an ordinary day, one finds the same brave life, the
same unembarrassed courtesy prevailing. There is no sense of being taken
by surprise; the life is all open to inspection on any day and at any
hour. We do not reserve ourselves for occasions in England. The meat
cuts wholesomely and pleasantly wherever it is sampled.

The disadvantage of this is that we are misjudged by foreigners because
we are seen, not at our best, but as we are. We do not feel the need of
recommending ourselves to the favourable consideration of others;
not that that is a virtue, it is rather the shadow of complacency and
patriotism.

But at last a feeling begins to arise in the minds both of hosts
and guests that the play is played out for the day, that the little
festivity is over. On the part of our hosts that feeling manifests
itself in a tendency to press departing guests to stay a little longer.
An old acquaintance of mine, a shy man, once gave a large garden-party
and had a band to play. He did his best for a time and times and
half-a-time; but at last he began to feel that the strain was becoming
intolerable. With desperate ingenuity he sought out the band-master,
told him to leave out the rest of the programme, and play "God Save the
King,"--the result being a furious exodus of his guests. Today no such
device is needed. We melt away, leaving our kind entertainers to the
pleasant weariness that comes of sustained geniality, and to the sense
that three hundred and sixty-four days have to elapse before the next
similar festival.

And, for myself, I carry away with me a gracious memory of a day
thrilled by a variety of conflicting and profound emotions; and if I
feel that perhaps life would be both easier and simpler, if we could
throw off a little more of our conventional panoply of thought, could
face our problems with a little more candour and directness, yet I
have had a glimpse of a community living an eager, full, vigorous life,
guarded by sufficient discipline to keep the members of it w