is father is
ill, and he is compelled to spend his holidays at home. I do not
altogether like to set off by myself, but it is too late to try and
arrange for another companion. I had rather, however, go by myself than
with some one who is not absolutely congenial. One requires on these
occasions to have a companion whose horizon is the same as one's own. I
daresay I could find an old friend, who is not also a colleague, to go
with me, but it would mean a certain amount of talk to bring us into
line. Then, too, I have had a very busy term; besides my form work, I
have had a good deal of extra teaching to do with the Army Class boys.
It is interesting work, for the boys are interested, not in the
subjects so much, as in mastering them for examination purposes. Yet it
matters little how the interest is obtained, as long as the boys
believe in the usefulness of what they are doing. But the result is
that I am tired out. I have lived with boys from morning to night, and
my spare time has been taken up with working at my subjects. I have had
hardly any exercise, and but a scanty allowance of sleep. Now I mean to
have both. I shall spend my days in the open air, and I shall sleep, I
hope, like a top at nights. Gradually I shall recover my power of
enjoyment; for the worst of such weeks as I have been passing through
is that they leave one dreary and jaded; one finds oneself in that dull
mood when one cannot even realise beautiful things. I hear a thrush
sing in a bush, or the sunset flames broadly behind the elms, and I say
to myself, "That is very beautiful if only I could feel it to be so!"
Boys are exhausting companions--they are so restless, so full-blooded,
so pitilessly indifferent, so desperately interested in the narrow
round of school life; and I have the sort of temperament that will
efface itself to any extent, if only the people that I am concerned
with will be content. I suppose it is a feeble trait, and that the best
schoolmasters have a magnetic influence over boys which makes the boys
interested in the master's subjects, or at least hypnotises them into
an appearance of interest. I cannot do that. It is like a leaden weight
upon me if I feel that a class is bored; the result is that I arrive at
the same end in my own way. I have learnt a kind of sympathy with boys;
I know by instinct what will interest them, or how to put a tiresome
thing in an interesting way.

But I shudder to think how sick I am of it all! I