A Schoolmaster's Diary: Being Extracts from the Journal of Patrick Traherne, M.A., Sometime Assistant Master at Radchester and Marlton.Traherne, Patrick
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A Schoolmaster's Diary: Being Extracts from the Journal of Patrick Traherne, M.A., Sometime Assistant Master at Radchester and Marlton.
Traherne, Patrick
Traherne, Patrick, 1885-1917
Occasionally, on Sunday mornings, a progressive young master will read
a little "In Memoriam" or "A Death in the Desert" to his form as a
variant to ordinary Divinity, but he does so tremblingly lest authority
should hear of it and rebuke him.
One of our men preaching last Sunday even ventured to read an extract
from "Romola," in the pulpit, but apologized profoundly for so doing
and damned poor George Eliot with faint praise by saying, "She was not
a bad woman."
There have been a number of feuds in Common Room lately which have
reminded me of the umbrella episode in "Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill."
Young Rowntree who joined us this term has a brother in the army who
happens to be stationed close by: he had him over to dinner one night
last week and brought in some "fizz" to liven things up a bit. He
sits, of course, at the bottom of the junior table, not very far from
me. Not wishing to appear niggardly to the rest of us he brought in
three bottles in order to pass them round to those who sat near him. We
had a quite riotous orgie and for the first time since I have been at
Radchester the junior table quite drowned the senior both in laughter
and conversation.
It really was funny to watch the white drawn faces of the water
drinkers of the top table, with the one syphon of seltzer as relief,
while we, upstarts of a new age, were regaling ourselves with Pommery.
There was a fearful row about it afterwards. Rowntree was written to by
half the staff (who had not tasted the champagne) about the etiquette
with regard to visitors. It was only by courtesy of the senior members
that junior masters were allowed to invite visitors at all: it was
taken for granted that if such a privilege were extended juniors would
not abuse it by drinking anything but water. There was a battle royal.
Rowntree is young enough not to give in without a struggle: during the
last week he has taken in a bottle of some sort to dinner every night.
He is the kind of man who won't be kept longer than a term. He "rags"
his form and incites them to "rag" him and everybody else. He refuses
to take Radchester seriously: he walks across the prefect's lawn (an
unpardonable offence for a master), he walks about arm-in-arm with the
boys in his form if he likes them; he swears quite openly and fluently
in Common Room, he takes away the papers so that he can read them
comfortably in his own room and forgets to return them, he even smokes
cigars in the masters' reading-room. The old men can do nothing with
him: he is impervious to black looks and misunderstands rebukes. He
cuts every other chapel and usually forgets to take "prep." or "roll."
On "halves" he always goes away, sometimes as far afield as Leeds or
York on his motor-bicycle, and does not arrive home till two or three
the next morning. He wears bright ties, silk socks, soft collars, and
very well-fitting light clothes, totally regardless of the convention
which demands black from boy and master alike. He is a very disturbing
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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