The schoolmaster of the new age needs all the assistance he can get. Patrick Traherne destroyed himself in discovering what he here gives to the world, but the results of his discoveries may be more far-reaching than he knew. He was one of those who are never happy unless they are fighting; the end once attained he would be lost. It may well be that the Stevensonian maxim which was always so much in his mind carried him through even at his last moments (he was killed in the battle of Cambrai, December 3, 1917), "After all to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." His failure may be a better augury than success would have been, for in the end of all, have not the world's failures been most frequently the world's redeemers? I would add further that I cannot bring myself to accede to all his dicta. Had he been permitted to live, experience would have surely shown him that his youthful judgments are not infrequently grossly unfair; but I maintain that his theories are not necessarily less interesting because they are, in many cases, erroneous. S. P. B. M. _The names both of people and places mentioned in this book are entirely fictitious. Patrick Traherne did not portray any specific Public School or living person in his diary._ THE BEGINNING (1909). P. T. quoting William Blake: _I will not cease from mental fight Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land._ THE END (1917). P. T. quoting T. W. H. Crosland: _If I should ever be in England's thought After I die, Say, "There were many things he might have bought And did not buy._ _"Unhonoured by his fellows he grew old And trod the path to hell, But there were many things he might have sold And did not sell."_ I _September 20, 1909_ It is very strange and frightening: all the boys seem to me to be grown men and I, a veritable minnow in a sea of Tritons, but I suppose really they are quite bovine and regard me much as cows regard human beings--as their natural master. I wonder! I confess I am in a panic about my ability to keep order. On several nights in the "vac" I had nightmares of classes of unruly boys refusing to obey me, shouting, throwing things about and generally making nuisances of themselves and a fool of me. My first impressions of Radchester are not very comforting. It is like coming to a desert island to be pitchforked out at a wayside station miles from anywhere, with only the sea to the east, and flat dike-lands to the west, north, and south. There are no houses within sight. Certainly there is nothing to distract one's attention from one's duty: outside the lodge gates all is barren. The first thing for me to do is to furnish my rooms. Alas, where am I to procure the means to do this?