"It might be, perhaps, ten days after my arrival at Mr. ***'s, when I gave up all attempt to pray; and I think I did not say one word of prayer for the two years and more that I afterwards continued there. I remember {16} once being by, when one of the most rude and hard of my tormentors was dressing himself, and, to my surprise, turned to me, and, with his usual civility, said some such word as, 'Now hold your jaw;' and then, down on his knees near the bed, and his face between his hands, said his prayers. I then saw for a moment to what I had fallen, when even this fellow had more religion than unhappy I had retained; but I had no grain of strength now left to rise. One would think that in the holidays my change would have been discovered; for I imagine that I never knelt down even at home except in the church. But, alas! little did my family suspect what a place was Eton; or, at least, if a suspicion comes across parents' minds of what their children are exposed to in public schools, they generally persuade themselves that this must be endured for a necessary good, which is, to make them learn to know the world. "When I had ceased attempting to maintain my pious feelings, the best consolation I had was in the company of a few boys of a spirit congenial to what mine was now become. All the time that I remained at Eton I never learnt to take pleasure in the manly, active games for which it is so famous. It is not that I was without some natural talent for such things. I have since had my time of most ardent attachment to cricket, to tennis, shooting, hunting, and all active exercises: but my spirit was bent down at Eton; and among the boys who led the way in all manly pursuits, I was always shy and miserable, which was partly a cause and partly an effect of my being looked down upon by them. My pleasure there was in being with a few boys, like myself, without spirit for these things, retired apart from the sight of others, amusing ourselves with making arbours, catching little fishes in the streams; and many were the hours I wasted in such childish things when I was grown far too old for them.