It happened, in one of those years, that it fell to my lot to set the subject for “Declamations,” a Latin theme on some debatable point, which had to be composed and “spouted” annually by two of the sixth-form boys, who took opposite sides in the discussion; and I chose for subject, rather to Dr. Hornby’s disgust, the question of vegetarianism (_An Pythagorei qui carne abstinent laudandi sint_). Another channel for vegetarian propaganda was afforded by the Ascham Society, a learned and select body organized by some of the masters, who met periodically to read and discuss papers on ethical and literary subjects. It happened that the members were hospitably invited to a dinner by one of their colleagues, who specially announced a dish of roast veal as an attraction: thus provoked, I could not but decline that treat in the accredited Eton manner, a set of Latin verses, of which the conclusion was obvious: Spare the calf, or let _me_ be excused: Si non vis vitulo parcere, parce mihi. Thus gradually the conviction had been forced on me that we Eton masters, however irreproachable our surroundings, were but cannibals in cap and gown--almost literally cannibals, as devouring the flesh and blood of the higher non-human animals so closely akin to us, and indirectly cannibals, as living by the sweat and toil of the classes who do the hard work of the world.[13] To speak of this, with any fulness, in such a society as that of Eton, except to the two or three friends who held a similar belief, would have been an absurdity; and I do not think I exaggerated, in the first chapter of this book, when I described the discovery as bringing with it a sense of being cut off from one’s neighbours by interminable leagues of misunderstanding. I was living _in partibus infidelium_. It became a necessity to leave a place where there could be no sympathetic exchange of thought upon matters which were felt to be of vastly more importance than the accepted religion and routine. I treasure the recollection of the interview in which I took farewell of Dr. Warre. Most kindly he expressed his regret that I had lost faith in that public school system to which he himself, as all Etonians are aware, devoted a lifetime of unsparing service. “It’s the Vegetarianism,” he gravely remarked; and I understood him to mean that it was the abandonment of the orthodox diet that had led, by inevitable weakening of the _mens sana in corpore sano_, to my apostasy in regard to Education. When I told him that Socialism must take its share of blame, as having been at least an auxiliary cause, he was really shocked. “Socialism!” he cried, in his hearty tones. “Then blow us up, blow us up! There’s nothing left for it but that.”