When as a new boy I was first taken for a walk out of bounds on a Sunday afternoon by one of the upper sixth, who is now an earthly saint, we went to a hillside with a long blue vision of western mountains, and while I had no thought or eyes for anything but them, he continued to talk quietly of Greek--the significance of various forms, the most telling way of turning this meaning or that, especially, I remember, the cunning idioms by which the idea of “self” might be rendered in verse, either with emphasis or modesty. So it was. The school breathed Greek, and through its ancient buildings a Greek wind blew. To enter the head-room--a dim, panelled chamber which the upper sixth used as a study--was to become a scholar. I doubt if good Greek verse could be written anywhere else. Winged iambics fluttered through the air; they hung like bats along the shelves, and the dust fell in Greek particles. Now the school is moved to the further side of the river, and its grey and storied stone is exchanged for cheerful brick. Our old head-room has become the housekeeper’s parlor in some citizen’s dwelling, but on the hearthstone at eventide beside her petticoats squats the imperishable Lar, real as a rat, though not so formidable, and murmurs iambics to himself. Other subjects besides Greek were taught, but no one ever learned them. There was French, for instance, taught by an aged Englishman who had outlived three generations of mortal head-masters, and, besides his wig, was supposed gradually to have acquired an artificial body that would last forever. To us he was important because he registered the punishments, and had the reputation of a very bloodhound for detecting crime. Certainly he was the best comic reader I ever heard, and when he read prayers at night the whole school used to howl like a rising and falling wind, following the cadence of his voice. But nobody learned French of him. Once, because I had shown him decent politeness he assigned me a prize. I could honestly say I knew less French than any one this side the Channel; and yet I should never have outlived a certain stigma attaching to imaginary knowledge of anything so paltry, if nature had not given me the power of running long distances without fatigue. But, unhappily for me, to prove that power I had to wait from summer till autumn, when the school huntsman led out his pack in white to scour the wild country west of the town--a country of yellow woods and deep pools, where water-fowl rose, and of isolated limestone hills, the promise of Wales. Each run followed a course fixed by old tradition. Foxes were seldom sent out, and were never supposed to be caught. We ran for the sake of running, just as we learned Greek for the sake of learning it.