But I Doubt
That It Was Ever More Keenly Felt Than In My Case; I Doubt, Too, That
It Is Common Or Strong In English Boys, Considering The Conditions In
Which They Exist.
For restraint is irksome to all beings, from a
black-beetle or an earthworm to an eagle, or, to
Go higher still in
the scale, to an orang-u-tan or a man; it is felt most keenly by the
young, in our species at all events, and the British boy suffers the
greatest restraint during the period when the call of nature, the
instincts of play and adventure, are most urgent. Naturally, he looks
eagerly forward to the time of escape, which he fondly imagines will
be when his boyhood is over and he is free of masters.
To come back to my own case: I did not and could not know that it was
an exceptional case, that my feeling for nature was something more
than the sense of pleasure in sun and rain and wind and earth and
water and in liberty of motion, which is universal in children, but
was in part due to a faculty which is not universal or common. The
fear, then, was an idle one, but I had good reason for it when I
considered how it had been with my elder brothers, who had been as
little restrained as myself, especially that masterful adventurous
one, now in a distant country thousands of miles from home, who, at
about the age at which I had now arrived, had made himself his own
master, to do what he liked with his own life. I had seen him at his
parting of the ways, how resolutely he had abandoned his open-air
habits, everything in fact that had been his delight, to settle down
to sheer hard mental work, and this at our home on the pampas where
there were no masters, and even the books and instruments required for
his studies could only be procured with great difficulty and after
long delays. I remember one afternoon when we were gathered in the
dining-room for tea, he was reading, and my mother coming in looked
over his shoulder and said, "You are reading a novel: don't you think
all that romantic stuff will take your mind off your studies?"
Now he'll flare up, said I to myself; he's so confoundedly independent
and touchy no one can say a word to him. It surprised me when he
answered quietly, "Yes, mother, I know, but I must finish this book
now; it will be the last novel I shall read for some years." And so it
was, I believe.
His resolution impressed us even more in another matter. He had an
extraordinary talent for inventing stories, mostly of wars and wild
adventures with plenty of fighting in them, and whenever we boys were
all together, which was usually after we had gone to bed and put the
candle out, he would begin one of his wonderful tales and go on for
hours, we all wide awake, listening in breathless silence.
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