My brother Edward
was also at the same school, and my brother Arthur came there a little
later.
It was situated at Eastbourne, and a good deal has been written about it
in recent works on the history of that well-known watering-place, which,
when I was first sent there, counted less than 6000 inhabitants. Located
in the old town or village, at a distance of a mile or more from the sea,
the school occupied a building called "The Gables," and was an offshoot of
a former ancient school connected with the famous parish church. In my
time this "academy" was carried on as a private venture by a certain James
Anthony Bown, a portly old gentleman of considerable attainments.
I was unusually precocious in some respects, and though I frequently got
into scrapes by playing impish tricks--as, for instance, when I combined
with others to secure an obnoxious French master to his chair by means of
some cobbler's wax, thereby ruining a beautiful pair of peg-top trousers
which he had just purchased--I did not neglect my lessons, but secured a
number of "prizes" with considerable facility. When I was barely twelve
years old, not one of my schoolfellows--and some were sixteen and
seventeen years old--could compete with me in Latin, in which language
Bown ended by taking me separately.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31